When he was a U.S. senator, George J. Mitchell spent almost every weekend visiting various parts of Maine. He covered the whole state again and again. Today, as a Washington lawyer and part-time diplomat, he remains a virtual presence in every Maine high school, through the scholarship program that he founded.

When he retired from the Senate, he had a $l million political war chest left over. He asked contributors if they wanted it back or could he use it to help remedy a special Maine problem. They chose the remedy. That endowment has now grown to $3.2 million including current gifts and pledges.

The problem is that many of the most promising graduates from Maine high schools go out of state to college. And when they have left for college, they often stay away to work, finding careers elsewhere. The Mitchell Scholars Program cannot change this pattern on its own – it needs the state to make a major commitment to a far larger matching scholarship endowment – but it does award 160 four-year, $4,000 scholarships each year for study at Maine colleges on the basis of academic performance, community service and financial need.

They go to one senior from each of Maine’s 129 high schools. Thirty-one additional scholarships go to graduates of private and parochial schools and for home-schooled and nontraditional students.

Grades are not the only criterion. Winners are often in the middle of their classes but demonstrate special potential for the future. The program looks for students who plan to stay in Maine and contribute to progress in their state and their communities.

As its name implies, the Senator George J. Mitchell Scholarship Research Institute does far more than award scholarships. By the year 2002, the 640 Mitchell scholars who will be studying in Maine colleges at any one time will constitute a useful database for appraising educational progress and needs.

Preliminary research among them shows that more than half plan to go on to graduate school. Sixty percent worked during their first year of college, and nearly half of them did community service, for an average of three hours a week. A survey found that many Maine students, especially the first in their families to go to college, don’t know how to sign up for SATs, how to apply for college, and how to seek student aid.

Colleen Quint, executive director of the institute, describes the scholars as “a phenomenal group of kids, the salt of the earth.” She says, “They don’t know how good they are.” She has been speaking to various groups including the Bangor Rotary Club. Aside from further contributions to the endowment, the institute needs volunteer mentors to help guide the scholars into careers in Maine.