Down East free speech advocate dies

GRAND LAKE STREAM – A Down East resident who gained notoriety two decades ago when he protested the banning of a book at his high school has died at age 37.

Michael Sheck of Grand Lake Stream and Calais died March 9 at a Boston hospital where he had been admitted for surgery. The victim of several strokes in recent years, Sheck also reportedly had a severe muscular disorder, according to his aunt Lillian Bailey of Grand Lake Stream.

An ardent lifelong supporter of freedom of speech, Sheck took a key role in testing the limits of the Baileyville school committee which, in 1981, ordered the removal of the book “365 Days” by Dr. Ronald Glasser from the school library at Woodland High School. The book, written by a physician who treated wounded soldiers in Vietnam, stirred concern among some parents because of strong language.

As a senior that year, Sheck borrowed a copy of the book from the Bangor Public Library, took it to his school after the school committee had banned it and subsequently was ordered to remove it.

The main plaintiff in a federal court case on the matter, Sheck spurred headlines statewide when he complained that his First Amendment rights were violated.

Sheck admitted he had taken the book to school to stir up a discussion but railed at school Principal John Morrison who told him to remove the book from school grounds or “he would treat it as if it were Playboy or Hustler magazine … and it would have to be confiscated,” Sheck testified at a 1981 hearing at U.S. District Court in Bangor.

In a strongly worded decision issued in January 1982, then-U.S. District Court Judge Conrad Cyr ordered the book back on school shelves.

In 1991, Sheck wrote a column that appeared in the Bangor Daily News near the 10th anniversary of the federal court decision urging a renewed commitment to free speech. For a time in his adult life, he wrote and lectured on the topic of free speech.

According to his aunt, Sheck was instrumental in starting the Grand Lake Stream Historical Society. The active organization recently obtained a large grant to refurbish a building for its headquarters.

Sheck is survived by his parents of Grand Lake Stream, two brothers and three sisters, several nieces and nephews. Memorial services will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, March 17, at the Grand Lake Stream Congregational Church with the Rev. Dana Kadey officiating. Spring burial will take place at the Grand Lake Stream Cemetery.