(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)

10 years ago – May 1, 1998

BANGOR – First an insurance company, then 31 bank branches, and now a securities firm.

Bangor Savings Bank is on a veritable shopping spree. Under new leadership, the small-time mutual savings bank is transforming itself into a statewide, diversified financial service outfit.

Recently, the bank announced that it is acquiring Livada Securities, a Portland stock and bond brokerage firm with 22 employees and more than $200 million in investments under management.

Once the final details are worked out and all levels of regulators have had their say, Livada Securities will be a wholly owned subsidiary of Bangor Savings. The firm will keep its name in the Portland office that it opened in 1969.

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BANGOR – Roy Peary thinks there are 1,000 or so people in his native Levant. Brian Malo figures his hometown of Hebron has around 500 people.

Peary and Malo have been Husson College’s small-town sluggers this season as the Braves prepare for the Maine Athletic Conference baseball tournament.

Junior right fielder Malo and senior first baseman Peary hit third and fourth, respectively, in the Husson lineup, and each has put up impressive numbers. Peary has driven in 45 runs on just 51 hits, leaving him five shy of Troy Martin’s school single-season RBI mark. Malo has knocked in 42 on just 46 hits.

25 years ago – May 1, 1983

BANGOR – A new local news staff of at least two persons and Cable News Network Headline News via satellite will replace the four-person news staff at WVII TV Channel 7.

The ABC affiliate’s local news staff was dismissed after the 6 p.m. newscast, given two-weeks’ severance pay and told the station would carry the Cable News Network.

A news director, news anchor, reporter and weather forecaster were let go. The format change comes just six months after the station was bought in November 1982 by a Chicago-based company, Seaway Communications

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BANGOR – John Bapst Memorial High School’s delegates to Boys and Girls State, sponsored by the American Legion and the American Legion Auxiliary, include the following junior class members: James Davis, Glenburn; David Burns, Eddington; George Maxsimic, Orrington; Stephen Badger, Veazie; Adam Brewer, Bangor; Kim Campbell, Bangor; Kris Peters, Veazie; and Cindy Wilbur, East Holden.

50 years ago – May 1, 1958

BANGOR – The Army Engineers, New England Division, informed U.S. Sen. Frederick G. Payne that about 750 men will be employed on the construction of the Bomarc site in Bangor. They expect that probably some 800 to 900 men will be needed on the construction during the summer months.

The John A. Volpe Construction Co. of Malden, Mass., has been awarded the contract for the Bangor Bomarc missile site.

The property where Boeing Airplane Co.’s missiles will be located covers more than 50 acres of land and runs from Burleigh Road to Broadway and Essex Street.

J.R. Cianchette Sr. has the work of clearing the land in preparation for construction and work has already been in progress on this phase of the program.

The Bomarc base, such as the one to be built at Dow, consists of a launching area where missiles will be kept in a “ready status,” a support area where missiles are maintained and inspected, and a “cantonment” area which will provide the necessary housekeeping activities.

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BANGOR – Work is under way at the site for the new water storage tank on Essex Street for Bangor’s new water supply. The tank will be 48 feet high and 120 feet in diameter. It will hold 4 million gallons of water. Site work is being done by Samuel Aceto of Portland, who will install the foundation. The tank will be supplied by the Pittsburgh-Des Moines Steel Co.

Part of the 14 miles of pipe are ready to be placed at Eddington Bend. The pipes will bring Bangor water from Flood’s Pond. Each section is 16 feet long and weighs 416 pounds to the foot. It takes 330 sections to complete a mile.

The H.B. Fleming Co. of South Portland has been moving in equipment for the crossing of the Penobscot River with the 36-inch pipeline. Flotation tanks, along with barges, will be used to bed the pipe in the river bottom. River crossing will be made at Eddington Bend.

100 years ago – May 1, 1908

BANGOR – Four hundred students of the University of Maine came to Bangor to celebrate the greatest baseball victory in the history of Maine colleges. Headed by the University band, marching five abreast with arms interlocked, they swept up Main Street to the Opera House and went in to see Kirk Brown.

They came in two cars of the Bangor Railway and Electric Co. They had met at Orono, and swarming around the tracks had ordered the motor man to turn back toward the city.

The motor man looked at the sea of amused yet resolute faces and obeyed. The passengers, mostly good-natured enough, piled out at the waiting room and the students took possession. Then the two cars, jammed to the running boards with scores clinging to the roof, were run to Bangor, the students alighting at the top of State Street hill, forming a line and marching to the theater.

They arrived during the wait between the first and second acts and swarmed down to their seats – a big section at the right, some in the middle, 100 or so at the left. Standing, and with the band leading off, they joined in the chorus of one of the campus songs, a swelling roar of blended masculine voices which nearly lifted the roof.

The hundreds of students, conspicuous in their white blouses even when the lights were lowered, fell absolutely silent the moment the curtain rose.

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BUCKSPORT – The sawmill of Guy Richardson has been shut down for a few days on account of the breaking of the stave saw, but it is expected that work will be resumed on Friday morning.

United States fish car No. 1, in charge of Capt. W. E. Smith, went out on the morning train Thursday, having on board 100,000 humpback salmon from the fish hatchery at East Orland to be taken to Old Town and placed in the Penobscot River.

The entertainment given in the Methodist vestry by the young ladies of the seminary is to be somewhat different from any given in town before. Some of the best poems of the works of Longfellow, Whittier, Bryant, Lowell, Holmes and Emerson are to be recited by students who have spent much time in studying their selections. A sale of cake, candy and fancy articles will be held on the same evening. A unique feature of the event will be the May basket table.

Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin