The Clarks agreed to a $10,000 sale price with Friends of Community Fitness covering the $2,300 closing costs, allowing Friends of Community Fitness to officially become building owners as of Nov. 22. The now permanent home was recognized with a “Keys to the Building Celebration” on the morning of Saturday, Feb. 29 with Piscataquis Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Denise Buzzelli presenting a symbolic oversized key.

Two organizations with a shared vision to meet the health care needs of the people of Piscataquis County have officially come together. Northern Light Health and Mayo Regional Hospital completed their merger agreement on Sunday, March 1. On Monday morning, Michelle Hood, president and CEO of Northern Light Health, joined with Marie Vienneau, president and CEO of the newly named Northern Light Mayo Hospital, for a press conference and celebration at  the hospital with employees.

Our national bird, the American Bald Eagle, has been getting its fair share of media attention lately. Maine Game Wardens are still investigating the illegal shooting of one of our national symbols in western Maine. And, in a soon-to-be released story in the April issue of the Northwoods Sporting Journal, columnist and USFWS wildlife biologist Mark McCollough writes a most fascinating article about the eventual fate of a 36-year-old state resident bald eagle that had to be euthanized by wildlife officials.

Spectators gathered at the finish line at Lonesome Pine Trails in Fort Kent to cheer on mushers as they arrived at the end of their 30-mile trek through Fort Kent at the Can-Am Sled Dog Races on Feb. 29. Race winner was racer No. 25 Rico Portalatin of Milo with a time of 2:24:11; second place, No. 2 Julie Albert with a time of 2:49:19; and third place, No. 24, Alexander Theriault with a time of 2:52:21. 

Valley Grange of Guilford is sponsoring a blanket-making event from 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday, March 28 and volunteers are needed. Organizer Pat Engstrom notes “no sewing skills are needed. If you can measure, cut a straight line with scissors and tie a simple knot you can become a ‘blanketeer’ and help support Project Linus.”

When Maine achieved statehood in 1820, it was home to a number of wild creatures that are no longer seen in the region today. Wolves, caribou, panthers and rattlesnakes are among the animals found roaming the woods and waters of Maine 200 years ago. 

Sometimes, a day of ice fishing ends with nothing more than an unsolved mystery, as fish steal bait without getting hooked, and a frustrated angler heads home empty-handed.

Agents from the company’s 34 offices in New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont were recognized for their achievements in real estate sales including Betty Ann Richardson, Grover Kilpatrick and Donna Vainio of the Dover-Foxcroft office.

The U.S. Postal Service will celebrate Maine’s bicentennial with the issuance of a new Forever stamp and a dedication ceremony on the actual anniversary of Maine’s statehood, March 15.

Anglers are invited to Sebec Lake for the ninth annual Dover-Foxcroft Firefighters Association Ice Fishing Derby on Saturday, Feb. 29 and Sunday, March 1.

Sen. Paul Davis, R-Sangerville and Rep. Paul Stearns, R-Guilford hosted Ben Beverly’s history class from Greenville High School at the Statehouse on Feb. 26.

“We have current conditions drafted,” Town Manager Jack Clukey said about a Dover-Foxcroft Urban Area Transportation Study during a Feb. 24 selectmen’s meeting. “Now Gorrill Palmer is working on the future alternate analysis.”

The Wiscasset man who died Sunday was the seventh person to be killed in a snowmobile crash in Maine in a little more than a month, and the third in three days, making this winter an above-average season for snowmobile-related deaths.

The General Federation of Women’s Clubs (GFWC)/Miosac Club is conducting its 2020 Sebec Lake Ice Out Contest for the 44th consecutive year.  Tickets may be purchased from any club member through March 31. Monies raised will be used to maintain a variety of club projects in the Dover-Foxcroft area.

A lawsuit seeking to block the merger of Mayo Regional Hospital with Northern Light Health is heading to court late next month after the Maine attorney general’s office and both health care organizations all filed motions seeking to dismiss the case.

Most of us who hunt for wild meat or pick wild berries and mushrooms, and take profound pleasure from the hunter-gatherer act, recognize that there is an ancestral or antediluvian connection. Your caveman lineage is likely to take on a new focus if you spend some time with a book titled “The Man in the Ice” by Konrad Spindler. Dr Spindler is an Austrian archaeologist. 

A Wiscasset man died on Sunday, Feb. 23 following a fatal snowmobile crash on Moosehead Lake. Gregory Lemar, 59 from Wiscasset, was operating a late model Arctic Cat 800 snowmobile toward Rockwood from Greenville shortly after 5 p.m.

A man from Massachusetts died in a snowmobile crash south of Baxter State Park on Friday, Feb. 21. Alan Paquette, 55 from Ashburnham, Massachusetts, was killed shortly before noon when the snowmobile he was operating crashed on Interconnecting Trail System (ITS) 86, about 3.5 miles East of Abol Bridge.