(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)

10 years ago – Jan. 18, 1997

ORONO – Dozens of professors, many of whom are fed up with constant budget cuts and an unresponsive administration, will leave the University of Maine this spring.

Sixty-eight faculty members are leaving the Orono campus in the wake of an early retirement incentive offered to professors on all seven campuses of the University of Maine System. System-wide, 123 faculty members opted to take the offer, which continues a retiring professor’s salary for a maximum of one year and a quarter and health benefits for a maximum of three years.

In total, UM will have lost 81 faculty members, or about 15 percent of its teaching staff.

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ORONO – Len Harlow recalled sitting through the interviews that led to the naming of Shawn Walsh as the new head hockey coach at the University of Maine in 1984.

Harlow, Maine’s director of sports communications at the time, said members of the search committee found RPI head coach Mike Addesa to be the prime candidate because of his head coaching experience.

“But [Maine athletic director] Stu Haskell liked Shawn because he was young, aggressive and extremely eager,” recalled Harlow.

Addesa eventually withdrew and Walsh was named the coach.

25 years ago – Jan. 18, 1982

ORRINGTON – Wendell Hanscom received a cake to mark his 35 years at the Orrington Post Office. Friends and well-wishers gathered to honor Hanscom, who is not retiring. Co-workers estimate that Hanscom, during his time on the job, has driven 459,000 miles and handled just under 16 million pieces of mail.

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BREWER – Lisa Miller of Bangor, a sophomore at the University of Maine, has one of the best student teaching positions around. She is the new Brewer High School gymnastics coach.

Miller has reason to be pleased. The Brewer girls are currently 2-1 and looking for a spot in the state championships later this year.

Thirteen girls are members of the Brewer High School gymnastics team this year and they are being led by all-around gymnasts Sharon Coleman, Wendy Knowlen and Patti Morneault.

50 years ago – Jan. 18, 1957

ORONO – Forty-six prints in various media, the majority in color, are included in the 1956-57 Traveling Graphics Exhibit of the National Association of Women Artists now on display at the University of Maine library.

Professor Vincent Hartgen, head of the university’s art department, said that all of the prints are the work of professional artists of national reputation.

The NAWA was founded 64 years ago, the first large organization in the United States to represent women professionally in the field of art.

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CASTINE – Principal Francis Bean announced the honor roll for the third ranking period of Castine High School:

All A’s, Miss Enid Wardwell, junior; A’s and B’s, freshmen, Miss Sandra Vogell; sophomores, Miss Rebecca Randall, Miss Joan Jacobs and Miss Sylvia Wardwell; juniors, Miss Cynthia Skidds, Miss Deanna Collar and Miss Lois Soper; seniors, Miss Lucille Webster, George Jacobs, Miss Bonnie Mayo and Miss Mary Sawyer.

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BANGOR – With “My Three Angels,” the Bangor Civic Theatre had come up with one of the finest amateur performances seen here in many a moon. At the Dorothy Memorial on Park Street, the audience was intrigued into being conspirators in crime with three captivating, lovable convicts at whose hands even murder has a healthy look.

Ken Buckley and Alexina Sloane as Felix and Emelie Ducotel, the honest, trusting shopkeeper and his more practical, loving wife, touch the hearts of the audience with their simple sincerity and the predicament in which they find themselves, at the mercy of a selfish, cruel uncle, Henri Trochard, magnificently played by Paul Wyman.

Lovesick Marie Louise Ducotel, played by Jackie Leavitt, is adorable.

Madame Parole is played charmingly by Elizabeth Hurd.

Other characters in the performance are played by Ralph Mills, John Thibodeau, Gordon King and Bob Costello.

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OLD TOWN – Old Town Homemakers met at the YWCA Community House with new officers taking their positions. The program was a demonstration on cake decorating by Mrs. Charles Miller of Milford. Refreshments were served after the meeting by Mrs. Miller, assisted by Mrs. C.M. Spearin, Mrs. Martha Ouellette, Mrs. Leon Cote, Mrs. Adrian Baillargeon, Mrs. John Pearson and Mrs. Jennette Lacadie.

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BANGOR – City Health Officer William J. Carney reported that 173 members of the Eastern Maine General Hospital personnel were administered second shots of free polio vaccine.

Carney also said that 44 Husson College students received second shots and that seven students at the school received first shots.

100 years ago – Jan. 18, 1907

BANGOR – “You who have fires, prepare to hug them now.” This was the warning that Johnny Frost uttered in cutting tones on Thursday and those who could, kept within. For it was cold. One might go further and use a popular adjective in describing the degree of coldness. We won’t, but yesterday the cold was qualified many and many a time in just that way.

The children were pleased by the no school signal, which was blown Thursday morning. Thus many frost-bitten ears and faces were avoided.

The artesian well pump at the Larkin Street schoolhouse froze and inconvenience was caused the people in that vicinity.

Both the 3 p.m. and 5:25 p.m. trains from the West were late and this also must be charged up to Jack Frost.

Forty-two below was Thursday’s report at the Bangor pumping station. Once during the day the thermometer at the Maine Central station registered 40 degrees below zero, while the East Side Pharmacy tube was down to 38 below in the morning.

All day, plumbers’ bookkeepers had time for nothing but the jotting down of orders and later in the day it was found necessary to refuse requests for plumbers’ services.

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BUCKSPORT – The ferry boat which plies between Bucksport and Prospect had a narrow escape from destruction, and the men who were on her a thrilling and not very enjoyable adventure.

The wind which had been blowing all day gathered in strength towards noon and by afternoon was blowing with hurricane force. The ferry boat in the competent hands of Walter Witham set out from the Bucksport shore for the opposite shore of Prospect. The winds rushed furiously upon the small craft and, tearing her mast from her, held her at the mercy of wind and wave.

The boat was carried farther and farther down the river, past the fort, past the point and ever at the mercy of the gale until the boat was brought to land at the old wharf of Pooler and Dean’s mill.

The boat was left at the wharf, the men walking to Prospect whence they came to Bucksport.

Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin

PICTURE FROM THE PAST