10 years ago – June 10, 1994

(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)

ORONO – Last year, after having never drawn before, Ben Anderson took an art course at Orono High School. This year, he took the Bangor Art Society scholarship.

Anderson, who is 17 and graduating in the top 10 of his class, is putting the money toward tuition at Williams College, where he will go next year to study art history and education.

“I would like to quote John Cage,” said Anderson when asked about his art which tends toward abstract impressionism. “‘I have nothing to say and I am saying it and that is poetry.’ That for me is a guide to a pure aesthetic. For me, art is the act of creating beauty.”

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BANGOR – The Millers opened their off-track betting parlor in Bangor with little fanfare this week.

Despite months of noisy controversy surrounding the award of a state license, Post Time OTB at Millers started business quietly, with the news being spread only by word of mouth and a brief message on the tote board at Bangor Raceway. Nonetheless, the event attracted more than three dozen people, many of whom spent a couple of hours in the newly renovated room in the basement of Miller’s restaurant.

“We’re hoping for a lot of public support,” said John Miller, as he surveyed the room.

25 years ago – June 10, 1979

ORONO – Alternative choices for living styles need to be found for senior citizens who find it particularly difficult to live on fixed incomes to cope with rising costs, a speaker told listeners at the University of Maine.

Lois Harris, founder of the Greater Boston Chapter of the Gray Panthers. was one of a number of speakers who addressed members of the Senior Community Service Project at the UMO Cooperative Extension Service.

Harris, who is 75, returned to college in 1970 and earned a master’s degree in adult education, with a minor in gerontology, at Boston University. She praised those attending the conference as “continuing learners, still curious,” and told them that older people have special contributions they can still make to society.

“Now we have time to reach a balance between quiet time and time of action and come to a decision about where to make a contribution,” she said.

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BANGOR – “Big pageant coming up!” are the words being spoken most often among the 65 people comprising the work crew and cast who are hurrying to ready the Miss Maine Scholarship Pageant at John Bapst Auditorium.

“Miss Maine-ly Disco” is the theme that will unite the stage show and the 17 contestants from across the state. The pageant will culminate with the crowning of Miss Maine, the woman who will represent the state in Atlantic City at the Miss America Pageant.

Linda Carroll, Miss Maine of 1978, will sing. Ellen Warren Willis, Miss Maine of 1964, will be the mistress of ceremonies. Mrs. Willis was the third runner-up in the 1965 Miss America Pageant.

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BANGOR – The departure from Bangor’s Union Station on June 13, 1954, of the last Maine passenger train to be pulled by a steam locomotive marked the end of one era and the beginning of another.

The last run of Maine Central Railroad’s Passenger Extra 470 West signaled the end of the steam-powered passenger train in Maine. As the locomotive logged its last miles between Bangor and Portland, 10 train enthusiasts along for the ride decided to keep the memory alive by meeting once a month.

The informal meeting aboard the train marked the beginning of the 470 Railroad Club, which is in its 25th year. The club, named for the last steam train’s locomotive, has grown to include several hundred members from throughout New England.

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BREWER – In 1975, a small plane piloted by Harry Hopkins, an industrial arts teacher at Brewer High School, was all destroyed in a crash.

But on Memorial Day, the 1957 Piper Super Cub was back in the air with Hopkins at the controls. Four years of work by Hopkins and his students has paid off.

Of the students who were in on the renovation of the plane from the ground up, only Danny Bragg and Dan Wiswell are still in the area, but they were at the Brewer Airport to take brief sorties in the plane and admire their handiwork.

“It’s the first time in Maine,” Hopkins said, “that a high school produced a flyable airplane.”

50 years ago – June 10, 1954

BANGOR – Superior Court Justice Abraham M. Rudman was sworn into office by Gov. Burton Cross today.

The 57-year-old Bangor lawyer, first of the Jewish faith to win a seat on the court, was unanimously confirmed by the Executive Council as successor to Justice Walter M. Tapley Jr., whom Cross elevated to the supreme bench.

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ORONO – U.M.’s Kombine Cee, a Guernsey cow in the University of Maine herd, is a new state champion in the junior 3-year-old class. Her record is 9,506 pounds of milk and 432 pounds of fat. She was bred at the university and is sired by Klondike Kombine, owned and used by the Maine Breeding Cooperative. Her dam, Grandee’s Bee, is still in the university herd.

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BANGOR – Paul P. Brountas of Bangor, a senior at Bowdoin College, has won the $500 first prize in the Percival Wood Clement Prize Essay Contest.

Brountas wrote his essay on “The Self-Incriminator Clause of the Fifth Amendment.” Judges for the contest were representatives from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Colby College and Dartmouth College. The prizes are awarded for the best theses in support of the principles of the Constitution and the first ten amendments. The competition is open to men and women students of the junior and senior classes in more than 20 New England colleges and universities.

Brountas will read law at Corpus Christi College at Oxford University during the coming academic year as one of the 12 United States students to win Marshall Scholarships.

On Commencement Day, June 19, he will deliver one of the four undergraduate parts.

In addition to the Marshall Scholarship, Brountas was offered a Fulbright Scholarship to the United Kingdom. He is the son of Mrs. Peter Brountas of Bangor and is a graduate of Bangor High School.

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BANGOR – An unusual exhibit of printed textiles is on display at the Bangor High School library where it will be open to the public through July 3. A comprehensive sequence of French, English and American toiles, the exhibit includes many 18th and 19th century prints, as well as reproduction and modern prints inspired by the lovely old patterns.

100 years ago – June 10, 1904

OLD TOWN – Before one of the largest audiences that ever attended on a like occasion, the graduating class of the Old Town high school held its closing exercises Thursday night.

Long before the program was started, the hall was crowded and when the students marched in, every available seat was taken.

It seemed that the whole city had turned out to see the young people graduate, and well they might, for the class was one of the brightest and most dignified appearing that has ever graduated from the school.

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WINTERPORT – The town of Winterport will this year ask the Republicans and voters of Waldo County to honor her with the election of one of her loyal sons for the position of sheriff of Waldo County, and at the Republican convention to be held in August there will be presented the name of Amos Carleton of Winterport.

Carleton is well known in his town and the legislative class. He was born in his home town on May 16, 1868, where he has constantly resided, and is the son of Joseph H. Carleton, one of the leading farmers of Winterport.

He was educated in the public schools of Winterport and attended the Bangor High School for one year. At the age of 17 he entered Castine Normal School and at 19 graduated, having finished his course in five terms. He taught in the public schools of his town for nearly nine years. He became a state representative in 1893, when he was elected by a large majority.

Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin