People tired of winter weather and looking for a change of pace, should take advantage of an inexpensive night out that is “fit as a fiddle” for the whole family.

Susan Potters, spokeswoman for the Arcady Music Society, reports its Sixth Annual Fiddlefest, Country Dance and Supper begins at 6 p.m. Saturday, March 10, at Hampden Academy. The dance follows supper.

Originally a fund-raiser for AMS, “we have found the main thing is that it is just a really fun family time,” Potters said.

The event has become “one of those great things where the fiddlers, who are between the ages of 5 and 85 and mostly amateurs, can come and be a part of it,” she explained.

Fiddlers arrive at Hampden Academy earlier in the day to work with Greg Boardman of Hallowell, who directs a Country Dance Fiddle Workshop, which enables fiddlers to “work on some tunes with the professional fiddler, and then stay and perform for this public country dance,” Potters explained.

The dance features more than 50 fiddlers from all over Maine, Potters said.

“It’s a real fun event, and we would love to get more people involved because everybody who comes just loves it,” she said.

“And folks should know that the supper is a combination of veggie casseroles or hot dogs and casseroles, and that we also have our own homemade desserts.”

Tickets for adults are $8 in advance or $10 at the door; $5 and $6, respectively, for children age 6 and older; and $20 or $24, respectively, for a family with two adults. Children age 5 and under are admitted free.

Tickets are on sale at BookMarc’s, Lippincott Books and Patrick’s Card Shop at the Broadway Shopping Center, all in Bangor, or can be purchased at the door.

This year’s Country Dance and Supper is sponsored by RDL Strings and Phenix Inn.

For more information about the Fiddlefest, or the Arcady Music Society, call Potters at 990-2805.

My friend, Fran Clukey, writes that Art in the Heart of Maine, with support from the University of Maine Museum of Art, will present “Our Students’ Art Exhibit 2001” during regular business hours Sunday, March 11 through Sunday, March 25, at the Bangor Mall.

Forty-two area art teachers select and hang the work of students in kindergarten through grade 12.

“The students do some great artwork,” Fran wrote, “and the exhibit is a great opportunity for them to show it off.

“The creativity of the youth artists of our area is such a pleasure to see, and the exhibit “a very rewarding opportunity to be recognized for talent all too often unseen.”

In addition to the art exhibit, approximately 150 pieces will be selected to tour the state for one year through the Vincent Hartgen Touring Art Program of the University of Maine Museum of Art.

Helping organize this exhibit were Bangor High School art teachers Sarah Tabor and Kal Elsmore.

It was with sorrow that I read of the passing of two people who left their marks on Maine.

The careers of both individuals affected us all: one through the food we ate; the other through the environment that produces that food, much of it wild.

I cannot imagine many Maine cooks who didn’t know of Mildred “Brownie” Schrumpf, who died in an Orono nursing home on Friday, March 2, at the age of 98.

I am proud that, for more than a decade until her “official” retirement in 1991, I was privileged to call Brownie my colleague. For 40 years, her folksy, down-to-earth column, “Brownie’s Kitchen” appeared on our pages.

Brownie was a wonder.

I remember her as a surprisingly spry 80-something too busy to stop and chat too long because she always had some younger “girls” waiting in her car. Even at a relatively advanced age, Brownie delighted in chauffeuring her much-younger friends.

She always had places to go, things to do, people to see, and she did that as long as her mind and body would allow.

Brownie was a treasure. Each time I turn the pages of one of her cookbooks, I will smile as I remember her.

Bill Peppard of Eddington was just 78 when he died Friday, March 2.

Bill’s innate love of the Maine outdoors led him to become not only a professional steward of our environment, but a personal one as well.

Professionally, he served in a multitude of capacities in which he had to make choices that he knew would affect our environment and our lives forever.

I believe the decisions he made were the best for all.

On a personal level, Bill carried his professionalism and his respect for the land, and the interaction of the people who inhabit it, to the community organizations he served.

He was a man who easily earned the respect of those with whom he worked, in any capacity, and one to whom many turned for needed advice and insight.

Bill Peppard not only brought to the table his expertise as a biologist, but also a great ability to clearly define what he believed were the complex and difficult decisions people had to make to ensure that the land he loved was protected and properly used.

To his family, I extend my sincere condolences, and offer my thanks that he left this place better than he found it.

Joni Averill, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04402; 990-8288.