Schools

‘The Sound of Music’

ORONO – The hills are alive at Orono High School with Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “The Sound of Music,” directed by Chris Luthin and Sandy Cyrus, with musical direction by Terrence Henry.

The production features Hannah Cyrus as Maria and Alec Rose as Captain Von Trapp. A double cast of Von Trapp children from Asa Adams School, Veazie Elementary School, Orono Middle School and Orono High School will appear in alternate performances.

Public performances will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, Nov. 15-17, in the high school gymnasium. Tickets are $7, $5 students, and are available at the door.

Auctions to help AFS

AFS is a high school exchange program dedicated to peace through understanding. Those selected live with a family in one of 50 countries while attending school and learning about the culture. Those interested may call 800-237-4636 for information.

Orono has been an active participant in AFS since 1964. Orono AFS will hold an auction on Sunday, Nov. 18, at the Asa Adams School to support Orono students who choose this once-in-a-lifetime experience.

A silent auction, accompanied by chili, cornbread, dessert and beverage, will run 4-5:15 p.m. Entrance donation is $5, which includes dinner.

The live auction, with Dave Ames as auctioneer, will run from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Items up for bid include an autographed University of Maine football jersey, original artwork, a day of sailing, books by local authors, UM hockey and basketball tickets, fly-tying class, on-site landscape consultation, homemade pickles, relish, jams, jellies, desserts and candies and gift certificates from IM&M, car wash, animal kennels, bicycle tune-ups, area restaurants, snowplowing, roto-tilling, flowers and plants, elegant dinner parties, weekend use of a condo at Sugarloaf, Orono High School sports passes and a weekend on the Maine coast.

John Bapst Memorial High School

BANGOR – Five John Bapst Memorial High School art students and their chaperones, Melissa and Craig Burns, attended National Portfolio Day on Nov. 5 at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston. It was the 12th consecutive year that the John Bapst Art Department has taken students to the event to meet with representatives from art schools and university art departments. The students also had their artwork critiqued by professional artists and teachers from post-secondary institutions.

Melissa Burns said that some of her students also took advantage of the opportunity to participate in college admission interviews. Attending the event were seniors Molly Soneson, Kristen Thibodeau and Mariah Kopec-Belliveau, junior Shannon O’Connor and sophomore Katy Hein.

Colleges

New England School of Communications

BANGOR – How effective was the summer internship of New England School of Communications to junior Brandon Gassett? Hampden town manager Susan Lessard was in a perfect position to know.

“If I could have had him tied to a desk so he couldn’t leave, I would have. Unfortunately he had to go back to school. Needless to say, he was a huge asset,” Lessard said.

For his summer internship, Gassett worked at the Hampden Town Office producing informational videos for Hampden’s cable television channel 7 to keep town residents up to date on varied community events.

At NESCom, Gassett, who hails from East Parsonsfield and is a graduate of Sacopee Valley High School, is majoring in television production.

It wasn’t only his ability to direct and coordinate all aspects of putting a news program on TV that made him valuable, according to Lessard.

“We had one camera that wouldn’t work and were about to scrap it when Brandon arrived and had it fixed in 10 minutes. He also cured a problem we had with the sound system,” she added.

Gassett produced a news program, “Hampden Happenings,” filming four half-hour shows featuring interviews with celebrities and town officials to keep the public better informed. Interviews were handled by Andre Cushing, a member of the town’s communications committee.

He also produced a video on storm-water monitoring by interns at the James Sewall Co. that has brought Hampden some statewide recognition and acclaim, Lessard said.

Gassett is continuing to produce the TV news program and works on updating the town’s Web site. This summer he also did live remotes with Maine Public Broadcasting.

Because of his success, Hampden has accepted another NESCom intern, senior Kevin Matluk of Belfast.

Gassett is the son of Alan Gassett and the late Dawn Gassett of East Parsonsfield.

Eastern Maine Community College

BANGOR – Eastern Maine Community College’s executive advisory council used its Nov. 8 meeting to focus on the college’s automotive and heavy equipment technology. The 33-member council toured the automotive lab and discussed the challenges of connecting the education of these professionals with the industry.

“The technology in this industry changes rapidly. Keeping up with the training is a constant challenge,” said Jeff Adams, service department manager for Darling’s Auto Mall in Ellsworth. “Consider that the vehicles on the road today are more complex in technology than the Apollo 13 that first put men on the moon.”

As a tangible example of industry and education working together, the meeting highlight came in the form of a 2003 Camry, a donation from Toyota Motor Sales. Kevin Kelly, general manager for Down East Toyota, handed over the keys to Gene Fadrigan, chairman of the EMCC Automotive Technology Department. Down East Toyota owner Ed Darling coordinated the donation with Toyota Motor Sales, Toyota’s corporate office.

The donated car looked brand new. The late model vehicle provides the students in automotive technology access to current computerized systems on which to learn.

Acknowledging that education is key to the rapidly changing, complex automotive industry, Kelly noted the critical need for business and industry to work hand-in-hand with educational institutions.

Thanking the local and national Toyota leaders, EMCC President Joyce Hedlund said, “These are critical gifts for a quality learning environment so that the most highly skilled technicians are ready to go to work.”

Fulbright Scholar

CASTINE – Maine Maritime Academy professor Dr. Elaine S. Potoker was awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant to lecture and conduct research at the University of Costa Rica in San Jose, San Pedro Montes de Oca, during the fall semester.

According to the U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, Potoker is one of some 800 U.S. faculty and professionals who travel abroad annually through the Fulbright Scholar Program.

Established in 1946, the program has as its purpose to build mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the rest of the world. Potoker is in Costa Rica serving as a guest lecturer in strategic management in the university’s school of business administration. While at the university, she is a member of the “Facultad de Administracion de Negocios,” a group of 130 professors.

Potoker’s also is doing research in international trade. She is investigating the challenges facing the nation and the region specific to logistics and technology integration and workforce needs with the implementation of the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement.

She is maintaining a Web site documenting her experiences as a Fulbright Scholar at http://directory.mma.edu/epotoker/index.html.

Potoker, a professor of business in Maine Maritime Academy’s Loeb-Sullivan School of International Business and Logistics, has taught at MMA since 1997. She is the author of “Managing Diverse Working Styles: The Leadership Competitive Advantage.”

Faculty artists in exhibit

University of Maine faculty members Owen F. Smith and Alan Stubbs are participating in “Tiny,” an exhibition through Dec. 22 at Whitney Art Works in Portland. A public reception is scheduled for Portland’s First Friday art walk 5-8 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 7.

Gallery hours are noon-6 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday. The gallery will be closed Thanksgiving week.

Smith is professor of art history and digital art in the UM Department of Art and chairman of the new media department. He is a specialist in modern and contemporary art, particularly fluxus, and what he calls alternative art forms. Smith works in digital art and new media and has exhibited work in more than 60 national and international exhibitions over 10 years.

Stubbs is a UM professor of psychology and adjunct faculty member in the department of art. His field of expertise is the scientific study of perception. His primary interest is photography, and his most recent interest is in illusions. Stubbs is fascinated with illusions and uses digital media to create them. One of his illusions made the top 10 in the international Best Visual Illusion of the Year Contest, sponsored by the Neural Correlate Society this year.

“Tiny” features 300 works of art from 80 artists from Maine, Boston and New York.