(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)

10 years ago – Feb. 24, 1995

ORONO – Area high school students had an opportunity to peek at operations backstage before the University of Maine’s Maine Masque Theatre group presented “Little Shop of Horrors.” The musical is based on a B movie and involves a blood-thirsty plant.

According to the directors, this version has a few lighting and musical twists and turns.

Students were shown the original costume design drawings, with cloth swatches, by Jane Snider, an associate dance-theater professor who doubled as the show’s costume designer. The costumes are designed to represent the 1960s, a period of “mindless consumption,” she said.

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ETNA – Westbound on Route 2, you could miss the furniture store tucked beneath a hilltop. Eastbound, you’ve got a few extra seconds before you buzz past either driveway entrance.

The Etna Furniture Store, owned by Dale and Virginia “Ginny” Hopkins, has sold furniture for almost a half century. Yet some people know little more about the family-run business than its ads promoting Moosehead furniture.

Ginny’s parents, George and Edith Bubar, established Etna Furniture almost 50 years ago. After Edith died in 1987, Dale and Ginny took over day-to-day operations. They’re assisted by a daughter, Faith Thompson, and her husband, Darrell, and by Marilyn McCourt, a long-time employee.

25 years ago – Feb. 24, 1980

BANGOR – A significant religious revival may be under way in Maine, the greatest since British evangelist George Whitefield – a friend of John Wesley and John Edwards – came to Maine in the 1740s in the midst of the Great Awakening.

Quaint old churches, their white spires pointing skyward, had for years been maintained by sentimental pillars of the community to furnish fodder for the films of itinerant photographers seeking calendar pictures. But now freshly painted and given basements or educational wings, which sometimes dwarf the original structures, these edifices have become centers of spiritual life renewed after generations of decline.

Bangor Baptist Church, whose 1,000-member Sunday school makes it the largest in New England, is only a sample of the religious fervor to be found in the byways of Maine.

Many of Maine’s new crop of preachers were past 30 when they began ministry. Often having given up a successful profession or trade, sold their homes and made it through four years of college, these men don’t easily discourage in the rigors of a Maine winter or spiritual coldness.

Most of Maine’s new preachers were not trained in traditional denominational schools. Baptist Bible College East in New York, Bob Jones University in South Carolina and Liberty Baptist University in Virginia have sent hundreds of graduates back to Maine to preach.

50 years ago – Feb. 24, 1955

BANGOR – The 1955 goal of the Easter Seal sale in Bangor has been set at $6,000, according to Wendell G. Eaton, campaign chairman. This is the 19th annual appeal sponsored by the Pine Tree Society for Crippled Children and Adults Inc.

Eaton said that concerted effort in behalf of Maine’s crippled children will be sparked by 400 chairmen working together throughout the state in an attempt to make this year’s appeal the widest and most effective and productive in the state’s history.

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BANGOR – “Although Americans bear a heavy burden in world affairs, they must not neglect education,” Dr. Arthur Hauck, president of the University of Maine, told the Bangor Kiwanis Club.

Dr. Hauck, who was introduced to the group at the Bangor House by the Rev. Frederick W. Whitaker, program chairman for the month and president of Bangor Theological Seminary, reviewed the history of the University of Maine and its services to the people of the state. He also explained the problems now facing that institition.

Dr. Hauck listed several advantages of the University’s proximity to Bangor.

Many of Bangor’s young people, he said, can live at home while getting an education they might not otherwise be able to get. The school offers many cultural advantages to communities in the area, and there is a great economic advantage in having an institution with a $4.5 million budget within commuting distance.

Of the 3,000 students at the university, most are Maine natives. And, he said, of the 25,000 men and women who have studied at the Orono school, more than half still live in Maine.

The tuition of out-of-state students will be raised next year from $316 to $550.

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ORONO – Members of the Orono High School 42-piece band, directed by Gerard Chamberland, will display their new band jackets when the group plays at the basketball tournament at the Bangor Auditorium.

The attractive maroon jackets with white belts arrived several days ago, but not in time for a regular season game of the basketball team.

The music committee of the Orono High School Parent-Teacher Association sponsored various fund-raising projects for the benefit of the Band Uniform Fund. The first event was held a year ago. By the latter part of October, after a most successful harvest supper, enough money had been raised for the project.

100 years ago – Feb. 24, 1905

BANGOR – The Bangor Lodge of Elks held a social with a fine German supper, followed by entertainment.

The entire Frankie Carpenter company, which is playing in the Bangor Opera House, was present.

Mr. H. Andrews gave a recital on the Angelus, using a Crown piano with a mandolin attachment. The many members of the company responded with songs, recitations and dances.

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BUCKSPORT – The tickets for the concert to be given at Emery Hall by the university glee, mandolin, banjo and guitar clubs under the auspices of the E.M.C. Seminary students, are selling remarkably well and an undoubted success seems now to be assured.

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ORONO – The combined musical clubs will give their annual concert in Bangor City Hall under the auspices of the Y.P.C.U. of the Universalist Church.

The clubs have been putting in some hard work this year, and the results seem to justify the effort. A glee club concert is necessarily a somewhat stereotyped performance, and one concert is not so different from another. The drill which the Maine clubs have put in will go a long way toward turning out a smooth performance.

Next week the clubs will start on a trip to Bucksport and other towns along the bay.

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BUCKSPORT – Commander Robert E. Peary left Wednesday evening for a brief business trip to New York.

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BANGOR – The owner of a place of business in Broad Street that has been styled with airy persiflage “The Hole in the Wall,” pleaded nolo contendere to an indictment found by the grand jury at the present term. “I have reason to believe,” said county Attorney Patten, “that the owner sold liquor since Jan. 1.”

Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin