Everyone is invited to attend the Curran Homestead annual meeting and recognition dinner at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 10, at the Oriental Jade Restaurant on Bangor Mall Boulevard.

The event is sponsored by Bangor Letter Shop. There is no charge for members, but the 2007 dues payment is requested, in advance or at the door.

The event is also free for donors and honored guests. The cost for others is $15 for adults and $8 for children.

Reservations are required and must be made by Monday, Jan. 8, by calling Carroll Adams at 989-2430.

Richard Stockford is president of the Curran Homestead, a turn-of-the-century living history farm and museum located at Fields Pond in Orrington. In 2007 it will celebrate its 16th anniversary.

For those who like to plan ahead and organize their 2007 calendar, here is a list of the organization’s primary events for the coming year:

Following the annual meeting and recognition dinner, the Curran Homestead will be host to a Fun-Raiser on Tuesday, Feb. 6, at the Oriental Jade Restaurant in Bangor; a Maple Festival and Irish Celebration, Saturday, March 17, at the Homestead; conduct hayrides Saturday, May 12, at the Center Drive School Spring Fair in Orrington; host an Olde-Fashioned Country Fair, Saturday, July 21, and the Open Farm Day, Sunday, July 22, both at the Homestead; be a parking site host for the American Folk Festival Aug. 24-26, at Penobscot Plaza in Bangor; and host its Harvest Event, Saturday, Oct. 6, at the Homestead.

A nonprofit educational organization, it relies on memberships, volunteerism and community support. The suggested giving guide for memberships is $10 for a student, $25 for an individual, $35 for a family, and $50 for a business.

A sustaining membership is $100; a benefactor, $250; a patron, $500; and a homesteader, $1,000.

To become a member or to receive more information, write the Curran Homestead, Inc., P.O. Box 107, Orrington 04474.

Jonathan Sisson provided information that the John Greenleaf Whittier poem “Snow-Bound” will be read at 3 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 7, at the Eastport Arts Center, 36 Washington St.

Part of the series “Wintergreen Dreams: Cabin-Fever Poems,” which Sisson hosts, “the readers will be local aficionados (devoted followers) of the spoken word,” he wrote.

Other Wintergreen Dreams programs, all beginning at 3 p.m. at the EAC, are “Renascence,” by Edna St. Vincent Millay, Sunday, Feb. 4; “The Ballad of Reading Gaol,” by Oscar Wilde, Sunday, March 4; and “Goblin Market,” by Christina Rossetti, Sunday, April 1.

Sponsored by the EAC, the readings are free. More information can be obtained by calling Sisson at 853-4574.

Staff members of Rape Crisis Assistance & Prevention, which is located at 93 Water St. in Skowhegan, are planning to conduct weekly trauma, recovery and empowerment support group meetings on a recurring basis in that community.

The purpose of the meetings is self-help, support and education to aid in overcoming the trauma of victimization and to assist in the recovery process.

The meetings will run from 3:30 to 5 p.m. weekly, on Wednesdays, beginning Jan. 24.

For intake meeting information, call RCAP at 858-0800 or 872-0601.

Last month, the Warren Center for Communication & Learning announced it had received a $9,000 grant from the Rite Aid Foundation.

The grant will support the Regional Hearing Aid Bank (ReHAB) program to help provide hearing aids to community members who could not otherwise afford them.

On Tuesday we faced the difficult task of bidding a final farewell to one our most treasured colleagues, Carroll Astbury, who died unexpectedly on Dec. 29.

Many of us had known him, and thoroughly enjoyed his company both inside the office and out, for the 22 years he was employed by the Bangor Daily News.

Carroll and I had nearby offices. His mail slot was just above mine and, most recently, he served as my editor so we saw each other, and conversed, many times in the course of a day.

He was never at a loss for words, and never without a kind word. He was a pleasure to work with, and a joy to laugh with.

Carroll was a thoughtful, honest, caring man with a deep and abiding love for those who were part of his life.

To his wife, Leslie, his son, Will, and his wife, Kris; Carroll’s parents, his brother and his large, extended family, my deepest condolences.

We miss him, too.

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