TOWNSHIP 14, RANGE 9 – Twenty-six Stearns High School students, the majority of them members of the senior class, were summoned early Wednesday morning for possession and consumption of alcohol after police raided a graduation pit party near Sebois Lake.

A number of the students from the Millinocket-based school were suspended, according to a school official.

The party came to the attention of police when residents in the area called the Piscataquis County Sheriff’s Department late Tuesday evening to report a high volume of traffic on the road headed for the boat landing just across the Piscataquis County line.

It is the third graduation party in Piscataquis County involving alcohol in recent months that the sheriff’s department has stopped and has charged the participants.

“This is part of our efforts to curb underage drinking,” Sheriff John Goggin said Friday.

“If we find other gatherings that involve juveniles and drinking, the participants and the organizers will be charged,” he said.

These efforts spare students and motorists from vehicular deaths caused by inebriated drivers, the sheriff said.

Investigators Jamie Kane and Allen Emerson, who responded to the complaints, found the party at about 11:45 p.m. in a gravel pit. Kane said a few of the students ran into the woods when the two officers arrived but later returned.

After issuing the summonses, the parents or family friends were notified and were advised to pick up the party goers, Kane said. All were summoned to appear on July 25 in 13th District Court in Dover-Foxcroft.

Stearns Principal Paul MacDonald said Friday that “more than 10” of the students involved in the pit party have been suspended from their athletic teams for four weeks for violating the school’s athletic alcohol and drug abstinence policy.

These students, however, will be able to attend the school’s chemical-free graduation party held later this month, he said.