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Orono coach fails to recall recent history

Orono High School coach Wally Covell’s characterization of the rivalry between John Bapst and Orono as “they don’t like us and we don’t like them,” is both reprehensible and grossly inaccurate.

Before Mr. Covell came back to the coaching ranks, the relationship between these two schools was quite good. Former Orono head coach Matt Clark, for whom I have worked as an assistant in his two stints as head coach at Bapst, and I worked to make it a spirited but sportsmanlike rivalry.

In the two programs’ darkest hours, we practiced together so we had full complements of players and tried to help each other out. Neither Matt, nor I, nor any other coach at either school, has engendered this attitude. The previous head coach at Bapst was an Orono graduate, and Lester Cowan of the Orono staff has been a coach at Bapst under two different head coaches.

Mr. Covell’s attitude deserves excoriation and Orono High School, an institution with one of the proudest football traditions in Maine, would do well to find a better person to lead them. His lack of sportsmanship is galling.

Bruce E. Pratt

Eddington

Changes needed in duck hunting seasons

One of the major responsibilities of the Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife is to provide as much hunting opportunities for the various wildlife species depending on the population status of that species. Usually, DIF&W does an excellent job in this aspect.

However, in setting duck hunting season dates for the South zone, DIF&W is way off course. And the average duck hunter loses considerable hunting opportunities.

Duck hunters in Washington and Hancock counties have been hit with a major foul in that the South zone duck season is closed the last two weeks in October.

This is a time when considerable numbers of migrant ducks move into and through the area. Plus, any duck season in December is lost due to ice conditions.

With a 60-day allowance, the South zone duck season must include all of October. The South zone duck season must be a straight season. If a split season is used, then an equal number of hunting days must be in each split. Plus, black ducks should open Oct. 1.

It appears that duck seasons have been set for southern Maine with no regard for the rest of the state.

Fred Hartman

Whiting