Yesterday …

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10 years ago – Feb. 5, 1994

(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)

BANGOR – Pupils in Ed Kelley’s first-grade classroom at the Downeast School sat around a large flip chart reciting poems about winter and “signing” the verses with their hands at the same time.

Kelley, a 20-year teaching veteran, believes poetry and sign language are a natural combination that keeps pupils interested. Traditional books “just don’t seem to grab the kids,” said Kelley.

He began experimenting with instructional techniques that combined written words and sign language five years ago in an effort to make education concrete for his pupils.

Kelley’s efforts plus those of other teachers appear to have paid off in dramatically higher test scores for pupils when they move on to the fourth grade. That’s a significant accomplishment in a school where three-quarters of the pupils qualify for free federally subsidized lunches, double the percentage for the city.

In the past four years, fourth-grade reading scores for former Downeast School pupils on the Maine Educational Assessment Test have jumped 115 points, while math scores have climbed 66 points. Scores in science have increased 103 points and humanities 62 points.

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ORONO – A good chunk of eastern Maine will converge upon the University of Maine when first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton arrives to sell her health care plan.

Organizing officials are expecting 6,000 people to attend the conference. The forum, sponsored by UMaine and U.S. Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell, also is expected to attract most of the state’s political figures.

Mrs. Clinton held a similar forum two months earlier in Boston. As the Clinton administration’s proposed health care overhaul begins to make its way through the Congress, the package is starting to face competition from alternative plans.

Since the university first released details of the visit, the Public Affairs office has been bombarded with calls from people seeking to attend the event. Within the first four hours after the announcement was made, officials were answering phone calls at the rate of 150 per hour.

25 years ago – Feb. 5, 1979

BANGOR – Frances Dighton Williams Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution announced five Good Citizen awards at local high schools.

The DAR’s Frances Dighton Williams Chapter co-chairwomen, Mrs. Robert Kiah and Mrs. Harold Burrill Jr., announced the awards. Recipients are Jean Brountas, Bangor High School, daughter of Mrs. and Mrs. Arthur Brountas; Bonnie Duncan, Brewer High School, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Duncan; David Immel, Hampden Academy, son of Mr. and Mrs. Richard Immel; John Bridges Jr., Bangor Christian School, son of Mrs. Betsy Bridges, Old Town; Joseph Carr, Hermon High School, son of Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Carr.

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BANGOR – Norris Shook, son of William Shook of Bangor, has been appointed by U.S. House Speaker Thomas O’Neill to be a page at the House of Representatives.

Shook, 17, who grew up and attended school in Hampden, began his service in the House, Jan. 29.

Now residing in North Eastham, Mass., Shook had been attending Nauset Regional High School. He will complete his senior year at the Pages’ School, which is located in the Library of Congress on Capitol Hill.

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HOLDEN – Cpl. Bruce Dowling, the son of Kenneth and Doris Dowling of Holden, is stationed with the U.S. Marines at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

He recently left on Caribbean maneuvers. He is assigned to the Second Medical Battalion as an equipment operator. This past fall he participated in the NATO exercises in Europe.

Cpl. Dowling is a 1976 graduate of Brewer High School.

50 years ago – Feb. 5, 1954

A proposal to cover the Kenduskeag stream between the State and Washington street bridges was revived at a meeting of the board of directors of the Bangor Chamber of Commerce.

Andrew J. Pease, advertising director of the Bangor Daily News and a member of the board, advanced the proposal as a project that should be studied as a means of helping to solve Bangor’s parking problem, as well as enhancing the value of property abutting the stream.

Pease figured that approximately 546 automobiles could be parked on the broad plaza that would extend between the two bridges. He urged the chamber to project its thinking into the future, calling attention to the fact that Maine’s super highway is getting closer to Bangor, that we have a new Bangor-Brewer bridge now under construction and that automobile registrations prove that more cars are on the highways than ever before.

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BANGOR – The seventh full concert of the Interracial Chorus given in Bangor will be presented Sunday night at the YMCA under the direction of William Cupp.

Soloists will be Mrs. Elma Bernard, Miss Barbara Sprague and Charles Heughen, all of whom are students of Mr. Cupp and are well-known in musical circles.

In past years, the chorus has appeared in concert in Castine, Greenville, Old Town, Belfast and Dover-Foxcroft, and has made many radio broadcasts. It has sung at convocations at Bangor Theological Seminary, before conventions of women’s clubs and at benefits of many kinds in the area. Mr. Cupp has directed the group since its inception several years ago.

Mrs. Bernard is known as a singer of great ability and charm.

Miss Sprague was a leading soloist at the Maine Music Camp for two years and in 1951 was soloist with the All-State Chorus at Augusta.

Mr. Heughen recently returned from an 18-months tour of duty with the U.S. Army in Germany during which time he was with special services. He was connected with the entertainment of the armed forces while in Germany, and has appeared in the United States as a night club entertainer.

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BANGOR – The annual hardware clinic sponsored by the Dunham-Hanson Co. was held at the Bangor House. More than 350 attended, 200 of whom were dealers from eastern and northern Maine and to the west as far as the Kennebec River. The clinic gave dealers an excellent opportunity to see what is new for spring and summer in the hardware lines.

An interesting feature was the garden shop, which featured lawn mowers, all types of tools used in gardening and various fertilizers.

There was also a sporting goods display, which featured the new things in fishing tackle, thermos bottles and thermos boxes, as well as other items for this popular Maine sport.

The main dining room of the Bangor House was devoted to an array of booths, featuring every type and kind of hardware and household wares.

Forty-two different manufacturers had displays, which were of unusual interest to hardware dealers attending the clinic.

100 years ago – Feb. 5, 1904

ORONO – Prof. W.P. Bradley lectured in the university chapel last evening to one of the largest and most interested audiences that it has even contained, upon the subject of Liquid Air.

The experiments, illustrations and plentiful apparatus, and seemingly endless quantities of the super-cold liquid were of absorbing interest to those who had never before seen any of the rare substance. It is safe to say that none experienced a single dull moment from the time that the lecturer from Connecticut was first introduced until the close, an hour and a half later.

Commencing his remarks by a description of the apparatus by which the liquid air was produced, Mr. Bradley explained that the final product was obtained only by a pressure of 2,700 pounds per square inch and the low temperature of 212 degrees below zero.

The liquid air which the professor brought with him was made under these conditions and at the rate of one pint per horse power per hour in his laboratory at Wesleyan University, and brought with him carefully insulated by a vacuum tube surrounding the receptacle in which the liquid was contained. The lecturer first acquainted the audience with the properties of this peculiar substance, displaying a quantity of it in a glass tube. He handled it so fearlessly and it looked so much like ordinary water that one was at a loss to see its real character and realize its extreme cold.

Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin