Echoes magazine to celebrate 20th anniversary at UMPI

Echoes magazine, edited and published by Kathryn Olmstead of Orono, will celebrate its 20th anniversary on July 20 at the University of Maine at Presque Isle. Doors open at 3 p.m. upstairs in the Campus Center, with a program set for 4 p.m.

Echoes writers, photographers and artists will show, sign and sell their work, and many have donated items for prizes. Readings will be offered by Bangor area writers whose careers started in Echoes.

Displays will trace the story of Echoes from its beginnings with photos, albums, memorabilia and souvenirs.

“We envision a festival of Echoes readers, writers, photographers, volunteers, staff, advertisers, artists, PrintWorks production team members and other friends of Echoes,” said editor and publisher Kathryn Olmstead, who lives in Orono.

The program features readings by Echoes columnists Glenna Johnson Smith of Presque Isle and John Dombek of Santa Clara, Utah; Echoes co-founder Gordon Hammond of Westfield; poet and essayist Ethel Pochocki of Brooks; and storyteller J.D. Aiguier of Winslow.

Readings by Rhea Cote Robbins of Brewer and Annaliese Jakimides of Bangor will represent writers who launched careers in writing with articles in Echoes.

The celebration is dedicated to the volunteers who gather quarterly at River’s Bend, Echoes’ home in Caribou, to prepare the magazine for mailing.

“They insist these stuffing parties are fun,” Olmstead remarked, “but we know they enjoy each other more than the work. Echoes benefits, big time.”

The event also will feature a collection of essays and poems by Glenna Johnson Smith to be published under the title of her column, “Old County Woman.”

“The book won’t be available for signing, but the manuscript is complete,” Olmstead said, “with more than 20 of Glenna’s essays and poems illustrated with pen-and-ink- drawings by Gordon Hammond.”

Founded in 1988, Echoes has celebrated anniversaries in 1993, 1998 and 2003.

“Each celebration is a unique gathering of the Echoes community,” Olmstead said. “People feel as though they know each other, even if they are meeting for the first time. Whether readers, contributors or staff members, they all have something in common.”

Published quarterly in Caribou, Echoes focuses on positive values rooted in the past that have relevance for the present and the future.

Its purpose affirms that “knowledge of rural experience can help us live in modern society – that there is permanence in the midst of change and value in remembering our roots. Echoes is a portrait of home, whether home is a memory of the past or a vision of the future.”

A cover full of covers identifies the 20th anniversary edition of Echoes magazine released in July. Filling the front, back and inside back covers of the 81st edition, colorful miniatures of Echoes covers trace the life of the magazine from 1988 to 2008.

In honor of the anniversary, two regular columnists and several frequently published photographers reflect on their work, identifying their most satisfying issues and describing what inspires them to write and create images.

David Bergquist of Hermon pays tribute to “Houlton’s Speed King” in a biographical essay about James Frederick Dow, UM Black Bear football star and Army Air Corps pilot who died in a formation flying training crash in 1940.

“In 1942, the Army Air Force would honor James’s memory when it named its new Bangor army base Dow Field,” Bergquist writes. “James’ name would be on the lips of 100,000 airmen as they passed through Bangor during the war years on to air battles over Fortress Europe and to an uncertain future.”

The current Echoes contains poetry by David Brainerd of Holden, Betty Anderson of Caribou and Daphne Crocker of Hancock, and a fiction piece by former border patrol agent J.D. Aiguier of Winslow.