YESTERDAY …

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(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)

10 years ago – July 10, 1998

HOLDEN – Voters here filled five local offices during elections Tuesday.

Incumbent Selectmen Joel Dearborn and Michael Legasse were returned to their three-year positions. Ben Birch, who also ran for selectman, nabbed 181 votes.

Unopposed for re-election to their school committee positions were Barbara Tennant and Doug Bosse, who will serve for three years, and Stephen Hardy, who sought a one-year post.

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ORRINGTON – Equipment malfunctions at Bangor Hydro-Electric Co.’s major electricity substation in Orrington left most of the company’s 100,000 customers across Washington, Hancock and Penobscot counties without power for about a half-hour Tuesday afternoon.

Computers and television sets flickered off. Traffic backed up. Businesses closed down. Lives came to a halt. And customers by the hundreds flooded the company’s information line with telephone calls.

“There was an inadvertent trip of a major transformer,” said Carroll Lee, Bangor Hydro’s senior vice president. “That appeared to cause the problem.”

25 years ago – July 10, 1983

BANGOR – It’s time for Bangor to roll out the red carpet, get gussied up and put on the dog, according to Pam Kelley, who owns and drives for Top Hat Limousine Service.

Adding glamour comes naturally to Kelley, a green-eyed blonde who likes drama and looks it with bright red two-inch fingernails, an upsweep hairdo, a tuxedo with a red cummerbund, and black-and-white patent leather spectator shoes.

Her business started as a gift from her husband Richard Kelley. When the Kelleys travel to another city because of his business, Kelley Pontiac in Bangor, they always rent a limousine rather than bother with taxis.

The back seat of Kelley’s limousine is a world in itself, separated from the driver by a privacy window with its own temperature control, tape deck, TV and a store of beverages and ice in the armrests.

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ORONO – University of Maine defensive line coach Vince Martino has been named an offensive line coach at Boston College under head coach Jack Bicknell, university officials reported.

Martino, 36, who has been a member of the Black Bear coaching staff since 1978, will rejoin Bicknell’s staff, of which he had been a member for three seasons at UM.

Martino captained the University of New Hampshire gridders in 1968, his senior year. He also was an outstanding wrestler at UNH, coached the grapplers at North Central College in Naperville, Ill., and was the UM wrestling coach for two seasons.

He was interested in going to BC with Bicknell two years ago, but was a candidate for the head coaching job at Orono, a spot eventually filled by Ron Rogerson.

50 years ago – July 10, 1958

BANGOR – Mrs. Rebecca Johnson, 18 McLaughlin St., who will celebrate her 96th birthday, attributes her age to “hard work, determination and keeping away from doctors.” Despite her opinion about doctors, she has great respect for them and is very proud of her son, Dr. Henry P. Johnson of Portland.

Mrs. Johnson learned early in life about hard work for she has lived on a farm all of her years. When she was widowed 46 years ago, she kept the farm running where she and her husband had raised their family. She was determined to live to see her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, whom she thoroughly enjoys.

She was born July 12, 1862, in New Brunswick, but moved to Maine with her family when she was 3 years old. She attended schools in Newport. Mrs. Johnson was married at age 26 on Aug. 19, 1888, to Henry F. Johnson in Stetson.

Until last week, Mrs. Johnson lived at the same house in Stetson where her husband took her as a bride. She now makes her home with her daughter, Mrs. Mary Hutchinson. The old homestead now belongs to a grandson who lives there and carries on the farm work.

In addition to her household work, Mrs. Johnson always had a vegetable and a flower garden, as well as making all the clothing for her four children and a foster daughter. She also crocheted, knitted and tatted. She was a member of the Christian Church in Stetson and an ardent worker for them, as well as being a member of the Grange.

Mrs. Johnson still wipes the dishes, reads and watches television.

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BANGOR – Dow Air Force base’s new 13,440-foot runway, costing in excess of $12 million, will have the final pouring of cement the third week in July, according to Alvin L. Heald, resident engineer for the Corps of Engineers. The runway will be operational by October and finished by November.

The 12 lanes of 25 feet each will have the final pouring of cement and then will remain the shoulder work, the sealing of the control joints and the installation of Elfaka lights which are recessed and will be on the south end of the runway for 3,000 feet. These lights, which are flush with the runway, are the very latest in runway lighting and so modern that modifications are being made even now.

When the J.R. Cianchette Co. of Pittsfield was awarded the runway contract, the cost was $4 million, but changes in specifications advanced the cost – such as changing from black top to concrete; the use of structural steel; the Ground Control Approach area; the addition of the new runway lights, and numerous other items which will make the runway when completed capable of handling any type of aircraft which the USAF will have in the foreseeable future.

100 years ago – July 10, 1908

BUCKSPORT – Cards have been received here from Mr. and Mrs. Milton E. Plummer announcing the marriage of their daughter, Elizabeth May, to Ralph Conley Reed of Bucksport on July 7 at Portsmouth, N.H. Mr. Reed is one of the popular Bucksport boys and has a fine position as bookkeeper with Swift and Co.

Dr. H.L. Gould is taking a special course at the Harvard Dental College.

Four English capitalists, accompanied by a representative of an American syndicate, arrived on the noon train. After dinner at the Robinson House they went to East Orland to inspect the Penobscot Bay Electric Co. plant. It is rumored that if the amount of horsepower proves satisfactory and other things are favorable, they contemplate starting a factory for the purpose of manufacturing cement.

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OLD TOWN – An alarm from Box 24 was rung for a small blaze in the apartments of Mr. and Mrs. Halle on Main Street. Mrs. Halle was cleaning some clothes with gasoline when her husband passed through the room with a lighted pipe in his mouth.

Some of the sparks flew from the pipe and gasoline ignited. The flames shot up quickly and Mrs. Halle’s arms were badly burned. Her face also was burned and some of the firemen applied domestic remedies to ease her suffering. Dr. Weld attended Mrs. Halle’s wounds and no serious results are expected.

The quick response of the fire department brought many words of praise from the citizens.

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CASTINE – Word was received here that a big forest fire has started just above White’s pond, some 30 miles from Penobscot on the Blue Hill road. Very heavy smoke can be seen rolling up and is being watched from here with a great deal of interest.

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EDDINGTON – Charles Lunt and his sister, Mrs. Fanny Pinkham of Old Town, were guests of their cousin, Arthur Robbins. The striking feature of the visit was that Mr. Lunt and Mrs. Pinkham had not seen one another for 20 years. It was a very happy and pleasant meeting for all.

Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin