Throughout the year the Piscataquis County Democratic Committee is holding a series of non-partisan information forums on various issues facing the region. The most recent “Ensuring the Success of Our Youngest Mainers: A Conversation about Children and Families in Piscataquis County” during the afternoon of Aug. 2 at Mayo Regional Hospital examined related challenges such as poverty, food insecurity, and barriers in accessing care, and the discussion featured Maine Speaker of the House of Representatives Sara Gideon, D-Freeport.

Lightning flashed in the distance and rain began to fall, each drop forming a tiny bubble on the surface of Moosehead Lake. We’d watched the dark clouds gather during our short paddle, and with a few words, we agreed it was time for us to turn our kayaks around and get back to Seboomook Wilderness Campground, where we were staying.

Members of the Sebec Village Associates were recognized at the start of the annual town meeting on Aug. 7 at the Harland A. Ladd Municipal Building as the organization is the community’s 2017 Spirit of America Award recipient.

The purpose of the meeting is assessing public sentiment regarding six proposed industrial wind projects and CMP’s Maine Clean Power Connection 145-mile high voltage transmission corridor.

The bottom line is this: At a critical time in Maine’s deer recovery the state has ostensibly been without a seasoned, experienced deer research leader for far too long. It’s a typical bureaucratic situation: sudden departure, slow replacement.

Non-union, full-time county employees will be receiving a 2 percent wage increase in the 2018 county budget after a motion for the increase was approved by the Piscataquis County Commissioners during an Aug. 8 meeting. The raise matches the 2 percent the county’s union employees will receive per their contract starting on Jan. 1, 2018.

The 2017 Dover-Foxcroft Shiretown Homecoming parade on Saturday, Aug. 5 celebrated the 95th anniversary of the union of the towns of Dover and Foxcroft and representing the municipal merger was engaged couple Kylie Sands and James Watson. The mid-morning procession was the first in town since 2014 and Homecoming organizers hope to now bring the parade back every five years.

A proposed 2017-18 SAD 41 budget of $8,500,571 was approved with all 12 articles passing, without any discussion, over 17 minutes during a district budget meeting on Aug. 2 in the cafeteria at the Penquis Valley School. The $8.5 million total is now moved to a referendum in the district towns of Atkinson, Brownville, LaGrange, and Milo on Thursday, Aug. 10 for a “yes” or “no” vote.

In June SAD 41 residents - approved an approximate $474,000 loan from Maine’s school revolving renovation fund for sprinkler and elevator upgrades at the Penquis Valley School. Under the program the state covers 70 percent of the costs, meaning a little more than $142,000 would be paid back by the district over five years at zero percent interest.

With pre-kindergarten through grade 8 students at the SeDoMoCha School scheduled to have their first day of classes on Tuesday, Aug. 29, the RSU 68 board of directors had its last meeting of the summer on Aug. 1 to prepare for the 2017-18 academic year and learn more about the summer lunch program which is running through Friday, Aug. 18.

Increasingly, I feel that discomfort watching reporters at White House press briefings. Except the reporters and the media outlets they represent are never embarrassed by their unprofessional behavior. Too often in America, when reporters act like black flies armed with digital recorders and laptops, who clearly hate politicians we don't like either, we're okay with the indiscriminate biting and chewing.

Is our coyote, which started showing up in the 1940s, evolving into a new canid, one that is worthy of the new, catchy name, Coywolf?

On June 21, 2016 Laurie Muzzy opened the Kineo Coffee Station atop Indian Hill coming into Greenville near the south end of Moosehead Lake. Muzzy and her staff serve coffee and homemade breakfast and lunch menu items Tuesdays through Saturdays from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. with residents and visitors to the region alike stopping to enjoy food and refreshments.

Following discussions at several meetings, during a July 25 session the Piscataquis County Commissioners signed a renewal agreement with the town of Greenville to enable residents of Moosehead Junction, Harfords Point, and Big Moose townships to use the Greenville solid waste transfer station for another two years.

A little more than a month after the first version of the 2017-18 SAD 41 budget was voted down -- by a combined total of 270 to 68 across the district communities of Atkinson, Brownville, Milo, and LaGrange -- a revised spending plan will be brought to voters at a district budget meeting on Wednesday, Aug. 2 at the Penquis Valley School.

Secretary of State Matt Dunlap says he’s refusing a second request by the Trump administration’s election fraud commission to turn over Maine voters’ personal information.

When I first met the slender, dark-haired nursing home resident I was the home's 19-year-old dishwasher. The nursing home owner was showing me around. We stepped into a room where, to my right, the slender woman, in her mid-fifties, confined to an adult high chair, was eating food from a tray. She and I looked at each other while the owner said we were in a part of the home for residents, like this woman, who can neither speak, nor write.

Question: What’s more exciting than winning a million dollars in Powerball? Answer: Winning a moose hunting permit in the Maine Moose Lottery.