(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)

10 years ago – Jan. 19, 1996

OLD TOWN – They’re on the cutting edge. They’re just one shy of three barbershop quartets, and between them, they estimate that they’ve probably given a half-million haircuts over the past 30 years.

“If we take over enough shops, we can name our own prices,” kids Gene Spearrin, owner of G & G Barber Shop in Old Town and patriarch of a Maine family that has 11 barbers in its fold – including five married couples.

Members of the hair-clipping clan range in age from an 18-year-old barber-to-be to a 51-year-old embarking on a midlife career change. The practicing barbers among this unique family wield clippers at four barbershops in Brewer, Bangor and Old Town.

And they’re so good that they won’t let anybody but each other touch their own hair, they claim. But, they admit, they’re often adorned with shaggy locks because they can’t find time to take care of their own hair needs.

Nine of the family’s 11 barbers met for a group photo at the South Brewer Barber Shop, owned by Dale and Ann-Dee Jordan, the family’s youngest practicing husband-and-wife team.

Sorting the in-laws and outlaws, a difficult task in itself, was anything but cut and dried. This is a family of cutups. Puns and jokes flowed as freely as hair tonic.

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OLD TOWN – The final draft of a community-wide vision for education here in the 21st century will be presented to the Old Town School Board for approval.

Fueled by $25,000 in Goals 2000 funds and three months in the making, the vision began to evolve at the Future Search Conference in October.

Fifty-five Old Town citizens drawn from virtually every demographic group in the city hammered out a vision statement for 2003 during the work session.

25 years ago – Jan. 19, 1981

ORONO – Each weekday, Bertha Myers of Orono welcomes into her home a woman who is trained as a “family aide” to help her with household chores and to read to her.

Beverly Savage of Orono assists Mrs. Myers under a program called Trained Family Aides, sponsored by the Orono Health Association.

Aides in the program have received training in helping people who are ill or elderly and living in their own homes. Aides can now be found in Brewer, East Holden, Hampden Highlands, Newburgh, Costigan, Cardville, Stillwater and Veazie.

50 years ago – Jan. 19, 1956

BANGOR – Despite strong opposition by a representative of the polio committee of the Penobscot County Medical Association, the Bangor Public Health and Hospital advisory committee decided to continue the federal government’s planned distribution of Salk anti-polio vaccine to some 3,000 children here as part of a nationwide program.

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ORONO – It is Miss Elizabeth Murphy’s job to see that when Idaho folk eat Maine potatoes and the Californians sample the Maine sardine, they get the true flavor that was in the product when it left Maine.

Miss Murphy, assistant biologist in the horticultural department of the Maine Agricultural Experimental Association, is one of the few in the highly specialized field of taste testing.

Each year Miss Murphy organizes taste test panels consisting of a dozen to 50 people to check Maine apples, potatoes, carrots, green beans, sardines and other foods to determine the effects of cultural practices on food flavors.

Results of using new fungicides and insecticides also are checked this way.

It is her job to find out whether certain packaging materials give an “off flavor” to apples and how people like their sardines processed.

Miss Murphy says that one of the panels disclosed that lindane, one of the most effective of the new insecticides, should not be used in raising potatoes. Even though nearly all the panel detected the presence of lindane, the expert herself could not.

“I personally would just as soon have lindane on my potatoes as salt,” Miss Murphy said.

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BANGOR – The Maine State Chiefs of Police Association held its regular meeting with the principal speaker being agent Thomas M. McLaughlin of the Boston office of the FBI.

There were some 75 police chiefs and other officers at the meeting.

Thompson spoke about the Brinks case, but his remarks in connection with that currently red-hot case were off the record.

McLaughlin lauded local police departments for their cooperation with the FBI, which he termed vital in the vast nationwide picture of law enforcement.

He termed “law and order in society as the basis of our scheme of things.”

Toastmaster at the dinner session, attended by the wives of a large number of the officers, was Chief Augustine Dall of Orono, president of the Maine association.

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BRADFORD – Seventy children in Kenduskeag received free Salk polio vaccine at the Kenduskeag village school in the first of a series of programs planned for students of School Union No. 83.

Other clinics are planned in Hudson and Glenburn.

Superintendent Charles A. Hichborn estimated that a total of 860 children in these towns will be eligible to participate in the vaccination program.

100 years ago – Jan 19, 1906

WINTERPORT – The repairs on the Winterport Congregational Church, necessitated by the recent fire, are rapidly nearing completion and the church will be ready for occupancy next Sunday.

The fire was a severe blow to the society, following as it did, the loss of some of its most influential and helpful members by death. There was no insurance on the property and it has been found that the carpet is unfit to be re-laid, therefore the estimate of the damage has gone up.

The energetic pastor, Rev. J.F. Sneider, and his committee, are entitled to great credit for the speedy and efficient manner in which they have done this work.

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CORINTH – Miss Carrie May Chandler left town for Buenos Aires, Argentina, to spend the year with her uncle, George Chandler and family.

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WINTERPORT – The members of Sunrise Grange held their regular Saturday evening meeting with a large attendance. An interesting literary program was furnished, as usual, composed of tableaux, readings and a debate: “Resolved, That the Pen is Mightier than the Sword,” Affirmative, W.D. Thompson and Negative, E.H. York. A heated discussion followed.

At the next meeting, the program will be composed of selections rendered in old-time dialect and antique costumes.

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BUCKSPORT – The snow Thursday was very acceptable to the many owners of fast horses in the town, and many a lively encounter took place on Main Street during the afternoon. George P. Homers with his fast trotter Bowhorn won out. Harry Grant with his black stallion, E.L. Warren with his trotter Ned and Albert Snow with his trotting mare also were seen on the street and helped things along.

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WINTERPORT – It is rumored that Warren S. Grant of West Winterport is contemplating building a grain storehouse near the Frankfort station on the seaport railroad.

Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin