Devastating fires, bizarre murders and the cost of getting rid of our rubbish dominated the news in mid-Maine over the past year. The state of the economy in Maine became the No. 1 story, followed closely by four runners-up.

As voted by the reporting staff of the Mid-Maine Bureau of the Bangor Daily News, the top five stories in mid-Maine in 1990 appear to be: the economy, the January collapse of the Reny’s Department Store in Dexter, the media circus created when three Pittsfield boys appeared to find a Honus Wagner baseball card worth hundreds of thousands of dollars; bizarre murders and murderers — from an apparent Thanksgiving Day execution of two men in Clinton, to the escape of a mystery murderer from Newport District Court, to the discovery of a Pittsfield woman’s body in Virginia; the destruction of $2 million worth of Newport property in three devastating fires.

The Mid-Maine reporters voted that the most humiliating story of 1990 was the theft of the light bar and siren from the Pittsfield police cruiser last January. The funniest story was the discovery of a deer, stolen in Pittsfield, that was being consumed bite by bite in a Dexter outhouse. The most tragic story was the loss of four children in a Corinna fire this fall.

The most miraculous story was the Christmas miracle of Tanya Bellefontaine. The 5-year-old Pittsfield girl was home for Christmas, opening gifts, after recovering from a drowning in the town Mill Pond. Steve Rollins and Police Chief Spencer Havey rescued the child, who had no heartbeat, from the pond. Efforts at Sebasticook Valley Hospital enabled the child to recover completely, with no ill effects, from the near-fatal accident.

The year 1990 began on a tragic note, with the death of Newport firefighter Francis “Mac” McKenzie after he responded to an accident scene on Route 2.

The activities of area fire departments dominated the news for the next year, in the aftermath of three major fires in Newport. Much of Main Street was burned in May when two boys ignited a pile of rags with a cigarette lighter. Six businesses and 17 people were left homeless. A former potato house and storage facility burned in East Newport in June, and the landmark Friend and Whitney oil company literally exploded in July. Damage totaled more than $2 million.

Fires across the area leveled homes in Skowhegan, Corinna, Garland, Pittsfield and Newport. Newport fire personnel responded to a record number of rescue and fire calls, more than 300 by year’s end.

On Jan. 30, more than 200 fire and rescue personnel responded to Dexter’s Main Street when the roof of Reny’s Department Store collapsed, injuring three people. The collapse was attributed to 14 inches of fresh, wet snow.

The economy was the major 1990 story, with growth in the mid-Maine area balanced by the closing of several large facilities. Ethan Allen Inc. in Burnham and Hood’s in Newport closed this fall, resulting in the loss of more than 200 jobs.

The list of small-business closings was lengthy: in Pittsfield, the Oriental Restaurant, VIP Auto Parts, DownEast Hardware and the still-empty Ben Franklin franchise; in Newport, Carlos’ Pizza, Newport Furniture, Elm Street Florist, Spartan’s Gymnasium.

In April, the 150-year-old weekly newspaper, The Skowhegan Reporter, folded. By the end of the year, My Brothers Table, an ecumenical soup kitchen, was feeding three times as many people as the year before and the Tri-Town Food Bank had been established in Hartland to help families in Hartland, St. Albans and Palmyra. General assistance accounts in all area towns were overdrawn.

In November, Newport officials failed in their bid to interest area businesspeople in a Community Development Block Grant.

By year’s end, the effect of the slowing economy was manifested on area police logs. A Pittsfield man, unemployed for four months, robbed a Detroit convenience store at knifepoint, kidnapping the store clerk. In Waterville, another unemployed man was charged with armed robbery in a motel-robbing spree that extended from Bangor to Augusta.

Growth in the area was also evident. In April, Hancock Lumber of Pittsfield opened an outlet and a new hangar was approved at Pittsfield Municipal Airport. Cianbro Corp. was awarded a $2.6 million contract in Solon, and Banton Bros. of Newport marked its 125th year in business.

In January, AAA Energy Services began construction of a building to house three businesses in the Pittsfield Industrial Park. Triangle Plaza, home to more than half a dozen new businesses, opened in Newport, and Konover and Associates announced plans for a $25 million, 500,000-square-foot mall in Waterville. By June, the Pittsfield Revolving Loan Fund had enabled former employees to purchase M&M Machine and Corriander’s Restaurant.

Town governments struggled with decisions that ranged from accepting unpaved roads to agreeing to high rubbish fees. Citizens’ groups sprang up across the area in an attempt to gain more control over local decision-making. Dexter residents initiated Citizens for Responsible Government. Pittsfield Concerned Citizens battled school budgetary decisions and the Newport Taxpayers Association began scrutinizing the town manager and the board of selectmen.

Palmyra, Skowhegan and Dexter began revaluations, while Fairfield residents were divided over the court-ordered acceptance of Williams Street Extension. In Palmyra, former First Selectman Patrick White was hired as the town’s first administrative assistant. Clyde Dyar was hired in Pittsfield as an economic development consultant, and Hans Klunder was hired in Newport to help create a Comprehensive Plan.

Politics in Pittsfield took a bizarre turn in June when Jay Striga was arrested for possession of a firearm by a felon, three days after his resignation as a Pittsfield councilor. In November, in a stunning upset victory, Pittsfield Police Chief Spencer Havey defeated Somerset County Sheriff William Wright after a hard-fought political campaign.

In Hartland, bad news was received early in the year when the Bureau of Environmental Protection ordered the town to pay $45,600 in fines for violating state water quality laws at the town’s sewage plant. Voters in Hartland defeated an attempt to raise $10,000 at the March town meeting to rebuild the town’s bandstand, but later in the summer a group of volunteers redid the 1800s landmark with volunteer labor, as a part of the Maine Street ’90 project.

Hartland also rebuilt its dam in 1990, after it had been heavily damaged in the 1987 flood.

In Garland, voters in March decided to renovate and return to the former town office, which was built in 1841.

In May, Consolidated Waste Services of Norridgewock dropped a $10 million suit against the town’s solid waste ordinance, after it was learned they were affecting the town’s credit rating with the suit.

In Palmrya, residents purchased 40 acres of recreational land surrounding their town office and began development. In May, Pittsfield named Connors Avenue in honor of Councilor Everett Connors.

Pittsfield led recycling efforts in the area, creating a regional recycling facility, and Palmyra received a grant to purchase a recycling truck. Dexter residents established dropoff centers for recyclables in May. The ABC cooperative in Cornville received a state grant for recycling and composting efforts.

Dexter began dreaming of a creative playground with the presentation of a design in March, and completed the project at Crosby Park in the summer. In January, the Ralph Owen Brewster House in Dexter was entered in the National Register of Historic Places.

In June, Dexter Utility District voted not to allow ice houses on Lake Wassookeag because of pollution to the water supply. Dexter also tallied up the $640,000 in revenue collected from the landfilling of ash from the Penobscot Energy Recovery Corp. facility. The three-year project came to a close in March.

In May, Newport officials won a $45,165 default judgement against David Page, who had failed to provide the town with a usable revaluation.

Sebasticook Valley Hospital hired several new specialists and began a series of minitown meetings. They also formed an ambulance study group to research future ambulance and rescue needs. In February, midwives were allowed to operate from a clinic at the hospital. Ardis White and SVH received a two-year license for the hospital’s first-rate Chemical Dependency Treatment Program.

The environment became an issue in Newport and Plymouth. A Newport businessman and a commercial septage hauler were cited and fined for the illegal dumping of sewage in East Newport early this summer.

In Plymouth, residents on the south ridge of town received word in late October that they qualified for federal Super Fund cleanup money. The money wil be used at the so-called West Site, where 11 households have contaminated wells from a waste oil spill. More than 40 families will be provided with an alternate water source.

