Skowhegan boasts football Web site Bill MacManus returns to Maine as AD at Lawrence High in Fairfield

High school booster groups advocate for their favorite teams and players in a variety of ways, from tailgate parties to pep rallies, game-day dinners to postseason banquets.

At Skowhegan Area High School, the football boosters have taken their support of the Indians to the Internet at skowheganfootball.org.

Maintained by Jean Walker of Cornville, the site is all things Skowhegan football. Highlights include brief biographies of the players and coaching staff, varsity and subvarsity schedules and results, game photos, links to newspaper articles related to the team, updated Class A Crabtree point ratings, and information on the team’s off-season training regimen.

You also can enter the site’s online store, where Skowhegan football merchandise is available. All proceeds benefit the Skowhegan Football Boosters.

“We took it from the boosters’ point of view,” said Walker, a special education teacher at the Cornville Elementary School and mother of Indians’ standout fullback and safety Jared Walker. “We wanted to thank all of our business sponsors on the site, and, of course, we wanted to promote the kids.”

The Web site was born in 2002, and Walker said this year’s focus has been on developing the site as a one-stop source of Skowhegan football history. The site now features archived Indians’ game scores since 1943 as well a list of the Skowhegan Football Hall of Fame members, a list of all players who have earned first-team, all-conference honors, and an Indians’ alumni directory.

“We didn’t really have the history of the program in one place, it was all piecemeal everywhere,” Walker said. “That’s one thing that’s exciting about this Web site, because now we’re getting a lot of e-mail from people who played football. We’re starting to get more information about the history of the program, and hopefully it will continue to grow.”

MacManus returns to Maine

Bill MacManus, a Bangor native and a longtime fixture on the Maine high school sports scene, has returned to the Pine Tree State as assistant principal and director of co-curricular activities at Lawrence High School in Fairfield.

MacManus had spent the last 11 years as an elementary school principal in Massachusetts. Before that, he served in various administrative capacities at Brunswick High School, Mount Ararat School in Topsham and Greely High School in Cumberland Center.

“My fiancee works in the Portland area, and I’ve wanted to come back to Maine anyway, so this is a great fit for me,” said MacManus.

MacManus replaced Steve Ouellette, who left the Lawrence post over the summer to become athletic director at Monmouth Academy.

Before MacManus moved to southern Maine, he was an Eastern Maine basketball official for many years and also coached boys basketball at John Bapst Memorial High School in Bangor for two years, leading the Crusaders to a 20-2 record and the state Class D championship in 1982.

Ernie Clark may be reached at 990-8045, 1-800-310-8600 or eclark@bangordailynews.net