For nearly two decades, area residents and visitors have had Judy Butler of Eddington to thank for organizing our local celebration of Flag Day, and this year is no exception.

Butler invites you to “bring your American flags and wear your red, white and blue,” when you attend the 18th annual Bangor Flag Day celebration beginning at 6 p.m. Wednesday, June 14, on the Bangor Waterfront.

The celebration includes presentations by volunteers contacted by Butler who will provide patriotic music, read poetry, give speeches and entertain you with patriotic dances.

Butler describes the celebration as “a day to show tribute to Old Glory.

“The American flag files over each of us, rain or shine,” she wrote. “It is a day to be thankful for our freedom, to show respect and to consider the flag and what and who it stands for.”

There is no admission to attend.

During the most recent election in Dover-Foxcroft, explained Joan Shapleigh, residents “voted overwhelmingly to go to a referendum vote and eliminated the town meeting” form of government for that community.

“We still call it Town Meeting Day, and go to the polls,” she continued, but Shapleigh and some other like-minded residents found they really missed particular aspects of that annual gathering.

So a small group, calling itself “Community First” decided to resurrect just a bit of the old-time, community feeling they enjoyed during Town Meeting Day.

Dover-Foxcroft residents are invited to a public supper at 5 p.m. Wednesday, June 14, at the American Legion Hall on Park Street.

“Come, meet your neighbors, share ideas, reminisce and celebrate our great community,” Shapleigh urges. “All are welcome to this nonpartisan event.”

The group requests you “fix your favorite dish to share,” and join in preserving that “town meeting spirit.”

The fourth in the free film series hosted by the Welcoming Congregation Committee of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Bangor is 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 14, in the handicapped-accessible church vestry at 120 Park St.

The film is “Normal,” a 2003 HBO production about a Midwestern factory worker who wants a sex change operation.

The film stars Jessica Lange and Tom Wilkinson and a discussion follows.

Jan Dodge wrote recently to inform alumni of Sumner Memorial High School in East Sullivan that the school “is developing an alumni database.”

In the past, she explained, alumni learned of SMHS activities “by word of mouth, local news articles and class reunions.”

Students in the SMHS advanced publishing class are now entering the names of graduates – from 1952 to the present – into a database.

They are “using many sources to obtain current addresses,” Dodge wrote. With the new data, alumni will receive school news, reunion updates and other information at least once a year.

“The lists will not be used for anything other than news and activities associated with Sumner High school,” Dodge wrote.

However, “The Giving Back Foundation will also be able to access this data,” she explained of the foundation which was “established by two Sumner graduates through the Maine Community Foundation to coordinate contributions” to SMHS.

SMHS alumni are asked to go to the Sumner Web site at http://union96.sumner.k12.me.us/smhs/index.html.

Scroll down and click on the Information heading, then click on Alumni Register and enter your data.

David and Gayle Beckom wrote the BDN to publicly thank the staff and faculty of Easton Elementary and Easton Junior/Senior High schools for the “diligence, praise, concern and hard work that they have shown” during the 12 years their daughter, Kari Beckon, spent in the Easton school system.

Her Easton school experience “taught her not only the things she will need to know to continue on with life, but also have given her a sense of community and belonging that is rare today,” her parents wrote. “The administrators, teachers and staff have treated Kari as if she were their own. She will always live her life adhering to the lessons that you have taught her. Your hard work and service to the students have made our efforts much easier and much more enjoyable.”

Recognizing “the effort and the love you have given our daughter,” the Beckoms want you to know that while “Kari’s life will be full of alliances and allegiances, as time passes … she will, in her heart, always be an Easton Bear.”

Kari, the Easton High School valedictorian, will attend the University of Maine in the fall.

Joni Averill, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04402; 990-8288.