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contents

features a tireless advocate / 15 Theresa Fowler knows hard work pays off in the end.

A program with promise / 20 UMPI is expanding its health care curriculum by offering a physical therapist assistant program.

Outdoor adventure / 24 From skydiving to rock climbing, an adventure waiting for you this summer. community theater / 32 Summer is the best time to catch locals and celebrities taking the stage.

A Piece of Maine: Deer Isle-Stonington / 40 This beautiful area has a lot to offer locals and visitors alike.

A meal with the mayor / 50 Ben and Malorie Sprague juggle work and home life with panache.

40

Suzuki’s Sushi Bar / 54 Keiko Suzuki wows her fans by using traditional as well as local ingredients in her delicious sushi dishes.

20 2 / Bangor Metro June/July 2014

32

Photos: (top) melanie Brooks; (bottom left) courtesy of tamc; (bottom right) courtesy of levi stewart community tehater

A legacy of craftsmanship / 16 The Ellis Boat Company has been crafting boats by hand for three generations.

WHY WILL YOU TAKE THE

CHALLENGE?

www.ctcchallenge.org

contents

24

columns

in every issue

Metro Wellness / 23 Count quality, not calories.

TaLk of the Towns / 10 Music, super schools, and Emmy Awards.

last word / 62 A day at the beach.

Biz Buzz & sightings / 12 People and places on the move.

Metro sports / 48 UMaine’s summer camps and Orono High’s track and field coach.

Perspectives / 56 Mike Taylor takes us out at night. savvy seniors / 59 Reimagining your career.

Unsung hero / 64 LifeFlight’s Joe Roebuck

4 / Bangor Metro June/July 2014

54

Photos: (top) ryan saucier; (LEFT) Mark mccall

woods & waters / 58 Living in Maine is very different from vacationing here.

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editor’s note

R

Melanie Brooks, editor

6 / Bangor Metro June/July 2014

The Bangor Metro Region

Photo: Kate Crabtree

emember that nearly 75-degree day in April? And then the snowstorm two days later? Yeah, me too. I don’t remember another year in which I was so ready for summer. Once daylight savings time kicks in, I’m ready to wear summer dresses and flip-flops. More often than not, there’s a snowstorm between turning the clocks ahead and packing away my winter sweaters.

Now that summer is officially here, it’s time to get outside and celebrate! I’ve been working diligently for months (no joke) on assembling our This is Maine summertime calendar of events. It’s a daunting task, as this supplement is chock full of events that happen throughout our region. This is Maine is an important publication: It’s distributed throughout the entire state, and I know many people who keep it close at hand all season long. Depending on where you live or where you are visiting, there is something to do every single day of the summer.

This past fall, my husband and I bought a great hiking backpack for our son, who will turn two in August. We got a little bit of use out of it before it got too cold, but we plan on taking it to Mount Desert Island a lot this summer. We’re also going to try traversing the carriage trails with our bikes. My parents have been talking about going camping for weeks now, and I can’t wait for Ian to experience camping with his grandparents.

Growing up, my parents and grandparents had pop-up campers, and we’d go someplace every weekend. Our favorite locations were Bar Harbor, Sebec Lake, Medway, and Wells. We’d keep it simple. People like us didn’t have cell phones back in the 1980s and early 1990s, and a portable television was unheard of! We’d make our own fun.

Some of my favorite childhood memories were made camping. My grandmother would create scavenger hunts for my sister and I, and we’d always build a fort somewhere close to our campsite. I’d often make friends with other kids who were camping with their families and gain a new pen pal by the end of our stay.

Camping became less fun as a teenager, as spending quality time with family wasn’t as “important” as quality time with friends. But now that I’m a parent, I have a newfound appreciation for getting away from home for a couple of nights now and then during the summer and roughing it. There’s something soothing and romantic when falling asleep listening to peepers, camp fires, and even the light pattering of rain on the canvas roof of the camper. Watch out, Maine, here we come!

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Independence you want, the Support you need Assisted Living & Memory Care

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Bangor Metro Magazine. June/July 2014, Vol. 10, No. 5.

Copyright © Metro Publishing LLC. Bangor Metro is published ten times annually by Metro Publishing LLC. All rights reserved.

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Scholarly Success

10 / Bangor Metro June/July 2014

BANGOR, GReeNVille, & ROCKPORT: Four high schools in the Bangor metro area were included on the Washington Post’s annual “America’s Most Challenging High Schools” list. Out of 2,029 high schools nationwide, Greenville Consolidated School is ranked 1,970, Camden Hills Regional High School is ranked 1,894, Bangor High School is ranked 1,743, and John Bapst Memorial High School is ranked 383.

John Bapst is the highest ranked high school in northern New England.

How are the rankings calculated? Jay Matthews from the Washington Post took the number of Advanced Placement (AP), International Baccalaureate (IB), and Advanced International Certificate of Education (AICE) tests given at a school each year and divided by the number of seniors who graduated.

“The best thing about being named number one in Maine and northern New England the second time is that feeling of affirmation you get,” says Mel MacKay, head of John Bapst. “When the Washington Post told us we were very good two years ago, our reaction was to start a strategic planning process to get even better.

And here we are, getting better and still nationally recognized.” Seventy percent of the students at John Bapst take at least one of the 17 AP exams offered. The school has a graduation rate of 99% and college enrollment rate of 98%.

photo: courtesy oF John bapst high schooL

talk of the towns

Kudos to The Nite Show Bangor: The Nite Show with Danny Cashman, Maine’s only live, late-night show, has been nominated for two Boston/New England EMMY Awards. The show was nominated in the category of Musical Composition/Arrangement for the parody song “Call Me, Jimmy,” which was performed by the show’s house band, the Jump City Jazz Band.

The Nite Show with Danny Cashman is a 30-minute long late-night talk show, patterned after national shows, hosted by the likes of Jimmy Fallon and David Letterman. The show, which is broadcast statewide on Saturday nights, features an opening monologue, a comedy bit, a guest interview, and a performance guest. The show is taped before a live studio audience at The Next Generation Theatre in Brewer and is produced by students and faculty from the New England School of Communications in Bangor.

“We are so lucky to be able to have a show where our main goal is to have fun on television,” Cashman says. He was also nominated in the category of Program Host/Moderator. Cashman is competing

against a number of news anchors and hosts of food programs, including The Phantom Gourmet. “To me, it’s not about winning or losing,” Cashman says. “It’s just about finishing ahead of the host of The Phantom Gourmet in the voting. Really, that’s the most important thing.”

photos: (top) courtesy the nite show; (right) bartosz zakrzewski/thinkstock.com

Music for All Blue Hill: Music lovers have a new reason to celebrate, thanks to Bob and Jane Marville of East Blue Hill. The duo donated the former Liberty School property to the Bagaduce Music Lending Library, a 31-year-old nonprofit that has more than 250,000 pieces of sheet music.

“Jan and I have been longtime supporters of the Music Library, and this donation is a confirmation of our strong belief in its mission and its future,” Bob Marville says.

The Liberty School was an alternative high school that closed in 2007. The property consists of four acres and four buildings. It will become the new home to the Bagaduce Lending Library. Its vast collection is currently housed on shelves in a barn on Greene Hill. Musicians around the world borrow music from the library, which includes choral, keyboard, vocal, and instrumental music, as well as rare and unusual items and compositions.

“This stunning act of philanthropy will not only provide more space for our extensive and ever-growing collection; it will also allow us to expand our educational and performance offerings,” says library board president Steve Lindsay. He adds the library will soon begin a capital campaign to raise funds for needed repairs and relocation to the new facility.

“For over 30 years, the library has been sharing printed music of all kinds with individuals, choruses, and chamber ensembles throughout the world,” says executive director Martina Herries. “Now, with this project, we have a wonderful chance to reaffirm our mission, expand our outreach, and serve future generations of musicians, students, and music lovers.” www.bangormetro.com Bangor Metro / 11

biz buzz On the Move CORNELIUS “CONNIE” RUSSELL has been chosen

to serve as a director for The First Bancorp. Russell is the general manager of the Samoset Resort in Rockport, where he has worked since 1999. He’s an active civic leader, serving on the Maine Innkeepers Association board of directors, the Maine State Chamber of Commerce board of directors, and the Penobscot Bay Healthcare board of trustees. He is also the treasurer of the Samoset Timeshare Estates Homeowners Association. www.thefirstbancorp.com LORI ROMING of the Unity Foundation has joined the board of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Mid-Maine.

Roming has been volunteering with the nonprofit organization for several years and serves on the Governance Committee. www.bbbsmidmaine.org MONICA TOLMAN has been promoted to senior vice president, loan production manager for Camden National Bank.

Her career at Camden National Bank includes commercial loan administrator, risk management data analyst, collections supervisor, commercial underwriter, commercial portfolio manager, and, most recently, commercial administration manager. www.camdennational.com

The Jackson Laboratory hired JESSICA NOONAN as director of talent acquisition. A national member of the Society of Human Resources Management, Noonan previously worked for Unum and Citigroup Global Transaction Services in Portland. www.jax.org

to his new role. He most recently served as national sales director for Spectrum Pharmaceuticals. www.varneyagency.com TOM JUREWITZ has been

appointed pharmacy director for Pen Bay Medical Center. He has a breadth of health care experience in hospital pharmacy practice, retail pharmacy practice, and health care informatics. In his new role, Jurewitz will oversee organizational leadership for the pharmacy department, facilitate staff development, and organizational advancement. www.penbayhealthcare.org Sergeant CATHERINE RUMSEY, public information officer for the Bangor Police Department, has been promoted to Lieutenant. Rumsey has been with the force since 1996, and she has been the public information officer since October 2013. No other female has attained the rank of Sergeant or higher in the history of the Bangor Police Department. Detective TIMOTHY COTTON has been promoted to Sergeant. He joined the force in 1997 and previously worked for the Hampden Police Department. He is a nationally recognized polygraph examiner, crisis negotiator, and firearms instructor. www.healthyacadia.org CHARLIE WHITE joined

Camden Financial Consultants as the financial consultant, serving the midcoast region. He has more than 10 years of financial services experience. A native of Machias, White now lives in Rockland. www.camdennational.com

LEE ROSSIGNOL joined

JUDY CLUKEY joined the

Varney Agency in Bangor as director of sales. He brings 26 years of sales experience, with 13 years of sales team management,

board of Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Mid-Maine. She is the lab director at MaineGeneral Health and has been a member of Big

12 / Bangor Metro June/July 2014

Brothers, Big Sisters for the past four years. www.bbbsmidmaine.org CHAD PLACE has been appointed

assistant vice president, commercial banking officer for Camden National Bank, servicing the communities of Rockland, Thomaston, Vinalhaven, and Union. Place is a member of Lions Club International and Junior Achievement of Maine. www.camdennational.com Skowhegan Savings Bank appointed RICHARD ST. PIERRE as senior vice

president and chief financial officer. He joins the bank with 25 years of accounting and financial experience, across a variety of industries. St. Pierre was previously the CFO for Portlandbased Schlotterbeck & Foss. Prior to that, he was the corporate controller for Backyard Farms, LLC. www.skowhegansavings.com Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate/ The Masiello Group in Ellsworth hired four new employees. MEGHAN BIRDSALL and AURORA HILTON have been hired as sales agents. Broker ANGELIA LEVESQUE , who is also an agent in the group’s Bangor office, will be covering the Downeast area. MARC PERRY, an associate broker, has been a practicing Realtor in the Mount Desert Island and Downeast markets for over a decade. www.masiello.com DANIEL JOHNSON, Ph.D. has been

named executive director of Acadia Family Center, based in Southwest Harbor. The nonprofit provides education, prevention, and treatment services for people struggling with alcoholism, substance abuse, and related mental health problems in Hancock and Washington Counties.

Johnson previously spent 21 years as a clinical supervisor and director of educational services at Acadia Hospital in Bangor. www.acadiafamilycenter.org LYNN W. BEASLEY has been appointed interim chief executive officer at Penobscot Valley Hospital in Lincoln.

Beasley has nearly 30 years of experience in health care administration and has served most recently as chief executive officer for

Hendry Regional Medical Center in Clewiston, Florida. www.pvhme.org CHARLES RUDELITCH has been named executive director of the Sunrise County Economic Council, located in Machias.

Rudelitch previously worked as an attorney for Pine Tree Legal Assistance in Hancock and Washington Counties.

He has also worked in economic and community development for the towns of Brighton, Fort Kent, and Guilford, as well as for the Passamaquoddy Tribe. www.sunrisecounty.org

organizations for contributions that positively impact our communities, especially efforts that benefit active military, veterans, and their families. www.sarahsmiley.com FRIGHT AT THE FORT, the annual Friends of Fort Knox Halloween fundraiser, was recognized with an award at the Maine Governor’s Conference on Tourism. The award was given to Fright at the Fort for its unique creativity, attracting over 9,000 visitors in 2013, and grossing nearly $84,000 for Friends of Fort Knox. www.fortknox.maineguide.com

SUSAN OSTERTAG, MD, joined the

medical staff of Penobscot Community Health Care’s Community Care and Geriatrics. Prior to joining PCHC, Ostertag served as medical director for several nursing homes in Hancock County and as attending physician and medical director for the Palliative Care Team of Maine Coast Memorial Hospital. www.pchc.com

Awards The international Human Genome Organization (HUGO) will present its top award to the president and CEO of The Jackson Laboratory, EDISON LIU. The Chen Award for Distinguished Academic Achievement in Human Genetic and Genomic Research honors the achievements of a biomedical scientist who has made significant contributions to genetics and genomics. www.jax.org ROBERT C. ALLEN, senior vice president

of wealth management at UBS Financial Services in Bangor, has been named on Barron’s Top 1,200 Financial Advisors list for 2014. Allen received the distinction of being ranked number one in Maine for the third consecutive year. www.ubs.com/team/argosy SARAH SMILEY of Bangor has been

honored with the American Legion Auxiliary’s Public Spirit Award for the awareness she has brought to the military family community through her book, Dinner With the Smileys, and her weekly newspaper column. This award, established in 1983, recognizes outstanding individuals and

Senator SUSAN COLLINS has been named to ELLE Magazine’s Washington’s 2014 Power List, which names the 10 most powerful women in Washington, D.C. Recently, Collins was presented with the Publius Award from the Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress for her bipartisan leadership and record of accomplishment. www.collins.senate.gov The Bucksport Bay Area Chamber of Commerce’s 2014 annual awards were bestowed to the following businesses and individuals. CARRIER’S MAINELY LOBSTER won the New Business Award.

RSU 25 ADULT & COMMUNITY EDUCATION is the Nonprofit of the Year.

TLC BOOKKEPING won the Business Person of the Year. POLLY BAYER-LALLY

won the Hans Honder Community Service Award. CHRIS GRINDLE was named the Chamber Volunteer of the Year. LARRY WAHL of Wahl’s Dairy Port won the Super Supporter Award. TOM GOODMAN of Financial Solutions was named the Long Standing Chamber Member of the Year. www.bucksportbaychamber.com MARCUS J. BARRESI, partner at Barresi

Financial in Bangor, recently earned New England Financial’s Leaders level of recognition. This honor is given to a select set of top advisors, specifically those who exemplify the highest standards of personal integrity, professionalism, and customer service. www.barresifinancial.com

Grants The TOWN OF SURRY, in partnership with WESMAC CUSTOM BOATS, received a $300,000 grant through the state of Maine’s Community Development Block Grant Economic Development Program, which is administered by the Maine Office of Community Development. The grant will be used to support business diversification and improvements for Wesmac, the town’s largest full-time, year-round employer. www.surry.govoffice.com www.wesmac.com The COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC received a $200,000 grant from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations as funding for Renewable Energy Demonstration Projects at Peggy Rockefeller Farms. The farm is one of the college’s laboratories for understanding and experimenting with the human ecology of food systems. www.coa.edu THE JACKSON LABORATORY in Bar Harbor earned a four-star rating from Charity Navigator, America’s largest independent charity evaluator. This is the fourth consecutive year the lab received this distinction, which honors sound fiscal management practices and commitment to accountability and transparency. www.jax.org

The CITY OF BELFAST and the BELFAST WATER DISTRICT have been awarded a $1.9 million grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) through its Public Works program.

The funds will be used for the reconstruction and enhancement of a significant section of Front Street, with the intent to facilitate economic growth in the working waterfront area of Belfast. www.cityofbelfast.org EASTERN MAINE DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION has been awarded a

$20,000 grant from the Betterment Fund that will support the newly formed Eastern Maine Transportation Management Association, a project aimed at increasing transportation opportunities for people in eastern Maine. www.emdc.org

www.bangormetro.com Bangor Metro / 13

sight ings 1

5

1: The Brew Crew pictured from left: Cam Masters, Nick Phair, Jeff Favati, Bill Bart, Joe Robicheau, Eric Kepple, Katie Leveille, Amanda Ellis, Tina Reeves, Kayla Barton, Nate Ellis, Mike Phair, and Nate Albee were the B League champions in the Fusion:Bangor dodgeball league.

2: The Means Investments team pictured from left: Josh McNutt, Brian Hackett, Lindsey Mercier, Wes Hart, Ben Sprague, Kevin McAvoy, Laura

14 / Bangor Metro June/July 2014

4

6

Clarke, and Zach Means were the winners of Fusion:Bangor’s dodgeball A League.

3: Emilie Brand Manhart and Tim Throckmorton take part in Erin’s Run in Bangor.

4: Irving Woodlands, LLC commits $1 million to the UMFK Foundation, the largest in the school’s history. Pictured from left: Josh Philbrook, Ken Cyr, Doug Cyr, James Roy, Anthony Hourihan, Wilson Hess, John Martin, Toby Pineo, Peter Tabor, and Roy Bernard.

5: Kelly Anne Donnely (left) and Linda Eliot (right) pose with Gita Pullapilly and Aron Gaudet at the premier of the couple’s Bangor premier of their film, Under the Harvest Sky. 6: Meesha Luce, Leann McKusic, Chris Wilson, and Jo-Ann Neal from Allen Insurance and Financial at the Penobscot Bay Regional Chamber of Commerce Business Expo in Rockport.

Photos: #5 jeff kirlin; #6 Laura manzo

3

2

movers & shakers

T

A Tireless Advocate Theresa Fowler, head of the Central Aroostook Chamber of Commerce, will do whatever needs to be done to finish the job.

By Stephanie Harp

wo memorable photos are displayed in Theresa Fowler’s office at the Central Aroostook Chamber of Commerce, in Presque Isle. One shows Dana Connors naming her 2010 Maine State Chamber of Commerce Executive of the Year. The other is an autographed picture of Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa.

“The phone rang on a Friday afternoon, and it was someone from Chicago,” Fowler says. “He needed to get a parcel to Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, by Sunday. I said, ‘You can’t do that.’” Regis and Kelly were filming on Prince Edward Island the upcoming week, and the item was to be part of their set. Fowler, who is from Woodstock, New Brunswick, told him to ship it to Presque Isle. She personally drove it across the border and put it on a bus to Moncton, New Brunswick.

Did she see the broadcast? “Oh, don’t be silly,” she laughs. “I didn’t have time to watch the show!”

She calls the incident “hilarious.”

But for Fowler, it was all in a day’s work.

“That’s what’s so interesting and exciting about it: You never know who’s going to be on the other end of the phone when you answer it,” she says. “You don’t know who’s going to walk through the door and ask a question you’ve never heard before.”

Her obvious delight in questions, both general and quirky, helped Fowler earn the Maine State Chamber award, after only two years on the job. Nomination letters called her “a tireless advocate” who “dramatically changed the profile and image of the Chamber,” whose “enthusiasm” and “perseverance” brought “financial stability and respect” to the

Photo: Sha-lam Photography

“You don’t know who’s going to walk through the door and ask a question you’ve never heard before.” —Theresa Fowler more than 300-member organization.

In other words, she exemplifies exactly what the award is designed to recognize.

Before being tapped as executive director of the formerly named Presque Isle Area Chamber of Commerce in 2008, Fowler worked in St. John, New Brunswick, and was impressed by its attitude of equality. “The class distinctions

are almost nonexistent,” she says. “It’s really amazing.” She brings that egalitarian spirit to the Central Aroostook Chamber.

“Obviously we do have to make money at some point, but most of our activities are free to the general public,” she says.

Thousands come to town for the annual three-day Crown of Maine Balloon Fest to watch balloons and listen to music.

Similar events, like the Holiday Light Parade, are good for the community and good for business, because they draw people in to shop and eat, and many return the next day or the next year.

Fowler’s favorite chamber event is the Annual Dinner and Awards. “We’re recognizing people who quite often are very low-key, and that’s all part of the environment we live in,” she says. “It’s always nice to give people the recognition that they deserve, in front of a large group of family and friends.”

She loves promoting local businesses. “Periodically, when I’m talking to a business owner or manager, they bring up a service they provide or a product that they sell. And I say, ‘Really? Well, who knows that? Let’s tell some people about it.’” She says local business owners are “not particularly aggressive,” which is something she finds appealing. “It’s a small population. Everyone is somehow connected, so the word just gets around.”

Sometimes a publicity boost is what small businesses need. Other times, it’s advocacy. “The thing that is made apparent to me, every time I’m in Augusta, is that so much of the population of Maine has never been to Aroostook County.

They don’t even really understand what life is like here,” she says. “We have a different relationship with the Canadian market, because Presque Isle is the major shopping hub for northwestern New Brunswick.”

The enjoyable, unexpected questions still arrive at the chamber, despite Fowler’s strong communication with members. “Rather than waiting for someone to ask me specific information, I just find that it’s much more beneficial to send it out by email and then they can access it,” she says. “That’s probably the thing that people comment most about, is how much communication they get from the Chamber.” That, and her willingness to do whatever it takes—even driving a package across the border for talk show hosts—to get the job done. www.bangormetro.com Bangor Metro / 15

A Legacy of Craftsmanship It takes a long time to make an Ellis Boat, but the lucky people who own one know it’s well worth the wait. By Melanie Brooks

T

he Ellis Boat Company in Southwest Harbor runs pretty much the same way it did when it was founded 67 years ago. Back then the business was called Bunker and Ellis, and it was run by two friends, Ralph Ellis and Raymond Bunker. They conceived of the idea for their company over a game of pool. Ellis wanted to build boats for a living, but he had no space to do so. Bunker had lots of space, but he had no idea how to build a boat. Together, they created some of the finest handcrafted boats ever to hit the high seas.

“My grandfather was Ralph Ellis,” says Shane Ellis, who handles the marketing and sales for Ellis Boat. “Most people associate Bunker and Ellis with expensive boats for rich clients, but Bunker and Ellis built commercial fishing boats, too. In fact, some of them are still in operation— or were, until very recently, in operation.”

When Ralph Ellis’s son Don took over the company, the name changed to Ellis Boat. Both Shane and Don came into the family business after pursuing other interests. In fact, Ralph Ellis tried to dissuade his son from getting into the boat building business. “He wanted me to know it

16 / Bangor Metro June/July 2014

was a lot of work for the amount of dollars you turn over,” Don says. “If you put as much effort into Wall Street as we do building boats, you’d be a millionaire.”

It takes a long time to make an Ellis Boat. Whether it’s a high-end pleasure cruiser or a more modest commercial fishing boat, the attention to detail and craftsmanship is second to none. Their most popular models are the Ellis 36 and the Ellis 28. “In the 1980s we built a lot of Ellis 20s,” Shane says. People today want something a little bigger. “The 28 is attractive to people, because it is easy to jump into if you’re just getting started with boating.”

But don’t think you’re going to saunter into a modern showroom, point to a boat, and take it home that very afternoon. Every Ellis boat is made by hand.

Shane says if their crew only worked to build Ellis 36 boats, without refurbishing and repairing other boats, too, they could build six boats in a year. “We’re not an assembly line kind of boat company,” Shane explains.

“People who want quick and cheap won’t come to us,” Don says. “We don’t cut corners, and we don’t take shortcuts.”

Don estimates there are about 380 Ellis boats out on the water, and these boats are in such faraway places as Chile, Venezuela, England, Italy, France, and Malaysia. The Ellis Boat Company even built two boats for musician Billy Joel.

“He wears our Ellis baseball cap all over the place,” Don says.

Don spends a lot of time working with each client throughout the entire building process. Sometimes, he says, it can take up to a year or more working with a client before the building begins. “I get a great reward out of working side by side with everyone we build a boat for,” Don says. “I know what they like, what they don’t like, and that’s reflected in the product. You won’t find two Ellis boats that are exactly the same, and that’s unheard of today. It’s not an easy business to build boats, the way we build them. It’s easier to walk in the door of a shop and buy a boat that is already built. So I feel protective of the people I build boats for. That’s how dad and Raymond built them. They knew everyone they were building them for. If the boat only lasted their client five years, well, they wouldn’t have been able to live with themselves.”

