Bangor equestrienne Reed gains two year-end awards

A young Bangor equestrienne, in her first year of competition, has won two year-end awards for her performance during the summer show season.

Rebecca Reed, a 13-year-old who attends Garland Street Middle School, was awarded the Arabian Horse Association of Maine’s Year-End Award for her age group in English Pleasure and Halter/Showmanship last weekend at the association’s annual banquet in Winthrop.

Reed competes on her horse Sebec, a 4-year-old pure Arabian gelding and has been training for the past 1 1/2 years with Denise Mitchell of Bangor.

Year-end awards are determined by the number of points a rider acquires at different shows throughout the season.

Reed, who started riding just one year before she entered competition, entered shows in the central Maine area this summer where her finishes ranged from blue ribbons (first) to sixth place. A major accomplishment for this first-year rider was that she scored in every event she entered.

The 19th annual All-Maine Women’s Soccer Team has been selected by college coaches which represents teams at all levels.

Women earning All-Maine honors this fall are Kathy Britton and Neile Joler, St. Joseph’s College of Standish; Pam Crebase and Katy Donovan, Colby College of Waterville; and Amy Brunner and Dierdre O’Leary, Bates College of Lewiston.

Also selected were Sarah Roy, University of Maine-Presque Isle; Julie Roy and Heather McKay, Bowdoin College of Brunswick; and Mo McInnis and Michele Primiano, Thomas College of Waterville.

Completing the ’92 honors list are Rhonda Pelkey, University of Maine in Orono, and Merideth Hews, University of Maine-Farmington.

If there were a spot for “interesting combinations of the week” this might be the place to put Greenville girls soccer coach Paula Saunders.

It’s not often one comes upon a combination coach/school bus driver, especially when that person is female.

Saunders said she happened upon her bus-driving occupation five years ago when she was living in New Hampshire. “I needed extra income, saw an ad for bus drivers that said `will train’ so I signed up and started driving for Merrimack.”

Coaching goes back to the teen years for this 32-year-old mother of a 9-year-old son.

“I was an assistant on a Little League team when I was 15, coaching my sister,” Saunders explained, “and later worked at a YMCA for six years. I’ve always been involved with children and charities, plus I played basketball and field hockey in high school.”

Saunders, who had three girls named to the Penquis League All-Star team this fall, said she enjoys both jobs very much.

The combination does come in handy once in a while, especially if a replacement bus driver is needed to take the Greenville girls soccer team to a game.