Ray Mitchell of Island Family Medicine is the fourth quarter winner of the Gold Standards Employee of the Quarter at Blue Hill Memorial Hospital.

Mitchell has been with BHMH since 1999 and also serves as the medical director for the Memorial Ambulance Corps of Deer Isle. He has worked in emergency medicine for over 20 years. He has experience as a flight medic and in training and rescue

work in Saudi Arabia with Northrop Aircraft Corp. He also served in the U.S. Air Force.

Robert W. Spear has been selected to receive the Honorary Lifetime Membership plaque in recognition of his lifelong contribution to local, state and national association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts.

Spear served on the board of Knox-Lincoln Soil and Water Conservation District as an associate supervisor for eight years and as supervisor for 20 years. He also served as Maine’s commissioner of agriculture for six years.

Stephanie Dunton has been chosen one of Maine’s top youth volunteers for 2007 in the Prudential Spirit of Community Awards program. Dunton of Winterport is a seventh-grader at Samuel L. Wagner Middle School. She will be presented with an engraved silver medallion at noon Monday, March 19, during a school assembly in the gymnasium.

As a state honoree she also will receive $1,000 and an all-expense-paid trip to Washington, D.C., in early May for a day of national recognition event with more than 100 other honorees.

Dunton is being honored for conducting a monthly collection drive called the “food shuttle” that has collected more than 1,000 pounds of donated food items for a local pantry.

Michael E. Hyde, vice president of advancement and external relations at the Jackson Laboratory was given a 2007 Subaru Outback wagon by Jerry Patterson of E.L. Shea Inc. as a thank-you for all the lab does for the people of Hancock County. The car will be used by visiting researchers and employees on official travel.