E. Millinocket to form scholarship committee

EAST MILLINOCKET – Shirley Tapley would love to see investing in East Millinocket and its students become a growth business.

That’s why the town administrative assistant is excited that the Board of Selectmen is following a suggestion from a town family and forming an endowment and scholarship committee at Schenck High School.

Selectmen voted 5-0 Tuesday night to investigate forming the board.

The size of the endowment and the committee are not yet determined, but the idea, Tapley said, is to have a committee that can manage or oversee professional investors in managing an investment fund that civic-minded residents can make contributions to for civic projects or goals.

“It’s a great idea,” Tapley, the town’s administrative assistant, said Wednesday in thanking the couple for their generosity. “It could have been done through the schools, but the donors feel that going through the town would be the best way to proceed.”

When reached Thursday, the couple who presented the idea Tuesday asked to be kept anonymous, saying the idea was in its early stages and that they might discuss it later.

The couple proposed a single annual scholarship through an endowment fund for a Schenck student. They told selectmen that the setup is common elsewhere.

Even tiny amounts of money can gain interest while benefiting municipal efforts such as the town library, schools or recreation department, among other things.

It’s rare but not unheard of in the Katahdin or Lincoln Lakes regions for residents to contribute large amounts of money or land to municipalities for specific purposes.

In November 2006, local lawyer Patricia Locke donated $285,000 toward the effort to build a recreation center in Lincoln. The money from Locke’s donation came about after a close friend, Mary P. Grindell, died a year before and left her bank stocks and property.

In July 2006, Locke donated $72,944 from the settlement of Grindell’s estate to the town, explaining that she was motivated by Grindell’s also having left some Enfield land and $5,000 to the town of Lincoln.

Vincent Rush and his wife, Janet, sold to the town a house at 17 Main St. off Mattanawcook Lake owned by their late son Lee Rush for $45,000 on April 16, 2002. The town razed the house and agreed to dedicate a gazebo on the spot to Rush as part of an agreement for that sale price.

Towns also regularly do fundraisers or solicit contributions for such things as community pools or firefighting equipment.

This proposed endowment might be the region’s first.

Mark Scally, chairman of the Board of Selectmen, did not immediately return a telephone message seeking comment Thursday.