Following more than two months of learning about how to resist drugs and alcohol, make good decisions and more, SeDoMoCha Middle School fifth-graders celebrated completion of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program with a graduation ceremony on the morning of Tuesday, June 11 in the school cafeteria.

The 2019 Maine Whoopie Pie Festival has expanded this year to include a new event at Dover True Value Hardware. The store will be hosting its first annual "Dover True Value Homeshow Expo" in the business parking lot from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, June 22.

A Dexter police dog helped detect narcotics in a car that police stopped at about 10 a.m. Saturday, June 8. Dexter police said they arrested a Dexter man and woman after they stopped the car and charged them with aggravated trafficking of scheduled drugs.

Maine game wardens received a report of a hiker suffering a medical emergency on the Appalachian Trail shortly after noon on Friday, June 7. Penobscot Sheriff’s Office received the 911 call from Devin Kaufman, 25 of Fairfield, who reported he was hiking southbound near Big Beaver Pond before dispatchers lost contact with him.

Matthew Spooner has been hired as the director of operations for the soon to be completed Piscataquis County Ice Arena (PICA). He will start the new position July 1 as the arena is on target to open in September.

The annual event enables PCES pupils to participate in several workshops from over 30 possibilities thanks to 100 volunteers helping out at Arts Alive. Those taking part this year wore green T-shirts with a logo designed by sixth-grader Lena Pearson.

A proposed $14,550,306 SAD 46 budget for the 2019-20 academic year was approved at the annual district meeting on June 6 at the Ridge View Community School. The spending package total will now go to a referendum in the towns of Dexter, Exeter, Garland and Ripley on Tuesday, June 11 with residents of the four communities voting either “yes” or “no” to make a district-wide decision.

The SAD 4 school board approved a proposed $9,639,532 budget for the 2019-20 academic year during a June 5 meeting at the Penquis Valley School. The directors also scheduled the district budget meeting for 6 p.m. on Thursday, June 13 -- with an information session before at 5:30 p.m. -- at the school with the validation referendum in Brownville, LaGrange and Milo two weeks later on Thursday, June 27.

The state legislation that’s required for Mayo Regional Hospital in Dover-Foxcroft to merge with Northern Light Health could be approved by next week, but it won’t include conditions proposed by a Piscataquis County lawmaker that would have given the towns that now own the hospital more control over the deal.

U.S. Senator Susan Collins, R-Maine, chairman of the Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee, announced that nine airports across Maine have been awarded a total of $3,490,995 from the Department of Transportation (DOT).

After more than a year of trying to get the project close to budget, a Piscataquis County Emergency Management Agency (EMA) four-bay storage garage for vehicles and equipment on the county’s East Main Street campus may be constructed this summer/fall.

Atlantic Partners EMS brought the Seat Belt Convincer and a distracted driving video simulator -- students could connect their own phones to the system -- to SeDoMoCha as eighth-graders learned about the dangers of distracted driving and the importance of traffic safety.

“Did the last bear referendum affect you in any way personally?” she asked. That question was unexpected. It caught me off guard. A good question, though. It took me back in time to the highly-charged bear referendum, when Maine voters decided the fate of recreational bear hunting as we know it.

When Amy Bagley Lake and her two children were killed by her estranged husband when he was out on bail in 2011 in Dexter, friends, family, co-workers and people across Maine dedicated themselves to trying to prevent such a tragedy from happening to others. By organizing and participating in an annual 5K race, they raised tens of thousands of dollars intended for the purchase of devices that could alert victims and police when alleged domestic violence offenders illegally showed up at the victims’ homes, schools or workplaces.

Local chapters of the National Honor Society.

On the evening of Friday, May 31 visual and performing arts students of Piscataquis Community High School in Guilford presented their second annual combined Arts Cabaret. This year’s theme was “An Ocean Odyssey.”

The summer food service program, sponsored by the RSU 68 food service program, returns this year from mid-June to mid-August at the SeDoMoCha School -- 63 Harrison Avenue. All children under 18 are welcome for free breakfast and lunch Monday through Friday with breakfast served from 8-9 a.m. and lunch from 11 a.m. to noon. All meals must be eaten on site, and no application is needed.

As state lawmakers continue to evaluate a bill that would allow Mayo Regional Hospital in Dover-Foxcroft to merge with the statewide Northern Light Health system, they must also consider a recent proposal that would give more control of the process to the communities that now oversee the hospital.