Earlier this week, Gov. Janet Mills announced her intention to create a 10-year strategic economic development plan for the state. It’s a good idea -- if it doesn’t fall victim to politics and the great divide between rural and urban areas.

Dear members of the Milo, Bowerbank and Sebec fire departments, we the members of the Three Rivers Kiwanis are sending this letter as a thank you and a well-earned pat on the back for the super job rescuing a racer in our annual Sebec River Canoe Race on May 18.

Memorial Day, Decoration Day, all one in the same. Originally May 30, 1868, a day set aside by the Grand Army of the Republic to decorate the graves of Civil War dead.

These days we seem to have never-ending election cycles. Do you know your ancestors’ political leanings? Genealogists may assume their family was always Republican or Democrat. This isn’t true. These parties came into being at the advent of the Civil War. Republicans favored the fight for the Union. Democrats, also known at the time as Copperheads, opposed the war. There were entire areas in Maine where Republican draft officers didn’t dare go.

I listened this week to a “Team Never Quit” podcast interview with American swimmer Dara Torres, a 12-time Olympic medalist and former world record-holder in three events. Mrs. Torres’s interviewers are three retired US Navy SEALS.

In this column, I've been writing an awful lot about what the new administration of Gov. Janet Mills and her allies in the Legislature have been doing.

The pulse of life. Heroic emergency workers will fight to try and save it. Medical advancements are made in a desperate search to heal and prolong its energy.

No one can say for certain whether the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court is willing to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that guaranteed the right of women to receive an abortion. But Republicans in Alabama and Georgia and liberals on the court itself seem to think it’s a real possibility.

Logger and Maine Senate President Troy Jackson recently introduced LD 1459, a bill that would, for the first time in history, give Maine contract loggers the legal right to collectively bargain for fair compensation. This bill is being introduced as rising demand for shipping supplies might revitalize production.

Just about a year ago, The Commons at Central Hall reopened after a 10-year hiatus from public view. It had been a public hall and served as town offices. Class plays were held here. They even had minstrel shows here. And they played basketball here for 75 years.

Last Thursday, May 9 we received the terrible news that the $7.1 million highway reconstruction project scheduled to begin in Abbot has been pulled. My first reaction, perhaps like yours, is "why us -- how come we never get anything!" That is a natural reaction. In reality, these constructions decisions are made using set criteria.

To park on the street I turned my car steering wheel right and felt a new chest pain. “Heart," was my first instinct. But, since I have never had heart problems, I considered other possibilities like indigestion.

Friday, May 10 was “Gun Day” at the Legislature’s Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee. On this day, the committee held public hearings on 11 firearm-related bills. Ten of the bills sought to restrict Second Amendment rights while one bill would expand them.

On behalf of the community of Dover-Foxcroft and the surrounding communities, I want to thank the ladies of Mayo Regional Hospital for putting on a delicious dinner at the Dover-Foxcroft Congregational Church Monday night, May 6. The meal and services were wonderful.

It is pretty hard to find someone more sympathetic to the plight of teachers than me. My wife has worked for years as a teacher in kindergarten through second grade.

It’s a good bet that Maine is going to join the growing list of states that allow gambling on sports. I don’t like gambling. It’s too hard to make money to give it away to someone else for a few minutes of excitement.

There’s a lawsuit in the courts now regarding whether it’s legal to ask a person’s citizenship status in the upcoming U.S. Census. Historically, the question of whether a resident was an “alien,” naturalized, or when they came to this country has been asked in censuses back to the first one in 1790. But in today’s political climate it’s much trickier than it was in prior years.

Climate change is such a polarizing issue that passing bipartisan legislation to address it has been out of range, till now. Citizens Climate Lobby, a national nonpartisan organization, recently helped introduce the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act, by a bipartisan group in the U.S. House of Representatives. Enacted into law, this bill would reduce carbon pollution and bring climate change under control by charging a fee on fossil fuels. The idea is called “fee and dividend.”