Almost everyone in the Ellis Boat shop today began as an apprentice. This year the company has three new apprentices.

Some of the crew has been with the family for more than 20 years. “If one of my employees went to another boat shop and told them they worked for the Ellis Boat Company, I’d be surprised if they didn’t hire them on the spot because of the training they get here,” Don says.

The company is expanding this year with a new building, mostly intended for service work and storage. They mainly refurbish and service Ellis boats, but they’ll work on others, too. There are plans for a new paint bay, but Shane says they don’t want to grow faster than the economy allows. With crew members who are more like family than employees, they want to be sure they can keep everyone employed.

As a child, Don was always interested in watching the guys in the shop work on the boats, and that passion is still inside him. “This is a business you get into because you love putting things together. You love the smiles on the faces of your clients when you show them the finished boat that’s about to go into the water.”

photo: COURTESY OF THE ELLIS BOAT COMPANY

eye on industry

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metro health

A Program with

Promise

The future looks bright for physical therapist assistants, and the University of Maine at Presque Isle has created a training program to put students on the right track for success.

By Stephanie Harp

Andrea Allen, Physical Therapy Assistant student and Jay Brewer, TAMC rehab patient.

20 / Bangor Metro June/July 2014

Eastern Maine Community College

A

llison Phillips loves being a physical therapist assistant. “I get to go to work knowing my patients will be a little more safe today, a little stronger, and a little closer to going home,” she says. Her occupation has a bright outlook, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, and is expected to grow rapidly in the next decade.

That’s good news for Christopher Rolon, director and assistant professor in the University of Maine at Presque Isle’s newly accredited Physical Therapist Assistant (PTA) program. “Every week I get calls from interested students and not just high school graduates,” he says. “I get lots of calls from students who are working on a four-year degree, for instance, in fitness or physical education. It just opens up more job opportunities for them.”

The University of Maine at Presque Isle (UMPI) began accepting students in 2012 to their two-year program, comprised of five semesters of coursework and three clinical experiences. In December 2013, the UMPI program became one of 309 fully accredited PTA programs recognized by the Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education (CAPTE), the national accrediting agency for physical therapist and physical therapist assistant programs.

A PTA performs many of the same treatments as a physical therapist (PT), such as manual therapy, therapeutic exercise, and therapeutic modalities, including electrical stimulators and ultrasounds. The primary difference is that

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a PT completes the overall plan of care, outlining treatments and interventions.

“This really is a great way to get into the profession,” Rolon says. It’s an accessible way to enter the field, without getting the doctorate required for PT certification.

Many students come to UMPI’s 75hour program from other health care professions or related fields. Five of the seven members from the first class were certified athletic trainers with bachelor’s degrees. The first year of both programs is interchangeable, so students with athletic training degrees only need one additional year to complete the PTA program.

Last year, Phillips was one of the athletic trainers. She learned she’d been accepted to the PTA program just a few weeks before classes started. “We are right now coming into the crazy time of year,” Rolon says. PTA is the only program at UMPI with a full-time, 12-week summer session. In September, students continue academic courses and have their first clinical experiences. “They’ll be able to put into practice all the skills they’ve learned by the fall,” Rolon says. “For that reason, the academics are very rigorous.

It’s a very steep learning curve.”

Clinical partners are pleased with the program. “I’ve been impressed with the level of knowledge they’ve had so far,” says Troy Caverhill, who owns Northern Physical Therapy in Presque Isle. “It’s always nice to have a student because it keeps us on our toes.”

At The Aroostook Medical Center (TAMC), another clinical site, Heather

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metro health Caron is lead physical therapist. “The students get to see how they work with patients, which is a great opportunity for our clinicians,” she says. “Most of them love it when we have students.”

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that you have graduated from a PTA program,” says Albertine Henderson, who commuted from Bangor to attend UMPI. Most PTA programs have a high percentage of nontraditional students. At

“The degree offers an affordable way to get a new career in a short amount of time.”

—Christopher Rolon So far, students are meeting program goals. “In my charter class, as we call them, we graduated seven in December, so we’re still looking to see what their employment rates will be,” Rolon says.

The goal is 75% employment within six months. Five students in the charter class took the national exam and all five passed, exceeding the 80% target.

Another member of the charter class passed the exam back in 1981—before a degree was required—and now has 30 years’ experience. “I’m at an age where I’m ready to travel, but I can’t travel unless I have a degree. All of the states require

a previous school, Rolon once taught a logger who decided to become a PTA. “The degree offers an affordable way to get a new career in a short amount of time,” he says. “We always have students who are in their 30s, 40s, and even 50s, looking for a career change.”

UMPI started the program to widen its health care related offerings. Students must complete their first year of general education, including kinesiology and anatomy-physiology, before beginning the PTA technical course work. “Students actually get a chance to make sure they’re academically prepared, and they’re academically able to handle the rigors of the course work, before they start in the summer,” Rolon explains. “Once they finish both of those semesters and they get an A or a B in everything—we only accept grades that are B- and higher—they can apply to come into the program.” UMPI is one of only two PTA programs in Maine— the other is located at Kennebec Valley Community College in Fairfield—and it accommodates up to 14 PTA students.

Teaching along with Rolon is Vanessa Patenaude, assistant professor and academic coordinator of clinical education for the program.

“As more students look for their place in health care, the role of the PTA, and the affordability of this program, interest will increase,” says Barbara Blackstone, chair of the College of Professional Programs and College of Education and associate professor coordinator of athletic training education. “I’m very pleased with this program,” she says.

The Maine Department of Labor projects a nearly 20% growth in available PTA positions, between 2010 and 2020.

With successful students, happy clinical partners, and inquiries arriving daily, the future of UMPI’s program looks just as bright.

metro wellness

Quality, Not Calories Want advice on how to live a healthy life?

Ditch counting calories. By Emilie Brand Manhart

photo: Tijana87/thinkstock.com

I

have a lot to say about food, calorie counting, and maintaining a healthy weight, even though I am not a nutritionist. I earned my healthy-eating credentials simply by being an active, busy, working mom who cares about health, who is a little bit obsessive, and who wants to keep her current pants size.

I make it a priority to read about healthy foods and to shop for quality ingredients, but mostly I have found my way to a healthy life through trial and error. I have learned my body responds positively to a lifestyle with lots of veggies and exercise, and I have developed strategies to help keep me on track. My strategies do not include counting calories. I tried that; for me, it did not work.

Why shouldn’t you count calories?

First of all, keeping track of your calories is a tedious practice and may lead to behaviors that take the joy out of eating.

Secondly, calorie counting teaches us to depend on an extrinsic system rather than learning to listen to our bodies, to understand when we are hungry, and what we’re hungry for. Thirdly, if you become obsessed with how many calories are in every food, you might be drawn to choose foods that have a label with a calorie count right on them—processed foods, in other words—instead of lovely, unlabeled foods that grow right out of the earth. Lastly and most importantly, not all calories are equal, so even if you eat within your goal of recommended total calories for a given day, it does not mean you have eaten well. One 100-calorie pack of cookies is “equal” to a roasted

sweet potato in calories. But, of course, they are so not equal. The roasted sweet potato is packed with nutrients and fiber, is filling enough to be the star of your meal, and is way more delicious. By the way, 100-calorie packs make me mad.

They are an affront to our intelligence, our health, our bank accounts, and our ability to portion out a reasonably sized snack for ourselves.

Eat with moderation, eat quality foods, and use common sense.

Is that advice too loosey-goosey for you? I hear you. If you are a person who loves to keep yourself reigned in with spreadsheets or smartphone apps, and you need to count something, you can, but just don’t count calories. As someone with a Type A personality, I am drawn to ways to organize all aspects of my life. One thing that has worked for me is keeping track of everything I eat in a food journal. That’s how I succeeded in losing my baby weight after having kids.

If you eat it, you have to write it down! I also succeeded in running marathons by following meticulous training plans and keeping careful track of all of my runs.

Weight Watchers offers a smart and effective alternative to calorie counting, if you like an organized system that will hold you accountable. On Weight Watchers, you do count “points” but the system accounts for quality foods and encourages a diet heavy in fruits and vegetables and stresses good, old-fashioned moderation without making any food off limits.

After years of keeping careful track of everything, my food and exercise habits

are now pretty much ingrained in me. I actually crave exercise, which certainly helps the waistline more than craving brownies. It is just a part of my routine to work out regularly. I also drink three bottles of water each day. It is not my regular routine to eat a lot of empty calories or dessert after meals, but I definitely indulge sometimes. Almost every day I eat a small breakfast and pack my lunch box full of yogurt, fruit, hummus, and sliced cucumbers and carrots and hummus. At dinner, I aim to fill half of my plate with veggies. These habits add up to a system that works for me.

Still looking for something to count?

Count how many whole, unprocessed foods you eat every day. Count how much of your plate is filled with fruits and vegetables in each meal. Challenge yourself to eat every color of the rainbow each day: strawberries, sweet potato, pineapple, kale, blueberries, and plums.

Now that is a list of foods worth counting. Count how many laps you can run around the track, or how much weight you can bench press, or how many pushups you can do in a row. Whatever system you develop to help you build healthy habits, remember what counts.

What counts is being strong and healthy, not skinny and starving. What counts is quality and vitality.

Emilie Brand Manhart is a mom, runner, and triathlete who co-chairs the English Department at Bangor High School and writes the blog One Mom in Maine. www.bangormetro.com Bangor Metro / 23

feature story

24 / Bangor Metro June/July 2014

OUTDOOR

Adventures

Photo: ryan saucier

ready for adventure? Whether it’s falling from the sky, navigating rapids, or scaling a cliff, Maine has an outdoor sport for you. By henry garfield

A

dmit it. You’ve always wanted to skydive.

It’s been on your bucket list since before Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman did it in The Bucket List. The thought of falling through the sky and floating to Earth fills you with terror and excitement.

Or maybe not. But chances are, you’re at least curious about it.

“Although there are a lot of people who say they would never do it, I find it hard to believe that there

isn’t at least a mild curiosity about what it feels like,” says Matt Riendeau, an instructor at Vacationland Skydiving, based at the Pittsfield airport.

Riendeau is in his 20s, small in stature, and passionate about skydiving. He’s also a computer science student at the University of Maine at Augusta’s Bangor campus. He has jumped out of an airplane more than 500 times, but he took his first jump only after his friends goaded him into it. “Peer pressure,” he says. “I didn’t even want to do it. It took my friends www.bangormetro.com Bangor Metro / 25

six months to talk me into it. I didn’t work up the courage to do it for almost a year.”

If you have never been skydiving, a tandem jump is the best introduction, he says. You’re strapped to the front of the instructor, facing outward. You don’t have to do much, other than follow directions. For example, Riendeau will remind you to pick your legs up as you land, so he can touch the ground first. “Really, the instructor does all the work,” says his wife Dina, who packs the parachutes and occasionally tandem jumps with her husband. “You’re pretty much along for the ride.”

A good number of people enjoy the ride so much, they want to take a less passive role and learn how to jump on 26 / Bangor Metro June/July 2014

their own. Vacationland offers a staticline course for that very purpose.

“A big contingent of our business are people who get on the ground and go, ‘That was awesome. I want to learn how to do it,’” says owner Brad Fisher. “The static line class is all about teaching you how to skydive safely.”

A static-line jump is one in which you jump solo, initially attached to the airplane.

Fisher is a loan officer by profession and a pilot by avocation. He purchased the business three years ago, after Riendeau promised to work for him as an instructor. Fellow pilot Weylon Wolph was also interested and joined as a partner.

“I saw it as an opportunity to spend

more time in an airplane and have fun,” Fisher says. He had no skydiving experience prior to buying the business but has since learned how to jump. Last summer he was looking for pilots and ran into Wolph at the Waterville airport. They talked and eventually decided to buy a new Cessna 182 airplane together.

The staff now consists of three tandem instructors, two static-line instructors, four parachute packers, and two pilots.

Fisher is about a foot taller than Riendeau and just as long on enthusiasm. “I have a degree in business,” he says. “I’ve been working in banks and financial institutions my whole adult life, and sometimes sitting in the office just doesn’t cut it.”

