There's no doubt the immediacy of the Internet has coarsened public discourse. Not everywhere online, but, it seems, in more and more places. Of course, the same can be said of a coarsening of our culture in other areas. That is, language most people not too long ago avoided in public, if not in all areas of their lives, is now commonplace on television, in the movies, on radio, in music, and certainly in print.

In recognition of their decades of being land stewards through forestry and farming at Breakneck Ridge Farm and efforts to educate young and old about conservation management at the local, state and national level, Steve and Diana Hobart were recognized by the Piscataquis County Soil and Water Conservation District (PCSWCD) by receiving the organization’s Lifetime Achievement Award during a presentation at their farm on Sept. 16.

The Piscataquis County Commissioners are looking to follow their counterparts in Somerset County by drafting a letter to express their opposition to additional industrial-scale wind development near Moosehead Lake. The commissioners authorized County Manager Tom Lizotte to write a letter during a Sept. 19 meeting, and the document is scheduled to be on the agenda for the Tuesday, Oct. 3 session for a formal vote.

In an effort to deal with space issues at the SeDoMoCha School, RSU 68 officials are considering moving the superintendent’s office from the second floor to a vacant building a stone’s throw from campus. During a Sept. 19 school board meeting, Superintendent Stacy Shorey was authorized to make a $36,000 offer for the former Head Start building off of Autumn Avenue next to the SeDoMoCha campus.

Grandiose delusions are not unknown to me. As a young man the challenges of a Navy carrier pilot appealed to me – until I joined the Navy and saw how inherently dangerous it is to land a jet aircraft on the pitching deck of an aircraft carrier on a dark and stormy night. No thank you.

The selectmen gave their approval to both a $155,000 financing package for a fire department brush truck and an approximate $41,700 bid for a 2018 Ford Expedition to serve the police department, during a meeting on Sept. 11.

Dover-Foxcroft Deputy Fire Chief Patrick “Rick” Pembroke was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Maine State Federation of Firefighters during the organization’s recent convention in Boothbay Harbor.

Several days into the job new Dexter Town Manager Jim Chandler was welcomed and sworn in during a Sept. 14 town council meeting.

During a Sept. 12 meeting of the SAD 4 school board at the PCSS, Principal John Keane said the idea of changing the name of the secondary school back to just Piscataquis Community High School (PCHS) has been discussed by students and staff.

Maine Highlands Senior Center Directors President Dr. Lesley Fernow, left, and Piscataquis Thriving in Place Collaborative Project Director Meg Callaway hold open a bin for two young helpers during for the Piscataquis Shredding Event on Sept. 16 behind Central Hall on River Street in Dover-Foxcroft. The center, collaborative and the AARP Fraud Watch Network sponsored a visit by the Shredding on Site company to enable resident to bring documents, such as those with confidential and personal information, to be shredded. Dr. Fernow and Callaway said older adults are at a greater risk for fraud and those stopping by could watch the bins be automatically dumped into the rear of a truck with the papers then cut into numerous little thin strips.

Stepping out of the gray, light rainy weather at the Washburn-Norlands Living History Center’s Pie Social & Pie Baking Contest in Livermore into a small mudroom at the center’s old one-room schoolhouse, my girlfriend, Eileen, and I have no idea we’re stepping back in time 164 years.

The Maine Warden Service is seeking interest from the public to create a volunteer search and rescue team in Piscataquis County. There will be an informational meeting held at the Greenville Fire Department, 10 Minden Street, at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 20.

From 6-8 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 12 the Piscataquis Chamber of Commerce will hold its annual meeting and Business of the Year celebration. The chamber’s board of directors is pleased to announce that this year’s Business of the Year recipient is Pleasant River Lumber of Dover-Foxcroft.

This month the Penobscot Fly Fishers (PFF) celebrated its 20th anniversary. The Bangor area fishing club held a banquet for members and guests at a local events center. Following dinner and a social hour, PFF President Ed Dailide offered some opening remarks. Charter members of the organization were recognized as well as past presidents.

The following cases were heard under the Piscataquis Criminal Docket at the Dover-Foxcroft Courthouse during the month of August.

The Maine Warden Service is seeking volunteer searchers. Maine game wardens are planning a search for missing person Diana Esteys in Medford on Sunday, Sept. 17.

More than a year ago residents accepted the conveyance of the approximate 97-acre Derby Shops commercial railroad property on B&A Avenue. Citizens attending the June 2016 special town meeting also authorized the selectmen to apply for and accept any grants for cleaning up the property, which is the home of Central Maine & Quebec Railway and had been a part of the bankruptcy proceedings for the former Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway. Town officials are now in the process of applying for funding to help clean up the site, and a public hearing on the proposed remediation to make the property more suited for economic development was held at the town hall on Sept. 6.

Work on roads in Blanchard, Moosehead Junction, Big Moose and Elliottsville townships is set to be taken care of over the next three years under a proposed 2018-20 paving schedule approved by the Piscataquis County Commissioners during a Sept. 5 meeting.