Blue Hill Memorial Hospital has received two wonderful compliments.

The first is a verbal one, but the second is financial, and one to which you can contribute.

Camilla Cochrane and Robert Strauss are summer residents of Brooksville.

Late last summer, with their friends Dr. John “Jack” and Patricia Laurent, they visited Blue Hill Memorial Hospital and met with CEO Tim Garrity.

Camilla Cochrane later told Lynn Boulger, the hospital’s director of development, that Laurent, an internationally known neurosurgeon, “was so impressed by your small hospital.”

Cochrane said Laurent spoke highly of the hospital’s “clear view of the mission, and how their priorities seemed to be in excellent order.”

Apparently the Laurents had plans to retire to the Blue Hill area, but unfortunately, at age 58, Laurent died in his sleep Nov. 1.

To honor the memory of their friend, Cochrane and Strauss have extended a $10,000 challenge grant to Blue Hill Memorial Hospital to stimulate new or increased charitable donations to the hospital.

The Jack Laurent Memorial Challenge Grant will match gifts, up to $10,000, given by new donors to the hospital or by those who increase the size of their gifts.

It is hoped, Boulger said, that the $10,000 mark will be reached by April 1, which is the end of the hospital’s fiscal year.

To participate, individuals are asked to note on their donation that it is intended for the Laurent Challenge.

Gifts can be made online at www.bhmh.org or sent to Community Relations Office, Blue Hill Memorial Hospital, P.O. Box 823, Blue Hill 04614-0823.

Laurent completed medical and neurosurgical training at the University of Pennsylvania in 1980 and then began a long and distinguished career in Pediatric Neurosurgery at Texas Children’s Hospital, where he served as chief of the Pediatric Neurosurgical Section and co-founded the Brachial Plexus Clinic.

As an associate professor of neurosurgery affiliated with Baylor College of Medicine, Laurent was committed to the residents training program and continued to publish clinical research throughout his career, according to information provided by his widow.

It is indeed an honor for Blue Hill Memorial Hospital to have Cochrane and Strauss establish this memorial for their late friend, and it would be wonderful to reach that $10,000 goal as soon as possible.

For more information about the Jack Laurent Memorial Challenge Grant, call Boulger at 374-2836.

Frank and Kathi Milicia of Piscataway, N.J., e-mailed the Bangor Daily News to “express our gratitude to all the first responders who came to our assistance” on Monday, Nov. 29, on Carroll Hill as they were beginning “a long trip home … after celebrating Thanksgiving with our friends in Grand Lake Stream.”

Their truck hit black ice on the hill and overturned about 6:30 a.m., they wrote, adding they “were too shaken to get anyone’s name, and never even saw the trucker who made the emergency call to report the accident.”

Rescue workers, firefighters, ambulance attendants, the tow truck driver “and the people at Thornton Bros. in Lincoln all worked together to make a very bad event a little less traumatic for us,” they wrote.

Recognizing that “there is nothing more comforting, when you’re in an accident,” than seeing help arrive, the Milicias thanked the men and women who were so “kind, comforting and professional.”

“To all our nameless heroes,” they wrote, “thank you from the bottoms of our hearts.”

“Inspired by the success of last year’s first Christmas Carol Sing-along,” wrote Sara Cox of Bangor, “the six Roman Catholic parishes in Bangor, Brewer, Hampden and Winterport, invite enthusiastic singers to join in celebrating the joys of the Christmas season” at 2 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 2, at St. Joseph’s Church, 531 North Main St. in Brewer.

Patrick Gunn thanks Newburgh animal control officers Alan and Cindy Dunton for their assistance in finding the Gunns’ golden retriever, Buddy.

“They did not give up hope on getting Buddy home, and gave us words of encouragement,” Gunn wrote.

They also thank friends, family and “people we didn’t even know,” who helped to look for Buddy, who escaped from a Dixmont kennel 15 miles away.

Six weeks later, and 33 pounds lighter, Buddy was found two miles from home.

For the Gunns, it was an eventful last Wednesday in October.

“Our house was full of joy that special night,” Gunn wrote. “Our daughter came home on leave from the Navy; we got our dog back; and, oh yeah, the Red Sox won the World Series that night!”

There is, however, a sad postscript to this wonderful story.

Shortly after he returned home, throat cancer ended 4-year-old Buddy’s life.

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