Peter LaVay learned to skydive in the

Photo: courtesy of Vacationland Skydiving

feature story

smallest amount of information you need to know: how you’re going to be seated in the plane, what we expect of you when the door opens, what body position to be in during the free-fall, and a couple of quick points about the parachute ride,” Riendeau says. “I can literally have a group of people ready to skydive in about five or six minutes.”

It takes about 20 minutes for the plane to reach 10,000 feet. “When we get to about 8,000 to 9,000 feet, Matt and I go through our procedures, start hooking up to the student and making our final adjustments to the harness, and pretty

chutes do not ‘not open.’ They always open and inflate. If there’s a problem, they may be performing in a less than favorable capacity, they might be turning to the left or turning to the right, they might have some of their lines twisted up. If it doesn’t open, the person either didn’t open it for some reason or was unconscious and unable to.”

Fail-safes abound. You have two parachutes. Your equipment includes an Automatic Activation Device (AAD), which does what it sounds like it does—opens your parachute automatically. “When it measures that you’re dropping too fast,

“What I’m most surprised by is the variety of people who are skydivers…we have several female skydivers, retirees, professional suit-and-tie guys. It cuts across all ages and types of people.” —Dina Riendeau

Army. Unlike most skydivers, he began with static-line jumps, which is a little like bypassing the minor leagues in baseball. He is a detachment commander of the 3-142 assault helicopter detachment of the Air National Guard. He’s also a tandem instructor for Vacationland Skydiving.

“The first thing we’re going to ask you to do is fill out a liability waiver, because skydiving insurance basically doesn’t exist,” he says, describing a beginner’s typical experience. “Every drop zone in the United States will do this.” A short video from the equipment manufacturer is followed by five to 15 minutes of training. That’s it.

“We’re going to tell you the absolute

it will automatically deploy your reserve for you,” LaVay says. “If you ever became unconscious in free-fall—if you hit your head or another skydiver ran into you or something like that—your parachute would automatically deploy. When you jump with a tandem instructor, we’re required by law to jump with an AAD.” A tandem jump will run you about $250. For some, it’s enough to say they’ve done it. Others, however, will find themselves compelled to come back and learn how to do it on their own. A few will become licensed skydivers.

Skydiving competitions across the nation and around the world encompass a host of disciplines, including sky surfing,

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A tandem jump, like the one pictured here, is the best introduction to skydiving.

much get ready to go jump,” LaVay says.

Then the door opens, and you’re two miles up, with nothing between you and the ground but air.

“That’s the scariest part: when that door opens and you have to put your feet on the step,” LaVay says. “We’ve never not taken anybody. We’ve always convinced them.”

Free-fall lasts 45 to 50 seconds, and the parachutes open at 5,000 feet. It takes five to 10 minutes to reach the ground.

You land at a shallow angle like an airplane—rather than a helicopter—sliding across the grass. “People hit the ground with the biggest smiles you’ve ever seen,” Fisher says.

Despite the perceptions, the adage about flying is true of skydiving: The most dangerous part of the process is driving to the airport.

“Skydiving is safer than driving,” Riendeau says. “On average, there are 3.6 million skydives annually in the United States.”

“You always hear about stuff that goes wrong, but the people who die are usually experienced skydivers pushing their limits,” LaVay adds.

“One misperception I’d like to clear up, is the question I constantly hear people ask: What happens if the parachute doesn’t open?” Riendeau says. “Para-

Salon 241 ~ 241 State St. ~ Bangor www.bangormetro.com Bangor Metro / 27

feature story

formations, and what’s called “relative work,” in which two or more skydivers score points by making as many set figures as they can during free-fall.

“There’s always a goal,” Riendeau says.

“It’s the coolest thing to figure out what you’re going to do with your 45 seconds, before your chute opens.”

“What I’m most surprised by is the variety of people who are skydivers,” Dina Riendeau says. “From the outside, you might think it’s all 20-something guys, but it’s not. We have several female skydivers, retirees, professional suit-and-tie guys. It cuts across all ages and types of people.”

The skydiving season runs, weather permitting, from late April through early November. Summer weekends fill up fast.

Fisher recommends reserving a jump at least two to three weeks in advance. You can jump in regular clothes, but coveralls are also available.

Weather, obviously, is a factor. Pilot and instructors will call off jumps in adverse conditions. “You’ve got to be able to see the ground from the plane,” Fisher says. “Other than that, wind is our biggest nemesis.”

“You want a little breeze,” LaVay says.

28 / Bangor Metro June/July 2014

“A steady wind is a lot better than a wind that’s variable and gusty.”

Not surprisingly, those who are drawn to skydiving are often drawn to other adventure sports, such as whitewater canoeing and kayaking. This year, the first day of skydiving season was also the date of the annual Kenduskeag Stream Canoe Race, and the water was high and fast. A few people who might have otherwise been falling through the sky were rushing down the rapids instead.

Paddlers are excited this year, not only by the heavy winter snowpack that swelled rivers and streams but also by the removal of several dams on the Penobscot River, increasing potential for whitewater racing well into the summer months.

Maine has many waterways to challenge even the most proficient paddler.

The Maine Canoe and Kayak Racing Organization (MaCKRO) coordinates race schedules around the state.

The river-racing season is typically concentrated in the spring, when streams are at their fastest. But stretches of the area’s major rivers, including the Penobscot, offer challenging rapids throughout the season. Dan Baumert, MaCKRO’s president, says the organization is trying

to organize a mid-summer race on the Penobscot, from Old Town to Bangor.

“There will be some challenging whitewater, right in the middle of summer,” Baumert says.

Clayton Cole, president of the New England branch of the American Canoe Association (ACA), says the removal of the Veazie dam last October opened up that stretch of the Penobscot to canoeing for the first time in generations. “No one has a definitive idea of where the hazards are yet,” he says. But MaCKRO and ACA New England members envision a course on the river similar in distance to the Kenduskeag Stream race.

“That race will probably start near the north, upstream end of Indian Island, finishing in Brewer,” Cole says. “It will be the first race ever contested, at least in the modern era, from Old Town to Bangor. There will be a portage [around Milford Dam], but it will draw attention to the fact that there were three other dams that are now gone. There are three significant rapids between Old Town and Bangor.

The water is quick-moving almost all the way, so we think it’s going to be about a two-hour race.”

A river’s flow is measured in cubic

Photo: ryan saucier

The route of the 2014 Kenduskeag Stream Canoe Race had to be shortened because of the water level. It was a fast, wet race.

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and teaches rock-climbing classes to area youth and adults.

“Everyone is afraid of heights,” he says. “Falls can hurt us. If there was a tiger running around outside my house, I’d be scared of that, too. But there’s a big difference between a fear and phobia, and those people who have a true phobia of heights are rare. If it wasn’t scary, it wouldn’t be worth it.”

Like skydiving and river running, the dangers of rock climbing lie more in the imagination than on any statistics sheet.

“Anyone can climb,” Robichaud says. “It’s just a matter of route selection.”

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feet per second (CFS). “Think of a cubic foot as a basketball,” Cole says. “The midsummer flow of the Penobscot is about 35,400 CFS. It’s like being pushed downstream by 30,000 basketballs.”

The spring flow of the Kenduskeag Stream is only around 2,000 CFS, on average, but it is a much smaller body of water. Concentrated rapids, such as Shopping Cart Falls, on the lower section of the stream near downtown Bangor, can send even an experienced paddler into the drink.

Shopping Cart Falls is a favorite spot to run sprints and slaloms—short, specialized races for skilled paddlers. “Even people who paddle every day can swim at any time,” says ACA member, Dale Hartt.

“There’s no getting ahead of the river.”

Though most skydiving businesses won’t take anyone under 18, adventure canoeing and kayaking is a sport one can start young. Hartt did. And so did Kailey Schmidt, who’s now 18 and a national champion paddler in her age group. She began canoeing with ACA member Jack Owens in his racing program at Bangor High School. Last year she competed and won in the national championship in North Carolina. This year, as well as last, she and partner Sammi Nadeau won their division in the Kenduskeag Stream Canoe Race.

“It’s a great way to enjoy the outdoors,” she says. “I’ve always been outdoorsy, and, well, I just took to it.”

In solo races Schmidt paddles a plastic boat, slightly wider, shorter, and more stable than a traditional canoe. It weighs about 35 pounds—a typical canoe weighs between 60 and 75.

Getting started isn’t terribly expensive. “You can buy a used canoe for under $500,” says ACA member and race organizer Paul Cole. “The sleeker composite racing canoes can go for upwards of $2,000. All you need is a canoe, a paddle, flotation is a good idea in these whitewater races, and a life jacket. Once you own that stuff it lasts for years.

There are dozens of races throughout the season.”

If you don’t relish the thought of jumping out of a plane or getting dunked in frigid river waters but still want to try an adventure sport, how about hanging off the edge of a rock?

Jeremy Robichaud is the director of adventure recreation at the Bangor YMCA

Salon 241 ~ 241 State St. ~ Bangor www.bangormetro.com Bangor Metro / 29

feature story

Modern climbing equipment is safe, sturdy, and completely removable for the rock face. The initial outlay can be expensive, but the gear lasts a lifetime.

“Climbing gear is invincible stuff,” Robichaud says.

He has had students as young as seven, though most begin as teenagers. “Just about anybody has the ability to learn the basics and be safe,” he says.

“From a physical standpoint, climbing is really intuitive. The actual movements of climbing are really enjoyable. The act of moving vertically on rock is a really pleasant experience.”

30 / Bangor Metro June/July 2014

The Bangor metro region abounds with great places to climb. Perhaps the most popular is Acadia National Park, with spots like Otter Cliffs, the Precipice, Canada Cliffs overlooking Echo Lake on the Island’s quiet side, and Eagle’s Crag off the South Ridge trail on Cadillac Mountain. A short venture away from Bangor will take you to many additional good climbing areas, including the Camden Hills and Baxter State Park.

“If you’re interested in rock climbing, you live in the right part of the world,” Robichaud says. “There are enough rocks around here to last a climber a lifetime.”

Photo: Doug comstock

Scaling Otter Cliff in Acadia National Park.

“our legacy is helping local children become successful adults.”

—Walt and Lianne Harris, Orono

W hat W i l l yo u r l e g a c y b e ? Many of us may feel that we will never be remembered for great works or heroic deeds. but there are simple ways you can leave a lasting legacy, and be remembered as someone who made a positive impact on individuals in our community. an endowment through eMhS Foundation is one of these ways. an endowment is a fund created to fulfill a vision defined by you, the donor. With an endowment through eMhS Foundation, you can support healthcare at eMhS member organizations in bangor, blue hill, greenville, Pittsfield, Portland, Presque isle, or Waterville. The money invested in the fund provides both continuous income and long-term growth, with a percentage of its annual earnings solely designated to fund the vision for

which it was established.

For Walt and lianne harris of orono, creating an endowment was an ideal way to ensure mental health services would be available for local youth into the future. “We have learned, through our own family experience, the importance of early diagnosis and intervention,” they note. “We established the Endless Possibilities endowment fund because we believe it is imperative to support programs at acadia hospital that provide children and adolescents with the tools that will allow them to become successful adults.”

Whatever your vision for supporting local healthcare, eMhS Foundation will work with you to create a personalized plan to achieve your goals and leave a lasting legacy.

For a no-obligation consult with an EMHS Foundation professional, please contact us at:

207.973.5055 • 866.839.4483 Or visit our home office at:

One Cumberland Place, Suite 300 • Bangor www.emhsfoundation.org

Maine’s stages come alive during the summer months. This summer, you can catch Shakespeare under the stars at Fort Knox and Agatha Christie on Mount Desert Island. Local actors, musicians, and set designers create an experience audience members won’t soon forget. By Tom Avila-Beck 32 / Bangor Metro June/July 2014

Photo: (above) courtesy of the levi stewart community theater

feature story

The Levi Stewart Community Theater production of When Christmas Left Rattler Canyon.

Photos top and bottom from productions by the Ten Bucks Theater Company.

community groups that bring fan-favorite plays and classic musicals to life, as well as upstart idealists who want to challenge audiences and phenomenal professional companies started around kitchen tables in Bangor.

Ten Bucks Theatre Co. falls into that last category. A group of performers decided to come together and create their own kind of ensemble company. They keep ticket prices low—hence the name.

Come July, their under-the-stars production of Julius Caesar will bring Shakespeare to Indian Trail Park in Brewer and later to Fort Knox.

Now that summer’s warm evenings are finally here, what better time to open the curtain on what our region has to offer.

Photos: courtesy of ten bucks theater

Lakewood Theater & Restaurant, Madison www.lakewoodtheater.org

I

n full disclosure, before I moved back to the Bangor area, I was a theater critic for one of Washington, D.C.’s free weekly magazines.

I was paid irregularly and rarely. And as the payments owed mounted, some wondered why I was still spending two or three nights a week heading to cover another performance. The fact of the matter is, I continued to do the work because there is nothing more exciting to me than the moments just before a play or musical begins.

What luck, then, to return home at a time when the opportunities to experience live theater have never been more plentiful. Sure, there are places that immediately leap to mind, like the Collins Center for the Arts, the Penobscot Theatre Company, the Gracie Theatre, and more recently the Cross Insurance Center. Bus-and-truck companies now continue their drive north, past Portland, bringing Broadway musicals to the banks of the Penobscot.

But there are also “let’s put on a show”

This summer will mark the 114th season of the Lakewood Theater.

General manager Jeff Quinn has been with Lakewood since 1985, but the wheels were set in motion a good decade before. “It was 1973. I was studentteaching at a small school here in Central Maine, and my supervising teacher wanted to do a play,” he says. “I could play the piano, and he knew someone from New York who was living up here that could direct. So we did this play with the kids.”

One thing led to another, and now Quinn finds himself preparing to kick www.bangormetro.com Bangor Metro / 33

feature story off the newest season of the oldest continuously operating summer theater in the country. “The Lakewood is an actual theater. It was never built to be anything else. You talk to anybody who’s been here, and they’ll tell you it’s a pretty special place. Although we’re not a resident company, several of our actors are in two or three shows a season, so you get a lot of camaraderie going on.”

That sense of fellowship and conviviality translates into perfectly enjoyable nights of theater for audiences. Lakewood keeps the mood light, with musicals and farces, creating memories as warm as the breezes off Wesserunsett Lake. Bye, Bye Birdie, Don’t Dress for Dinner, and Big, the Musical will all hit the stage this summer, as will the frenzied and very complicated door-slamming comedy Noises Off. “Noises Off is a lot of fun,” Quinn laughs. “I don’t know if we’ve ever gotten the second half right, but we’re having a whole lot of fun doing it.”

Levi Stewart Community Theater, Corinna www.facebook.com/LSCTheater Corinna’s Levi Stewart Community Theater started in the 1980s, when the local literary club decided to put on a play as part of a town celebration. “It was successful, and everyone enjoyed doing it.

So the year after, we formed this group,”

theater president Kenneth Dow remembers. “We did plays for probably 10 years or so, doing some pretty ambitious stuff for a small town. But then we got busy, and all our kids got busy, and so we kind of stopped. We restarted things about 1999 or 2000.”

The group takes their name from the Levi Stewart Library, an elegant two-story brick clock tower building named for the prolific local book collector who had it built. Stewart’s intention was to create a space that would be a cultural center for the community, a vision the theater’s volunteer crew take very seriously.

“We work with whoever comes through the door, that’s our philosophy,” Dow says. “It’s an opportunity for people in the area to take part and do something together. Sometimes it’s people who’ve been doing it all their lives in an amateur fashion, sometimes they’re 45 years old and haven’t done a play since high school.”

Levi Stewart’s recent production of comedy Northwoods Nonsense—about a broken down hotel in Maine, where someone has claimed to have seen a Sasquatch—made certain there was room for all comers, with an impressive cast of more than 20 actors.

“This isn’t Broadway,” Dow says. “This is local people who are just having a really good time.”

The Levi Stewart Community Theater production of Laffing Room Only.

Belfast Maskers & Cold Comfort Theater www.coldcomforttheater.com Belfast Maskers artistic and managing director Aynne Ames started Cold Comfort Theater in Castine in 1977. First a community theater and later a summer stock company, Ames spent 20 years putting on shows, taking advantage of whatever space or opportunity was available. Inside, outside, on ships—the play was, as the saying goes, the thing.

Today, more than a decade into her work with the Belfast Maskers, Ames’s 34 / Bangor Metro June/July 2014

Photo: courtesy of levi stewart community tehater

The Levi Stewart Community Theater production of Laffing Room Only.

ingenuity continues to serve her well.

“We use church spaces and ice rinks, old houses and all kinds of places to keep doing our work,” she says. “I think of spaces first. Where can we do our shows? Okay, here, here, and here. And then I think about the kinds of shows that will work in that space. Do I have the right people for that show? Do I have audiences to come see those shows?”

The nomadic nature of the work done by the Belfast Maskers does present certain challenges. Rehearsals are often limited by availability. Sets need to be porta-

ble. Casts can only be so large. But Ames also strives to ensure the Belfast Maskers are offering a great opportunity for the people of Belfast and the surrounding region.

“This is community theater, so I think about community,” she says. “We only charge $10 for a ticket, because I want everyone to come. We have $25 ads because the mom and pop store that can’t afford to buy an ad somewhere else can buy one with us. This is all about community.”

In the coming months, the community will be able to join Belfast Maskers–

Cold Comfort Theater for performances of Once Upon a Mattress, Wind in the Willows, and even a USO Show of patriotic songs.

The Everyman Repertory Theatre, Rockport www.everymanrep.org Everyman Repertory Theatre’s artistic director Paul Hodgson and his wife, the producing director, met while attending drama college at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff, Wales.

Jennifer, an American, went abroad to www.bangormetro.com Bangor Metro / 35

feature story

36 / Bangor Metro June/July 2014

Cheryl Willis in Acadia Reperatory Theatre’s production of “Shirley Valentine.”

Photo: courtesy of acadia repertory theatre

study after she graduated from the State University of New York at Fredonia’s musical theater program. The two lived in the UK for about 15 years before—as Hodgson tells it—his wife turned around one day and said it was time to go home.

Today, Everyman Repertory Theatre makes its home in Rockport, where the husband and wife have been creating professional theater of all kinds since 2000.

Anyone familiar with the artistic bent of the Midcoast shouldn’t be surprised to hear Everyman was greeted by a fantastic pool of local talent and creativity. “It’s a pretty extraordinary place,” Hodgson says. “We thought we were going to have to hire people from Boston and New York, but we discovered really top class designers, actors, stage managers, and technical directors, who found themselves on the Midcoast. A lot of people had worked on Broadway or in Boston or in the West End. So we made a conscious decision to hire most of our talent from here, in the state of Maine.”

Since the beginning of last year, Everyman has been collaborating with a number of local arts nonprofits. Their upcoming show, L’Histoire du Soldat (“The Soldier’s Tale”), features dancers from a company in Belfast and the Rockport-based orchestra Maine Pro Musica.

Everyman Repertory has presented work at the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, as well as at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockport.

“We do these kinds of collaborations because the population here is limited. Rather than fight for an audience, it seemed to me that it would be a better idea to cooperate and share,” Hodgson says. “We’re also giving musicians a chance to play with actors and dancers a chance to dance to live music. We’re giving artists in the community a chance to see drama about art.”

And they’re giving audiences in the region the chance to experience something lively, exciting, and impressively homegrown.

Acadia Repertory Theatre, Mount Desert www.acadiarep.com There is something absolutely perfect about an evening drive out to Mount Desert Island, especially if that trip includes a visit to the Masonic Hall in Somesville, where the Acadia Repertory Theatre

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Acadia Repertory Theatre’s production of “A Murder is Announced.”

takes the stage. It’s one of the best-known summer stock theaters in the state. Acadia’s artistic directors, Cheryl Willis and C Andrew Mayer, spend their winters watching snow fall in Minneapolis.

“We usually take about three or so days to do the drive back to Maine, camping along the way,” Willis says. “We try to reach

the island in the daytime, so we can see the gorgeous view from the causeway.”

Acadia Rep has presented more than 300 productions and has employed a dizzying number of actors, designers, and technicians. Willis started her time at the theater as an actress and, when Mayer arrived on the scene, executive director

Ken Stack saw great talent and the opportunity to hand over artistic direction.

Willis and Mayer have held true to Acadia Rep’s traditions, but they’ve given them a fresh twist, employing Willis’s skills with puppetry and Mayer’s mastery of sound and video.

Not surprisingly, given the all Acadia Rep packs into their very brief summer season, the days are long and nonstop between late June and Labor Day. During the next few months, they will host productions of Red, The School for Wives, The 39 Steps, and Agatha Christie’s The Unexpected Guest. “We go from 10 o’clock in the morning until 11 o’clock at night, every day of the week,” Willis says. “From the moment we open up the Hall, we’re just full–on, getting the sets up and greeting the audience.”

It’s clearly the audience making all the hard work worthwhile. “They come back year after year, and they’re so delighted to see us. At the end of the summer, they want to know if we’re coming back. There’s just this full-on feeling of love and community.”

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a piece of maine: deer isle-stonington

Island Life

L

ike the early days of many new communities in Maine, Deer Isle’s first settler came from Massachusetts. William Eaton of Salisbury and his family arrived on the island in 1762, settling the area known today as Scott’s Landing. Sixteen other

40 / Bangor Metro June/July 2014

families joined the Eatons. In 1765, they petitioned the state of Massachusetts for the legal title to the land. Most of the first settlers were of Scottish and Irish descent, who migrated north from their homes in Newburyport, Massachusetts.

Cellar holes and foundation stones from

Photo: melanie brooks

Deer Isle-stonington is coastal living as its most quaint. Eight lighthouses dot the surrounding landscape and lobsters fuel the local economy. If you’re looking for a summer destination off the beaten path, look no further. BY MELANIE BROOKS

Photos: (top) courtesy library of congress; (middle) courtesy of opera house arts; (bottom) Courtesy wikimedia commons

these first settlers can still be found in the area today.

The name of the island is derived from the abundance of deer that once populated the area. When Deer Isle was incorporated in 1789, it included the islands of Little Deer Isle, Deer Isle, and Isle au Haut. In 1868, Isle au Haut became a separate town. In 1800, settlers established the village of Green’s Landing, which was incorporated as the town of Stonington 97 years later.

The first settlers of Green’s Landing were each given a 100-acre lot. The acidic soil of these plots was not well suited for large-scale farming, so many turned to the sea to make a living.

Around 1870, Green’s Landing got an economic shot in the arm, thanks to the

Top: Looking toward Deer Isle village, circa 1884-1891. Middle: The historic Stonington Opera House circa 1912.

Bottom: View of Stonington from Green Head, from an original circa 1915 postcard published by the Eastern Illustrating Company, Belfast, Maine. www.bangormetro.com Bangor Metro / 41

a piece of maine: deer isle-stonington

A view of the Stonington Opera House from Fish Pier.

42 / Bangor Metro June/July 2014

abundance of granite on the island. People came from all over the region and as far away as Italy to quarry granite. When the demand for stone increased, quarrying expanded from Deer Isle to surrounding islands.

Area quarries supplied granite for several notable landmarks, including the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.; the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland; The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; Yankee Stadium and the Manhattan Bridge in New York; and John F. Kennedy’s tomb at Arlington National Cemetery.

Deer Isle’s Steamboat Wharf was busy during the late 19th and early 20th century, shipping granite and ferrying passengers from ports such as Rockland and Boston. It was the island’s primary link to the mainland until a bridge and causeway were built in 1939. This year marks the 75th anniversary of the Deer Isle–Sedgwick bridge.

Photo: ben moXley. lighthouse stamPs: courtesy u.s. lighthouse society

lIgHtHouSeS When people “from away” envision Maine, they often think of majestic lighthouses that grace the front of countless postcards. Lighthouse lovers will delight in the fact that there are eight lighthouses within 12 miles, on the shores of Deer Isle and Stonington.

Heron Neck Light, which can be viewed by boat, is the only one of the lighthouses that is still active. It’s presently leased

by The Island Institute, a nonprofit organization that has served the islands and communities in the Gulf of Maine for three decades.

Three of the lighthouses—Pumpkin Island Light, Eagle Island Light, and Mark Island Light—can be viewed from the shore. The other lights are viewable only by boat. To see them hop aboard Guided Island Tours, the Isle au Haut Ferry Service, or Old Quarry Adventures for a tour.

Visitors from near and far flock to the area to catch a glimpse of these lovely lighthouses each summer and fall.

