(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)

10 years ago – Feb. 3, 1995

BREWER – Police Chief Steven Barker of the Brewer Police Department has announced promotions.

Danny Green was promoted to captain.

David Clewley and Arden Jones were promoted to sergeant. Melissa Cunningham, Jay Munson, Joseph Luby III and Perry Antone were promoted to the rank of corporal.

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HAMPDEN – Efforts to realign the curriculum in SAD 22 represent a changeover the likes of which has not been attempted by Hampden Academy since before World War II.

That was the assessment Hampden Academy Principal Robert Rowe gave SAD 22 committee members. He said he and the school staff were brainstorming various ways of letting the community know the changes are coming.

One of the major changes under consideration is to develop block scheduling, modeled after a similar program adopted by the Oak Hill School in Sabattus.

Block scheduling allows for longer classes, such as double periods. Some classes that now meet daily would meet only two or three times a week, but for longer periods. A longer block of time, he said, could enhance student learning.

Educators want to provide students with skills needed in the 21st century, including the ability to work with others, to study independently and think critically, Rowe said.

Computer technology is one area where the school will have to make a major effort, said Rowe, by expanding the three computer labs, two business labs and one technical lab at the school.

25 years ago – Feb. 3, 1980

BANGOR – “It’s been utterly refreshing to give workshops in your local schools,” said Ellen Rafel, education programs director and tour manager of the Boston Ballet. “I wish some of our urban and suburban youngsters were as well-motivated and energetic.”

A young woman with verve and enthusiasm, Miss Rafel drove up from Boston with four colleagues to take dance into the Bangor Schools.

The project is close to the heart of Bangor Symphony Orchestra conductor Miles Morgan.

“Miles Morgan is a firm believer of arts in education, and it’s because of him that we’re here,” Miss Rafel said.

Rafel and the Boston Ballet people conducted workshops at Bangor High School; at the Pendleton Street, the Washington and State Street schools in Brewer; and at the Garland Street and Downeast schools in Bangor.

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ORRINGTON – Molly Kool, who once skippered a 74-gross-ton sailing vessel through the snow, ice and fog of Fundy and Penobscot Bays in the 1930s and 1940s – and for whom the Canada Shipping Act was rewritten – said she did it because she needed a job and her captain father had become ill.

Captain Kool, who came ashore in Bucksport after 21 years at sea, now lives here on the River Road as Mrs. John Carney in a ship-shape contemporary home. She said she began going to sea at the age of 6 in summers with her father from her native home of Alma, N.B.

“The whole family used to go then,” she said. On her living room wall hangs a portrait of herself in her blue-and-gold uniform as a young skipper. “I was helping out with the family business but there was no way a woman could get a berth on another ship at that time, except as a steward or cook.”

She survived storm, shipwreck, and an encounter with a German spy during World War II and once drove some Norwegian seamen off her vessel with a belaying pin and was master of her own lumber boat. She did all the cooking, she said, because she was the only woman aboard.

She said if she skippered a lumber boat today, “They’d probably holler women’s lib, wouldn’t they?”

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ETNA – “Mass, insulation and glazing,” said Harvey Lorber of Etna, are the keys to establishing a comfortable environment inside a house.

Lorber lives in an 1,800-square-foot passive solar house he and his wife built. There’s thermal mass, of course – a 3-foot-deep bed of crushed stone, capped with concrete, which serves as the living room floor.

The sun shines on the floor all day, through large south-facing windows angled at about 60 degrees. The mass itself and the interior of the room warm up to about 70 degrees. When the house is cool, the mass gives off heat.

50 years ago – Feb. 3, 1955

BANGOR – Miss Marion E. Martin of Bangor, Maine commissioner of labor and industry, will be the guest speaker at the Ladies’ Night of the Industrial Management Club of Bangor.

Miss Martin, who has been prominent in the political and cultural activities of the state for the past 20 years, will talk on “Safety at Home.”

Miss Martin’s present job, to which she was appointed in April 1947, includes a variety of responsibilities in addition to that of departmental administration. As commissioner of labor and industry, she also is a member of the Industrial Accident Board, advisory member of the Apprenticeship Council and chairman of the Board of Boiler Rules, of the Board of Elevator Rules and the Maine State Safety Conference.

Born in Kingman, Miss Martin is the daughter of the late William H. and Florence (MacLaughlin) Martin.

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BREWER – Brewer Fire Chief Fred Avery joined in the warning against using blowtorches to thaw out frozen water pipes after Brewer firemen extinguished a blaze in the Eastern Scrap Iron Co. on the Green Point Road.

Both Avery and Chief John Nelligan of Bangor warned against the dangerous practice of using blowtorches near wooden structures. At least six fires have been reported due to that cause in the two cities during the current cold spell.

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BUCKSPORT – A board of review for Boy Scout Troop 82 of Bucksport was held in the Scout Cabin. The following boys were reviewed and passed: Edward Lambert, second class; Jeffery Robinson, second class; Perry Mattson, first class; Stephen Salisbury, first class; and John Desjardins, Life Scout.

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BANGOR – John Ballou, Bangor lawyer who has appeared with the Camden Hills Theater, the Bangor Civic Theater and in Gilbert and Sullivan productions here, will narrate the humorous Ogden Nash verses of “Le Carnival des Animaux” at the Bangor Symphony Orchestra concert with A. Stanley Cayting conducting.

A series of 13 vignettes, the composition portrays the lion, hens and roosters, the wild jackass, turtles, the elephant, kangaroos, the aquarium, mules, birds, pianists, fossils and the swan.

100 years ago – Feb. 3, 1905

ORONO – A number of University of Maine students took civil service examinations for the Panama Canal survey. There is a large call for engineering graduates and undergraduates in the Panama service, and for those who care to undertake work of this sort, the government makes an attractive proposition. The college office knows of a number of Maine graduates who have already gone to Panama, and there are no doubt others who have not come to attention of the secretary.

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ORLAND – Charles Atkins was in town to see to the transferring to the United States hatchery at Orland the carload of salmon eggs, which arrived in town Thursday. These salmon eggs were collected by the Baker Lake station of Washington from the Skagit River in that state. There were 1,400,000 eggs in the shipment, and Mr. Atkins says they arrived in excellent condition. The eggs came by express, being packed in 10 cases, each weighing 500 pounds, with a total weight of 20,000 pounds. The eggs were laid on trays covered with flannel and packed in moss.

They were shipped from Hamilton, Wash., and made the trip in seven days. Henry O’Malley, superintendent of the Baker Lake station, accompanied the car to oversee its safe transportation.

These salmon eggs have never been brought east before and much interest is felt as the result of this experiment, but the confidence placed in Mr. Atkins’s ability is denoted by giving to him the important task of hatching and placing them in Maine waters.

Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin