Maureen O’Brien has been named news director for TV stations WLBZ 2 in Bangor and WCSH 6 in Portland. Before coming to Gannett’s Maine stations in September 2003, she served as executive producer at WPTZ-TV in Burlington, Vt. She was a newscast and special projects producer at WGME-TV in Portland from 1993 to 2000. O’Brien got her start in professional journalism in 1986 at Burlington’s WPTZ. She is a graduate of St. Michael’s College in Winooski, Vt. She was raised in Wilbraham, Mass.

The Maine chapter of the American Lung Association has recognized Bangor pediatric dentist and children’s public health advocate Jonathan Shenkin with the organization’s 2008 Roselle Huddilston award. Shenkin, who wrote first a Bangor ordinance and then a state law to protect children from exposure to secondhand smoke in cars, will receive the award Friday at the lung association’s annual meeting in South Portland. Roselle Huddilston, for whom the organization’s top award is named, was a suffragist from Orono, who was the first woman to vote in Maine and the first woman to run for the Maine Legislature.