The Deer Isle-Stonington Chamber of Commerce worked with the U.S. Lighthouse Society and Lighthouse Friends to create the Lighthouse Trail, which provides the opportunity to view these lighthouses year-round. The U.S. Lighthouse Society, a nonprofit historical and educational organization, created Lighthouse Passports, which resemble

a U.S. passport. Just as a U.S. passport is stamped when entering a foreign country, you can have your Lighthouse Passport stamped for each lighthouse you viewed. You can collect a stamp from each of the lighthouses on the Lighthouse Trail. There is a charge of $1 per stamp, and all proceeds are donated to the Island Heritage Trust for the preservation of Mark Island Light. Take a look at our sidebar to find out where you can get your very own passport book and stamps for each lighthouse.

loBSterS Stonington is the largest lobster port in the state of Maine and one of the top

lobster ports in the country. In 2011, 14,854,989 pounds of lobster were caught by fishermen from Stonington—a value over $46 million.

John Williams has been fishing off the coast of Stonington for over four decades.

He fishes year-round from the deck of his 44-foot boat, the Khristy Michelle. “I love everything about it,” he says. “If you don’t love it, you can’t do it.” Williams is active in the fishing community and sits on the board of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, which advocates for a sustainable lobster resource and the fishermen and communities, like Stonington, that depend on lobstering to keep their economy alive.

nearby lighthouses PUMPKIn HeAD lIgHt was built in 1854 and is now a private residence. stamp location: island heritage trust, inn on the harbor, guided island tours.

goose roCKs lIgHt was built in 1890 and is owned by beacon Preservation. stamp location: inn on the harbor, guided island tours, isle au haut ferry service, old Quarry ocean adventures.

eAgle IslAnD lIgHt was built in 1839 and is owned by eagle light caretakers. stamp location: island heritage trust, inn on the harbor, guided island tours.

BroWn’s HeAD lIgHt was built in 1857 and is owned by the town of Vinalhaven. stamp location: inn on the harbor, guided island tours, isle au haut ferry service, old Quarry ocean adventures.

MArK IslAnD lIgHt was built in 1857 and is owned by island heritage trust. stamp location: island heritage trust, inn on the harbor, guided island tours, isle au haut ferry service, old Quarry ocean adventures.

Isle AU HAUt lIgHt was built in 1907 and is owned by the town of isle au haut. stamp location: inn on the harbor, guided island tours, isle au haut ferry service, old Quarry ocean adventures.

sADDleBACK lIgHt was built in 1839 and is owned by the u.s. coast guard. stamp locations: inn on the harbor, isle au haut ferry service, old Quarry ocean adventures Heron neCK lIgHt was built in 1854 and is still active. stamp locations: inn on the harbor, isle au haut ferry service, old Quarry ocean adventures

www.bangormetro.com Bangor Metro / 43

stats Deer Isle Incorporated: 1789 Population: 1,975 Population Density: 66.5/sq. mile Stonington Incorporated: 1897 Population: 1,040 Density: 106.3/sq. mile Education: • Deer Isle-Stonington Elementary School • Deer Isle-Stonington High School 44 / Bangor Metro June/July 2014

According to Williams, there are at least 400 boats working in Stonington Harbor. “We have some pretty big bays that lobsters seem to hang out in,” he says. The busiest months for lobstering are July through December.

Williams grew up fishing with his father. Relatives from his mother’s side of the family were all fishermen, and his father learned from them. It’s not an easy job, but Williams says technology makes it a lot easier to fish today than when he first started. He has two heaters on his boat, and today’s clothes, gloves, and boots keep him warm and safe. But, despite the advances in technology, lobstering is still pretty much an old-school profession: You catch your traps one at a

time, and you go through them by hand.

Sound romantic? You should know becoming a lobsterman in Maine isn’t easy. Most of the people fishing today in Stonington are locals, Williams says.

Stonington is located in Zone C, which is the only place in Maine right now that is still open for licensing for those who have completed the licensing apprenticeship program and are over the age of 18. The other six zones have varying waiting periods that depend on the number of retired licenses or retired lobster traps each year. Williams says the locals voted to keep Zone C open so their kids could get licenses and work in the area. To become licensed, a person must go through an apprenticeship program,

Photo: melanie brooks

a piece of maine: deer isle-stonington

Stonington Harbor is one of the busiest fishing ports in the state.

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HAYSTACK Mountain School of Crafts Residency Workshops and Conferences Evening Lecture Series Community Programs Benefit Auctions Exhibitions which includes logging 2,000 hours of fishing with a licensed fisherman over a two-year period. New fishermen start with 300 traps, and that number can increase by 100 each year up to 800 traps.

While it’s a difficult profession, it’s also rewarding. “The best part of my job is seeing the sun rise over the water every morning,” Williams says.

Fab Lab Tours

Art & Culture Along with lobsters and lighthouses, Deer Isle-Stonington is known as an artists’ community.

The Stonington Opera House is celebrating its 102nd birthday in 2014, which is quite a feat, considering the state of the building in the 1990s. Thanks to four New

Deer Isle 207-348-2306 www.haystack-mtn.org

www.bangormetro.com Bangor Metro / 45

The campus at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts is award-winning.

46 / Bangor Metro June/July 2014

York City entrepreneurs, the building, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, lives on.

The Opera House was originally constructed as a dance hall but grew quickly with the town during the busy granite quarrying years. In its heyday at the turn of the 20th century, the building seated 1,000 people. Throughout the years the building has been used to show vaudeville acts, movies, basketball games, recitals, and for rollerskating. Between 1980 and 2000, the building was up for sale and falling apart.

Four artists bought the building in 1999 and changed the fate of the Stonington Opera House and the surrounding community. “The place was a mess; it was literally falling to the ground,�

Photos: (toP & far left) amanda kowalski

a piece of maine: deer isle-stonington

The woods surrounding Haystack Mountain are peaceful and serene— a perfect place for artistic inspiration.

says Linda Nelson, one of the founding members of Opera House Arts (OHA), the nonprofit organization that brought the Opera House back to life. A Bowdoin College graduate from Stonington, Connecticut, Nelson visited Stonington, Maine in the early 1980s. In the 1990s she was living in New York City and was working as an executive at the Village Voice when she and her business partners bought the Opera House. She and Judith Jerome, the artistic director for OHA, are the only founding members who are still involved. Renovations on the building began in 1999, and Nelson and Jerome moved to Stonington full time in 2001. Under their tutelage, the Opera House has been open for yearround programming since 2005.

“Our goal and mission is to foster and promote excellence in everyday life,” Nelson says. “Performance goes way beyond the stage. It can be a boon for economic and community development, as well as help with citizenship and community.”

Opera House Arts now has a second venue for performances, the Burnt Cove Church Community Center. The Whitman family, who owned the 1870 Baptist church, contacted OHA to help them renovate the building for community use. “We helped the Whitman family set up a nonprofit and entered into a fiveyear lease, to help renovate and help with operations,” Nelson says. “We’re running a full chamber music series there this summer. It seats about 100 people and has great acoustics!”

Another arts community that caters to locals and tourists each summer is Haystack Mountain School of Crafts.

The international craft school offers studio-based workshops in craft media, including clay, glass, metals, paper, blacksmithing, weaving, woodworking, and more. These workshops are open to anyone over the age of 18, regardless of artistic abilities.

Founded in 1950 by a group of artists near Haystack Mountain in Montville, the school moved to Deer Isle in 1961. Located on 40 acres, the campus was designed by Edward Larrabee Barnes. The building is a recipient of the prestigious Twenty-Five Year award from the American Institute of Architects, one of only 41 buildings in the country to receive this award.

“It’s an amazing location,” says Stuart Kestenbaum, who is in his 26th year as executive director of the school. “The buildings are designed in a way that creates community. With 85 people on campus at any one time, I think that people like that sense of being a part of a supportive community. You don’t get lost, and there’s no hierarchy.”

Last year the school had students from 44 states and 19 countries. A twoweek workshop is equivalent to an entire college semester, Kestenbaum says. The studios are open at all hours of the day and night.

While the school draws in people from across the globe for their core summer program, there are also programs specifically designed for Maine high school students and adults.

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High Five Chris Libby’s love of track and field started in high school.

His goal is to get younger kids involved in the sport he is so passionate about. By Melanie Brooks

“I

was a good athlete, but not a great athlete,” says Chris Libby, who has been teaching the art of track and field to Orono students for the past 12 years. Libby, a Brewer High School alum, only tried the sport to stay in shape for football season.

“My high school coach, Dave Jeffrey, ran a solid Brewer track program. I fell in love with it,” he says.

Libby became a part-time coach of his high school team while he was attending the University of Maine in Orono.

He only parted ways with the program when Orono High School offered him a head coaching position for their track and field teams. Libby had recently been hired as a math teacher at OHS, so the transition made sense.

“Chris is so passionate about the sport of track and field. His enthusiasm is genuine,” says OHS athletic director Mike Archer. “He puts so much time and effort into getting the absolute most out of every athlete. He has high expectations for all of his athletes, and he holds them accountable.”

48 / Bangor Metro June/July 2014

Libby’s coaching strategy is extremely well thought out and detailed. “I think that it took a couple of years for students to buy in to my structure,” he says. “I always have a plan for each season and each practice. The time they spend practicing is valued and not a waste. Our training is designed to be challenging for each person. We strategize as a coaching team about attitude and effort during competition, so that the athletes feel prepared when they go into a meet.”

The outdoor track and field coaching staff consists of Libby and three assistants. They have been working together for about 10 years. Consistency has proven to be an asset to the program. The OHS girl’s outdoor track and field team has won the last two conference championships and state championships. The boy’s outdoor team has won three of the last four conference championships.

Libby has also been voted Coach of the Year for the Penobscot Valley Conference seven times.

“His teams always perform best in the big meets,” Archer says. “That speaks

to Chris and his staff that they have prepared our kids physically as well as mentally for what they need to accomplish. There is no question that he is highly respected across the state among coaches.”

But winning titles isn’t the most important thing to Libby. It’s the students’ experience that concerns him the most.

“The team expectation is that the goals of the entire track program are more important than individual goals,” he says.

“We try to get these kids to enjoy working hard. The great thing about track and field is that everything is measured in time and distance, so we can see concrete success. We’re a high-five oriented program.”

Another measure of success for Libby is the summertime Red Riot Track Club for students ages 5 to 14. “I decided that one of the easiest ways to get students to enjoy track and field is to hook them at a young age,” Libby says. Libby took over the recreational track program in the summer of 2002. About 20 kids participated during that first summer. Today, over 100 young kids in the area take part.

Libby attributes the growing numbers to the dozen or so high school athletes who help him out during the eight-week program. “The high school athletes are the key to the program,” Libby says. “These high school kids love sharing their knowledge with the younger kids, and the young kids look up to the big kids.”

It’s a mentoring program that works.

More kids have been joining the track and field teams in middle school and high school, which, for a small school like Orono, is important. Libby’s indoor track team usually consists of 20 to 25 students, and the outdoor team has around 45 to 50. “Most schools our size don’t have an indoor track program, so we compete against much larger schools.”

But, as anyone will tell you, coaching a high school sport doesn’t just happen on the court, field, or track. It happens in the classroom.

“Come to our school after the day has ended and walk down our halls and look into our classrooms,” Archer says.

“You will always find a large number of students in his classroom after school, hanging out and talking about their day with Coach Libby. I think that speaks volumes, in and of itself.”

Photo: melanie brooks

metro sports: high school

metro sports: college

Summer is for

Sports Sports summer camps are a tradition and right of passage for many youth. Camps at the University of Maine in Orono provide first-class facilities, as well as a chance for younger students to learn from the college athletes they admire all year long. By Laura Reed

Photo: Yobro10/thinkstock.com

E

very year, around the beginning of May, the majority of the University of Maine’s nearly 11,000 students depart for the summer, leaving the bucolic campus quiet for several weeks. But things do not stay quiet for long. Each summer, hundreds of younger students, ages six to 18, invade the Orono campus to participate in summer sports camps.

The University of Maine offers 12 different summer sports camps, one for each of its varsity athletic programs. Students from around the state and New England come to the University of Maine to learn from Black Bears coaches and studentathletes and train in their facilities.

What is particularly unique to the camps is that University of Maine varsity student-athletes work as counselors and instructors. Children attending camps in the summer learn from the same Black Bears players they watch on the basketball court, ice hockey rink, and soccer pitch during the academic year.

For many of UMaine’s student-athletes, working at camp completes a circle that began many years ago.

“As a young player, I looked forward to participating in summer field hockey camps,” says Hannah Keating of York, Maine. She will be a senior in the fall on Maine’s field hockey squad. “I admired

the collegiate field hockey players and dreamed that I too could play at the college level one day.”

Having achieved her goal as a Division I student-athlete, Keating has a new perspective on the experience as a camp counselor.

“I’ve had so many positive experiences with field hockey, that I feel that it’s important to give back to the sport that has provided me with so much. At our UMaine field hockey camp, our team strives to instill the love and passion of the game in the campers by providing them with a fun, upbeat learning environment. We believe it’s our responsibility to teach and develop the campers skills, game knowledge, and mental components, so they can achieve their dreams and goals of furthering their field hockey career.”

Not only do campers learn valuable skills in their sport at UMaine sports camps, but they are introduced to the facilities. Rebecca Paradee, who will also be a senior on the Maine field hockey team in the fall, also remembers coming to camp and the valuable introduction she had to the facilities.

“The camp allowed me to enjoy many of my now favorite facilities on campus, including the dining hall, the field hockey field, the field house, the

recreation center, the swimming pools, and the dorm rooms,” Paradee says.

“Experiencing all the facilities and interaction with the girls working at the camp allowed get a feel for the atmosphere at UMaine. It is the same camp where I actually became friends with Cassidy Svetek, who is now my teammate. The camp is a great introduction to the campus and the atmosphere at UMaine.”

Maine women’s basketball senior Courtney Anderson, a native of Greene, Maine, also remembers attending camp as a youngster.

“As a young athlete myself I was able to attend UMaine women’s basketball camp,” Anderson says. “I was able to work on the fundamentals of the game, while also learning from women I looked up to. Now, as a camp counselor, I love the weeks that we have camp because it’s an opportunity to better young women. We teach the fundamentals while creating a fun and exciting environment.”

This summer, once again, hundreds of students will invade the athletic facilities at the University of Maine to compete in the sport they love. They will all dream of being the next star hockey player, football standout, or pitching ace. Chances are, a few years down the road, several will return to the Orono campus and excel as Black Bears student-athletes. www.bangormetro.com Bangor Metro / 49

food file

Malorie and Ben Sprague entertain their son William while cooking dinner.

A Meal with the Mayor Juggling politics and a new baby, Ben Sprague and his wife Malorie enjoy down time at home, with healthy, hearty meals.

STORY BY JOY HOLLOWELL / PHOTOS BY MARK MCCALL

50 / Bangor Metro June/July 2014

B

angor Mayor Ben Sprague credits his wife Malorie for turning up the heat in their marriage. “I’ve been a notoriously picky eater my whole life,” Sprague says.

“But I’ve gotten used to eating more spicy things since we’ve been together.”

Sprague knows the exact date he laid eyes on Malorie: September 1, 2011. It was in a downtown Bangor bar—something he’s actually quite proud of.

“I was by myself that night,” Sprague explains. “Talk about a really cool guy,” he adds sarcastically. “She was with a group of four or five friends.” He got her phone number before heading home and proposed three months later, on Christmas Eve. “I knew I had struck gold, and I knew that she was perfect,” he says, speaking up a bit, as the chicken Malorie is cooking with butter on the stove starts to sizzle. “I knew that I didn’t want to waste any time.”

The two married exactly one year after they met. Last December, they welcomed a son, William.

“I didn’t anticipate when I moved back to Maine that things would develop so quickly, but I certainly don’t have any regrets,” he says and smiles.

The Spragues both grew up in Maine— he in a house just down the street from their current one in Bangor, she in Levant.

They didn’t know each other back then.

After graduating high school, Sprague attended Harvard University, majoring in government. “I actually focused in international relations, because I thought I might want to work for the state department,” he says.

Sprague also took a job with the Red Sox. “I was a tour guide for one year, and then I worked in the video production department for three years,” he explains.

“We did all the in-game entertainment.

I did part of the center field electronics scoreboard, where they put up the trivia and ‘This Day in History,’ as well as stats and notes about the players.”

Sprague’s plan all along was to return to Maine. “I always wanted to leave, but I also always wanted to come back,” he says. “I had a lot of great opportunities from growing up in Bangor: a safe community, great schools, lots of nice people around.”

He made a point of choosing a career that would make that transition easy. “I started as a financial adviser when I was in Boston. It was a job that I could do just about anywhere,” he explains. That

path led Sprague to Means Investment Company in Bangor, where he currently works as a financial adviser.

“I was the opposite of Ben,” Malorie says, as she seeds and chops green apples to add to the chicken. “I honestly thought once I was gone, I was never coming back.”

After graduation, Malorie spent time in California as well as Texas. “I really enjoyed the city life and the different cultures,” she says, acknowledging that’s where she picked up the Tex-Mex flavors in her favorite cooking.

“But after awhile, it did get old,” Malorie says. “I knew if I was going to have a family, [Maine] would be where I would have it. So, after five years of traveling around and experiencing different things, I knew it was time to come home.”

Tonight’s meal is a Sprague favorite: curried chicken. She adds chopped red peppers to the dish, followed by onion and curry powder. Aromas of sweet mixed with spice start to swirl with the steam rising from the stove top.

“Sometimes this gets spicy,” Sprague says, peering into the pan. “Did you put the habanero in this time?” he asks.

“I haven’t gotten there yet,” Malorie answers, “but I will.”

Adapting to change is something both Spragues have mastered, in a very short period of time. Ben already decided to run for Bangor City Council when the couple first met. “And he decided not to bring it up until he had me hooked,” Malorie says, then gives her husband a loving glare. “He kept it from me until maybe our, what, like fourth date or so?” she teasingly asks. Sprague smiles, silently nodding yes.

“Actually, [we spent] three or four of our first dates stamping envelopes and licking stamps for my campaigns,” Sprague says, chuckling. “She was a good worker.”

Malorie admits she wasn’t passionate about politics at the beginning of their relationship, but she says he’s been teaching her. “Actually, she’s still not into politics, which I value because I can come home and we don’t have to rehash every little single moment from city council. It’s kind of refreshing,” Sprague says. “Also, she’s got a lot of common sense. If you don’t have a political background, the common sense shines through in better ways, I think. It’s not clouded by preconceived notions or partisanship.”

Two years into his term on the council, Sprague was appointed Bangor Council

recipe Malorie Sprague’s Curried Chicken 3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cubed Salt and pepper to taste 1 Tbsp. paprika 2 Granny Smith apples, cored and chopped 2 red bell peppers, seeded and chopped 1 Tbsp. onion powder 1 Tbsp. curry powder, or more to taste 1 habanero pepper, chopped (optional for a spicier dish) 1 10.75 ounce can Cream of Chicken soup (98% fat free) 1 cup milk or cream (the Spragues use skim) 4 servings cooked brown rice Melt butter in large pan over medium heat.

Add chicken, salt, pepper, and paprika. Cook about 5 minutes. Add apple and red pepper, season with onion and curry powder. Cook until tender, about 7-10 minutes.

Start cooking rice, according to package.

Add habanero to chicken dish. Stir in soup and milk until combined.

Spoon over cooked rice and enjoy. www.bangormetro.com Bangor Metro / 51

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food file

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Chair, or what’s commonly referred to as mayor. He’s believed to be the youngest mayor in Bangor’s history. “Bill Cohen was 32, and I’m 30. He’s one of my political role models, so to be even in the same sentence as him or to have the same role that he had means a lot to me.”

Keeping his hometown moving forward also means a lot to Sprague.

“When I was in high school, there was nothing to do,” he says. “We would go and walk around the grocery store, or we would watch planes land at the airport.

You look now, most of the good places to hang out downtown weren’t there even five years ago.”

Sprague credits the American Folk Festival with turning things around. “From there, you had KahBang and Waterfront Concerts bringing tens of thousands of people to Bangor,” he says. “Those shows are good for the economy, but they’re also good to make this a socially viable place to live. Jobs are a major part of the equation, but people also want to be where things are going on.”

Sprague pauses to put baby William down in his bouncing chair. “In all honestly, that’s one of the reasons why I want to do city council, so that [William] can grow up in a community with safe streets and good schools. And then he can go off and then come back someday, too. There’s increased meaning behind it now.”

Malorie places cooked brown rice on a platter, then gives the curried chicken one last stir before spooning the chicken over the rice. “The goal is to make dishes that are healthy but will also last a few days,” Sprague says. “Want to try some?”

The sweet flavors of curry and apple are the first ingredients to touch your taste buds, but it doesn’t take long for the heat to kick in. “Whew, that is spicy!” Sprague exclaims after a bite or two. His eyes beginning to water. “Habanero is pretty hot,” he says, heading to the fridge for a drink.

“If she makes it with jalapenos, I can do it pretty easily.”

Trying things outside his comfort zone is what compels Sprague both personally and politically. But the comforts of home are, without a doubt, his top priority in life. “I’m tentatively planning to run for re-election [this November], with my wife’s blessing, of course,” he says. “If she said that it’s just too busy and needs me at home, I would not run in a heart beat and not think twice about it.”

kitchen confidential Where are you from and how did you end up in Maine?

I’m from Miyagi prefecture in the northeast of Japan. Twelve years ago, I came to Rockland to visit my cousin, who earned her Ph.D. at the University of Maine, and I met my husband here. Most of my family still lives in Japan. I try to go back to visit once a year.

What is your first food memory?

Cucumbers, tomatoes, and eggs from my grandparent’s farm. Natto, which are slimy fermented soybeans, were my favorite. I loved the rice that my grandparents grew. I grew up in the city, and my grandparents lived about an hour away by car in the country.

What are some of your early cooking experiences?

I remember cutting and sautéing vegetables with my mother.

Any family influences on your style and taste?

The traditional foods of my region in Japan are rice, fish, and vegetables. Very simple. We appreciate the quality of the ingredients, not fancy preparation. This is still my taste.

Where did you study or apprentice?

I am mostly self-taught, and I do not consider myself a great chef. I learned at Oh! Bento, my cousin’s restaurant in Rockland, as well as at the Sushi Academy in Tokyo for a month. I’ve learned a lot from videos online.

When did you realize you were a chef?

Soon after opening Suzuki’s.

Keiko Suzuki Steinberger uses local seafood and produce to please the palates of sushi lovers, from the Midcoast and beyond. By Melanie Brooks 54 / Bangor Metro June/July 2014

What do you love about your location?

Being right on Main Street in the middle of a friendly little city.

What is your favorite ingredient to work with?

Photos: mark mccall

suzuki’s Sushi Bar

When did Suzuki’s Sushi Bar open?

How and why did it happen?

Eight years ago, after leaving Oh! Bento, my husband and I wandered along Main Street in Rockland, looking for a space for a small sushi bar. We weren’t looking in a very serious way, just fantasizing.

But we found a nice space and got really excited. One thing led to another.

Opposite page: Keiko Suzuki Steinberger This photo: A selection of sushi.

Uni, scallops, mackerel, toro, beautiful locally grown vegetables, and foraged mushrooms.

What is the dish we are featuring? How did it come about?

I used seasonal local ingredients, such as poached monk fish liver pate, diver scallop, and uni sea urchin roe. The other things, which are not local, are ikura salmon roe and spicy tuna. My customers trust my choice, and this allows me to buy the very best ingredients available on any given day, even when the ingredients are not the usual things people expect.

What are your favorite restaurants?

Primo Restaurant in Rockland and Long Grain in Camden.

Least favorite job-related task?

Hanging up the laundry. I do all of the washing for the restaurant.

When was the last time you really surprised yourself in the kitchen?

I am always surprised just to be in the

kitchen! I never expected to own a restaurant.

sashimi, matsutake, natto, and a beautiful salad.

What does a perfect day off look like?

Having breakfast with my family, going shopping, and having a leisurely lunch out with friends.

What do you love most about your job?

What is the most fun for me is getting to know the people I work with: my staff, the wonderful farmers, foragers, and fishermen who are my suppliers, and, especially, my customers. I feel so honored that all these people are a part of Suzuki’s.

What would you want your last meal to be?

Really good hakata tonkotsu ramen, toro

more info suzuki’s sushi Bar 419 Main Street, Rockland 207-596-7447

rants in the U.S., and one of the 10 best in New England. Voted Best Sushi by Bangor Metro readers in 2013.

Hours: Open at 5 p.m. Tues.–Sat.

First timer tip: Ask for advice from your waiter, and don’t be afraid to try new things.

Specialities: Sushi and sashimi made with local seafood and vegetables. Featured dish is omakase (chef’s choice) assortment of sushi and sashimi.

Sample menu item: Gyoza dumplings we make with local pork, steamed to order.

Accolades: The O.A. Guide to U.S. Restaurants ranks Suzuki’s in the 100 best restau-

Directions: 419 Main Street in Rockland—right in the center of town.

www.bangormetro.com Bangor Metro / 55

per spectives

Mike Taylor

56 / Bangor Metro June/July 2014

Mike Taylor is the owner and photographer at Taylor Photography, a freelance imaging studio based in a 19th-century farmhouse in central Maine. He has been a scenic/nature and studio photographer for more than 20 years.

He moved to Maine years ago when he decided to get away from the bureaucracy, traffic, and congestion of the Washington, D.C. outskirts, where he was born and raised.

Taylor is an accomplished landscape astrophotographer, with his recent work featured on The Weather Channel, NBC News, Discovery Channel, Yahoo! News, Space.com, Earthsky.org, Spaceweather.com, and multiple other science websites and social media pages.

Taylor teaches night photography and post-processing workshops in scenic areas of Maine, including Pemaquid and Marshall Point Lighthouses, Acadia National Park, Moosehead Lake, and the Western Mountains. His courses are available as group sessions as well as oneon-one instruction. For information, visit his website at www.miketaylorphoto.com. www.bangormetro.com Bangor Metro / 57

maine woods & waters

Dear Vacationers Maine is touted as Vacationland for good reason, but are you sure you want to move here? By Brad Eden

shouldn’t be plated with the claws cracked and the tail split. They are meant to be hard to eat. You should be so frustrated at trying to finagle out some knuckle meat that it’s a religious experience when it finally hits your palate. And never, ever leave the body un-dissected. Some of the tastiest meat is hidden in those nooks and crannies. I won’t even go into the sacrilege of not eating the tamale.

You have vacationed here and have decided to move here. I have seen many people show up and then skedaddle when the dream of residing in Maine didn’t fit what they read in a magazine.

You need to at least make an attempt to assimilate. Mainers can be private and taciturn people, but they can also be kind and generous, and, above all, capable. Don’t go and nail up “No Trespassing” signs on every corner of your postage stamp-sized lot. Your little slice of heaven is likely too small to interest any hikers or hunters. If you’re lucky enough to live on a lake, don’t become indignant about people in boats fishing around your dock. The stocked trout were paid for by sportsmen’s dollars. And there is no need to call the police if you spy someone walking along the road carrying a firearm. It’s highly doubtful it’s a mass murderer, but it is likely to be someone on his or her way to a bird cover or a deer stand.

If you haven’t alienated yourself by trying to change things so they mirror what you left, then you will have grown some shallow roots here before you know it. Congratulations, you have become another reticent, winter-weary resident who gets stuck behind RV’s on

I have lived in Maine for the last half of my 56 years on earth, and, at the risk of tarnishing my outdoorsman ‘woods cred,’ I was born and raised in Massachusetts.

I am and always will be “from away,” like you. move at a slower pace up here, and only honk our horn if there is a moose in our way—and “flipping the bird” is what we do when cooking the game birds we hunt and eat.

Please learn how to eat steamed lobster the right way. These crustaceans

58 / Bangor Metro June/July 2014

their way to work and will have learned that soft-shell lobster are not only cheaper but sweeter and much easier to eat.

Welcome.

Brad Eden is an artist, writer, and registered Maine Master Guide.

Photo: Marcio Silva/thinkstock.com

D

ear summer visitors to the great state of Maine: Hello, and welcome to the most beautiful place on earth, during these peak summer months. Please be patient with those of us who live here year-round, as we are a bit grumpy after a brutal winter, a prolonged mud season, and a prolific black fly season.

I feel I am particularly well-equipped to dole out some advice on vacationing in Maine, as well as guide those who have an itch to move here. I have lived in Maine for the last half of my 56 years on earth, and, at the risk of tarnishing my outdoorsman ‘woods cred,’ I was born and raised in Massachusetts. I am and always will be “from away,” like you.

During those early, formative years, my family of seven, a dog, and a couple of Siamese cats piled in a station wagon each summer and drove north to vacation on Mount Desert Island. We rented the same cottage on Somes Sound for two to three weeks, from the time I was knee high until my mid-twenties.

Not all of us who reside here rely on tourist dollars to keep us afloat, but we respect that many of our neighbors and friends do. Do us a favor: When you are sightseeing or laboring uphill in your behemoth RV at 20-miles-per-hour under the speed limit, occasionally look in your rear view mirror. When the line behind you stretches back to the border, please find a safe place to pull over and let us by. We are heading to jobs, bringing our kids to school, and generally doing what you did before you left for vacation. Also, when in traffic, please chill out and slow down. We

savvy seniors

Making a Fresh Start: Photo: moodboard/thinkstock.com

I A New Way to Focus Your Next Career

It’s not enough to look for jobs in your local newspaper any more. Job websites and social media are instrumental in forwarding your career or starting a new one. By Jane Margesson

n today’s tough economy, many older workers are finding a need to work longer or to take on a part-time job, even if they have retired. Some experienced workers are also choosing to re-enter the workforce because they miss the interaction and intellectual engagement a job can bring. Still others are making important decisions about shifting the focus of their careers to explore new fields or to pursue a lifelong dream.

Whatever path leads you to the point in your life when a job change or job search is on the horizon, having the right tools to successfully achieve your goals can make the process much easwww.bangormetro.com Bangor Metro / 59

savvy seniors ier. You are probably aware that finding a new job or launching a second career can be quite challenging. In many cases, experienced workers also may be juggling a host of family obligations. It is not uncommon, for example, for adults to be part of what is known as the “sandwich generation.” They are a generation of people who care for their aging parents while supporting their own children. Having the right tools to successfully embark upon your job search can make a huge difference.

AARP has an interactive tool called Work Reimagined that can serve as a gateway to everything one needs to get the right job. Work Reimagined is based on online social networks. By using specific job information, access to original and developed content, and best practice advice, Work Reimagined provides wonderful insights to experienced workers that can make the difference in today’s job market.

Work Reimagined has three main components: the website www.workreimagined.org, the Work Reimagined LinkedIn page, and the employers who are seeking experience workers. One of the main goals of Work Reimagined is to turn the word “experienced” into something very positive. Being engaged in the Work Reimagined community will help you stay connected with, and able to learn from, others

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Jane Margesson is the communications director for AARP Maine.

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who are developing their own ways to return to the job market.

If you are not familiar with LinkedIn, this might be a good time to start exploring. There are more than 160 million people nationwide on LinkedIn. By joining the LinkedIn network, you can expand your reach of contacts by leaps and bounds.

Through Work Reimagined, employers are actually signing a pledge that promotes their commitment to the value of experienced workers and nondiscriminatory hiring policies. If you want to see the companies that are hiring and are making this commitment, you will find them on the site, along with all the unique and helpful content Work Reimagined provides. These companies see the value in experienced workers and are open to implementing values that support a more mature work force.

If you are looking for work, it is a good idea to put together your resume and supporting materials, such as references and cover letters, early in the process. Remember to keep your resume current so it highlights your experience and, more importantly, demonstrates how you can use that experience at the new job.

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www.bangormetro.com Bangor Metro / 61

last word

G

A Day at the Beach There are certain, unwritten rules one must follow when planning a trip to the beach. By Chris Quimby

Recently, my wife and I got into something I refer to as a Ridiculous Marital Argument (RMA), involving which foods we should bring to the beach. These RMAs are rather commonplace among married couples.

They begin with a trivial disagreement and grow to something much bigger than they’re worth. It is the type of thing single people hear of and further confirms their desire to never get married.

Our RMA revolved around whether a whoopie pie is an appropriate beach food. For those outside of New England, I must inform you a whoopie pie consists of two circular pieces of chocolate cake, shaped like large cookies, that join forces to sandwich a tasty glob of creamy frostinglike stuff. They are quite enjoyable.

However, I do not appreciate the mental image of a sweaty sunbather lying on a towel, working their frosting-painted lips around the fatty dessert item, then licking the chocolate cake residue from their fingers.

Some foods you eat, others you wear. Whoopie pies, especially when consumed in the sun, oftentimes fall into the latter category.

My wife, on the other hand, disagrees with my whoopie pie prohibition.

Her line of reasoning is quite simple. We were going to the beach, and she wanted to eat a whoopie pie. Why not eat the whoopie pie on the beach?

It’s hard to argue against such logic, especially without sleeping on the couch.

The futility of an argument, though, is rarely enough temptation for me to shut my mouth. The discussion continued longer than it should have, until even the writers for Seinfeld could be heard saying, “Wow. This is such a trivial subject.”

I am proud to say no whoopie pie was brought by us that day. It’s not that I really would’ve cared. My position was more about principle than anything else. It was one of those arguments in which I quickly realized my tendencies were based mostly on culture, tradition, and personal preference and not any objective moral standard. There are just some things you don’t eat at the beach, like lasagna, tacos, or cream horns.

Why? Is it a law? Is it written somewhere in the book of Leviticus? No, but it is simply an understood moral agreement among upstanding citizens, something written on the hearts of all men. It’s the same force that causes us to treat each other with respect, to help those in need, and never to wear Speedos in public.

Chris Quimby is a husband, father, Christian comedian, writer, and graphic designer from Brooks. Visit him on the web at chrisquimby.com or nachotree.com.

62 / Bangor Metro June/July 2014

image: Darumo/thinkstock.com

oing to the beach is fun, but preparation is needed.

For example, many people wish to find a swimsuit to highlight their most attractive features and hide the others. For some, this will only require a small, multicolored piece of fabric. Others may need a marine tarp and some duct tape. I am somewhere in between. I wear swim trunks, partly because I don’t think guys should wear Speedos and partly because I look horrible in a two-piece bikini. Just believe me on that.

But beyond the clothing, there are many other items you must take to the beach. You might pick from some of the following: 1. FOOD: Chips and soda are easy items to bring.

2. MUSIC PLAYING DEVICE: An iDevice or small AM/FM radio is recommended. Tubas and French horns tend to be too bulky and need to be constantly tuned with fluctuations in air temperature.

3. FRIENDS: People, especially children, who request you to watch their every move while in the water, yelling, “Watch this! Watch this!” You comply, only to be profoundly unimpressed by the sight of them simply splashing around.

See if your favorite restaurants made the list!

Coming in the August Issue of Bangor Metro

www.bangormetro.com Bangor Metro / 63

unsung hero

Joe Roebuck, Corinth, remote access coordinator for LifeFlight of Maine

BY DAVID BROWN

64 / BANGOR METRO June/July 2014

M

PHOTO: DAVID BROWN/NORTHSTAR PHOTOGRAPHY

Help from Above

y name is Jon Roebuck, but everyone calls me J.R. For the past 12 years, I have worked as a communications specialist for MedComm, a private communications center for four ambulance services. Most recently I have been the remote access coordinator for LifeFlight of Maine.

The Remote Access Project makes it easier for injured parties to find rescue in areas that would normally not be accessible for ground rescue units.

I am so proud of what we do, and here’s an example why. One winter we received a call about a snowmobiler who fell behind her group, went off trail, and sustained major injuries. She missed a turn and wound up about 45 feet off the trail with her snowmobile on top of her and the treads cutting into her body. After being found by friends, 911 was immediately called. Rescuers from the Jackman Fire Department responded; but since it would take them nearly an hour to reach the victim, LifeFlight was also called to the scene.

The LifeFlight helicopter arrived first.

Pilot Alan West found a large clearing a few hundred yards away from the scene and set the aircraft down just long enough to let the crew out before finding a suitable landing zone. The crew from the Jackman Fire Department arrived with snowmobiles and a rescue sled. They transported the victim and the flight crew to the helicopter for the 33-minute flight to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor.

Surgeons at EMMC immediately took her to the operating room. Over the next few weeks, she underwent eight surgeries. She was able to go home after a fiveweek stay in the hospital and returned to work about 90 days after the accident.

“I don’t know what the outcome would have been if this had happened 20 years ago,” says Mark Grant, a trauma surgeon at EMMC. “The reason why she’s alive today is because of LifeFlight.”

A hero, to me, is as simple as ordinary people doing extraordinary things. I love what I am doing, and I have to say the thing that keeps me moving forward is the Remote Access Program, which is still just getting going. There is still a lot of work left to do in accumulating and identifying remote landing zones and learning how best to utilize them for that specific area. And there is also more work to do in education and safety.

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