County women serve as biathlon envoys

PRESQUE ISLE – Standing in crimson sueded jackets, long skirts and blue woolen mittens, Amber Howe and Erin Pelletier confided that their costumes were warmer than they looked.

The two college students, from Houlton and Madawaska, were in the stadium area at the Nordic Heritage Center in Presque Isle, dressed in traditional Swedish costumes and waiting to lead a procession of athletes in a medals ceremony at the 2006 Biathlon Junior World Championships.

Howe and Pelletier are two of six young women from around Aroostook County who are serving as ambassadors of sorts for the Nordic Heritage Center in Presque Isle.

According to Kris Doody-Chabre, co-chairwoman of the ceremonies committee – which is one of the many groups under the umbrella of the local volunteer organizing committee for the 2006 event – the committee wanted to add a sense of pomp and circumstance to the ceremonies.

To do that, Doody-Chabre said Friday, they decided to have young women “representing the Swedish and Nordic tradition associated with the Nordic Heritage Center” take part in the 20 or so medals ceremonies during the weeklong international biathlon event.

“We’re trying to create a certain ambiance,” Doody-Chabre said. “We feel it gives the athletes the right atmosphere; it helps to recognize that they are world champions.”

To do that, they organized medals ceremonies that involved the “Swedish maidens” helping to present the medals, flowers and wooden bowls, gifts representative of Aroostook County. Doody-Chabre said the bowls were hand-carved from local wood by Bill Dubay of Caribou.

Ceremonies committee members pulled off the look for the Swedish maidens by enlisting the help of several local women to hand-sew both indoor and outdoor costumes, which will be used once the event is over as the official costumes for the Nordic Heritage Ski Club.

Judy Holmquist, Beth Alden, Jann Jackson, Ann Jepson, Gina Freme, Michelle Michaud, Bonnie Bouchard and Christine Bondeson started working about three months before the championships to create the outfits.

The outdoor costumes feature pewter brooches on white blouses, pewter buttons and clasps on the jackets, striped aprons over the long skirts, and small, blue, pouchlike purses with the Nordic Heritage Ski Club emblem on them.

Howe and Pelletier said the costumes kept them “pretty warm” as they waited outside Friday for the next medals ceremony to begin. Throughout the week, they and two other women soccer players from the University of Maine at Presque Isle, as well as two Presque Isle girls, have served as the first sight people see when the medals ceremonies begin.

The two said that they were approached by their soccer coach, Amy Cheney Seymour, to serve as maidens during the biathlon, and that they were honored to do it.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be here,” Pelletier said. “It’s been amazing.”