Grisly murders and murderers dominated many headlines in mid-Maine this year. In March, the Ronald Boobar murder trial was transferred from Bangor to the Somerset County Superior Court. Boobar was found guilty in June of killing 13-year-old Rebecca Pelkey of Bangor. Tread marks from Boobar’s sneakers reportedly were found on the girl’s face and chest.

In January, Leslie Scott Ashcraft was captured in Georgia, culiminating a five-month nationwide search that began in Georgia and continued through Texas and Oklahoma, with a prominent stop in Newport.

Ashcraft was being detained in Newport District Court in September 1989 for an aggravated forgery charge when he escaped and eluded police for weeks. His true identity was unknown at the time.

Ashcraft, as John Knight, had gained the confidence of Newport residents, working for many local people and living on Main Street, next door to the courthouse and across the street from the police station.

After his escape, it was learned that Knight was Ashcraft, wanted for escape from jail in Georgia, where he was serving a life sentence for the gruesome drug slaying of his brother-in-law. He reportedly killed the man over a drug purchase, tied his body with chains, disfigured him with acid and dumped the body into a nearby swamp. His arrest in January was hailed by area residents, who said they had begun locking their doors and carrying weapons after his escape.

Capping the list of area murders was the Thanksgiving Day execution of two men in a Fairfield farmhouse. Two companions were arrested for their deaths and are awaiting trial. The deaths were said to be over a $160 paycheck.

The men reportedly were shot Thanksgiving morning, after which their killers entertained family guests, with one body hidden in the cellar and the second in the truck of their car. Clothes and the bodies were dumped in three separate locations in two counties.

Equally bizarre was the discovery in November at Spotsylvania, Pa., of the body of Pittsfield mother Shirley McAvoy, 32. McAvoy had been missing from her Berry Road home since August and had been the subject of a nationwide hunt after the discovery of a bloodstain in her mobile home. McAvoy’s death is considered a homicide and her killer is still at large.

At year’s end, police were investigating another death. The untimely death of a 6-month-old boy in Corinna has been termed suspicious by state police detectives.

In other police news, Newport received a $4,000 OUI grant. In Hartland, angry residents spoke up against rowdiness on their streets and formed a citizens watchdog group in August.

In June, Pittsfield Police Officer Pierre Boucher was involved in a shootout with Richard Pierce of Dover-Foxcroft on Route 2 after a routine traffic stop. Boucher was uninjured but Pierce was hospitalized with two gunshot wounds. He is awaiting trial at Augusta Mental Heath Institute. Twenty-two shots were exchanged in the battle, the most since a shootout in Limerick in 1959.

Educational issues made the news, particularly when a group of concerned parents began questioning Dexter’s reading curriculum, Impressions, over the last few weeks.

Earlier in the year, tensions developed between the SAD 48 Teachers Association and Superintendent of Schools Raymond Freve. After a series of meetings, these issues seem to have dissolved.

In SAD 53, voters in May slashed $100,971 from the proposed school budget. In December, SAD 53 directors began negotiating with Maine Central Institute for a 10-year secondary education contract.

Hartland Christian School students traveled to the New England Regional competition for Christian schools and brought first-place honors back to Hartland.

Head Start, through the Kennebec Valley Community Action Program, expanded to Palmyra in April, and SAD 46 began the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program in their fifth and sixth grades in May. In February, the MCI Ski Team won the Penquis League championship, as did the Dexter Cheerleaders in January.

MCI senior Peter Witham wrote and performed the 1990 class song in Pittsfield, while in Febrary MCI junior Stephanie Shaw was accepted to the American Soccer Ambassadors 1990 European Tour. Early in the year, a SAD 48 volunteer group was formed, and expanded to encompass the district by year’s end.

SAD 53 formed a Dropout Prevention Committee in January, while nine Nokomis students collaborated and wrote “Fire Trucks Are Red” as a school project. By Christmas, the book was on sale at Mr. Paperback store in Newport.