On Saturday, March 9 before the Foxcroft Youth Wrestling Tournament a special ceremony took place. Josh Pelletier, a 2006 graduate of Foxcroft Academy, had his singlet retired in front of a packed gymnasium. Pelletier is the second Pony wrestler to receive the honor -- four-time state champion Jerod Rideout was the first.

Ridge View Community School seventh-grader Kaleb Ranquist, the son of Erin and Robert Ranquist, has been notified by the National Geographic Society that he is one of the semifinalists eligible to compete in the 2019 National Geographic GeoBee Maine State Competition. The contest will be held at the University of Maine Farmington on Friday, March 29.

The popular Dudley Trail up Mount Katahdin won’t reopen this year, according to Baxter State Park officials. In a post on the park’s Facebook page, park officials said it’s “difficult to gauge” when it will reopen.

The Piscataquis County Sheriff’s Office plans to keep its patrol division housed in Guilford at the former primary school building -- the law enforcement space more recently was the home of the SAD 4 administrative office suite -- for another three years after the county commissioners approved extending the space lease through the end of 2022 during a March 5 meeting. A formal document should be signed during an upcoming session.

A revised energy infrastructure upgrade project, which per an agreement between SAD 41 officials and the town will not result in any new debt for Atkinson now and after the town deorganizes at the end of June, will be voted on at the polls on Thursday, March 14.

Sen. Paul Davis, R-Sangerville introduced LD 555 “An Act To Reduce Colorectal Cancer Incidence and Mortality by Updating Screening Coverage” late last month to the Legislature’s Health Coverage, Insurance and Financial Services Committee. With this bill, Sen. Davis hopes to remove the reference to the minimum age at which insurance companies must cover colorectal cancer screenings.

Local resident Wendy Weiger is planning an exciting adventure this month. She is embarking on a hike on the relatively new American Discovery Trail (ADT). This trail system of 6,800 miles is, according to the ADT website, “a new breed of national trail — part city, part small town, part forest, part mountains, part desert — all in one trail.” It stretches from the east coast at Cape Henlopen State Park in Delaware to Pt. Reyes National Seashore in California.

Nothing gets an angler’s heart pumping faster than the sight of an airborne Atlantic salmon dancing atop the water on a flyline. As a slack-jawed kid, I watched these goings on at the legendary Bangor Salmon Pool. Later, as an adult, the late Tom Hennessey helped me land my first silver warrior at the Pipeline Pool in Eddington.

After several budget committee meetings over the previous few months, RSU 68 officials are looking at a 1.5 percent increase in the spending plan for the 2019-20 academic year.

Rico Portalatin of Milo said weather conditions ahead of the Can-Am Crown International Sled Dog Races had him concerned, but he was relieved and pleased when he encountered the trail conditions while competing in the Willard Jalbert Jr. Can-Am Crown 100.

SeDoMoCha Middle School art teacher Bobbi Tardif selected the artwork of Karson Tibbetts, a seventh-grader at the school in Dover-Foxcroft, to hang at the Maine Education Association (MEA) headquarters in Augusta for a year. The MEA in collaboration with the Maine Art Education Association frame and display the artwork of 30 students selected from 30 different art educators in grades K-12 from all over the state for the show.

Bissell Brothers opened its newest brewery location in Milo last summer, making it the first brewery in Piscataquis County. Last Friday, the brewery that got its start in Portland celebrated the release of its first sour beer brewed from start to finish in Milo.

Phil Adams spends three days a week in a heated, wooden structure at the top of the chairlift at Big Squaw Mountain near Moosehead Lake. The 72-year-old has been making sure everyone gets safely off the chairlift for six years. He loves his job. He loves the clean air and the views from his “office.”

After discussion that day about issues facing young adults and what can be done, Mills encouraged those present to go back to their schools and form a Positive Action Team. “Our group thought if kids had more positive things to do then maybe they would not turn to drugs,” Keane said. The teams have caught on.

An act of the Legislature is needed if Mayo Regional Hospital’s merger with a statewide health care system is to go forward in the way administrators at the Dover-Foxcroft hospital are proposing. But no legislator from Piscataquis County has publicly committed yet to sponsoring the legislation that would eliminate the charter the hospital has operated under since the 1970s.

On Feb. 27 the board that oversees Mayo Regional Hospital (Hospital Administrative District 4) voted 14-2 to tax the 13 communities it serves should it need to in order to balance its debt service. Two board members abstained and one member was absent.

The public board that oversees Mayo Regional Hospital has voted to begin a merger with Northern Light Health, the statewide health care organization that’s based in Brewer and includes Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor. The board members, who are elected from 13 Piscataquis County communities served by the hospital and who oversee a quasi-municipal entity known as Hospital Administrative District No. 4, approved the merger agreement in a 15-3 vote during a meeting Wednesday night, Feb. 27.

A fisherman I have always been; and a fisherman I will always be, until I join my late fishing friend Wiggie Robinson, who no doubt is up there paddling the Silver Canoe.