As part of Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield’s continued commitment to supporting the prevention and treatment of cancer and the work of the Maine Children’s Cancer Program, eight-year-old cancer survivor Norman Albert of Mechanic Falls was honored recently as an Anthem Hero at Hadlock for the courage he displayed in battling a rare form of cancer at a young age.

Albert is the second of four Anthem Heroes be recognized during the Portland Sea Dogs’ 2019 season. The ceremony took place prior to the July 27 game at Hadlock Field in Portland.

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Mid-Maine has presented graduating Edward Little High School senior Jenna Fowler with a certificate of appreciation for her volunteer work at Washburn Elementary School in Auburn.  

For the past two years, Fowler participated in the Big Brothers Big Sisters program as a high school mentor at Washburn. Each week during the school year, she went to the elementary school to spend time with young children as an older friend and role model. 

Maine has a proud and storied history, and our bicentennial offers us the opportunity, not only to honor that history, but to recommit ourselves to the values that shaped us as a state and as a people.

Our little state, jutting out of the northeast corner of our country, with its population of only 1.3 million, its four fulsome seasons, its forests, hills, tablelands, potato fields, shores, mighty rivers, and secret waterfalls, takes its physical character from ancient eskers and glacial erratics, kettles, cirques, and moraines. There are no straight lines here. This place we call home is unique, and it offers so much to so many.

But Maine is not just its natural resources and phenomena. It is also its people. For more than two hundred years, sons and daughters of Maine, with courage in their souls, kindness in their hearts, and an unshakeable, independent spirit, have built this state and led the nation.

The Outsiders Club of USM’s Lewiston-Auburn Senior College has enjoyed a run of beautiful Mondays for its recent excursions on hiking trails in and around Lewiston-Auburn. Destinations have included Bradbury Mountain, Mt. Pisgah, the Riverlands in Turner, Thorncrag, Poland Spring, and Mt. Apetite. 

The club aims to progressively increase the endurance of its members throughout the season, increasing the challenges as the group progresses to fall climbing. The club is open to members of L-A Senior College. For registration information, see usm.maine.edu/senior.

As the 2019 Bates Dance Festival ramps up for its final weekend, favorite traditions will blend with cutting-edge choreography on Bates College stages and even on the streets of Lewiston and Portland.

The weekend will kick off with the festival’s final 2019 Concert on the Quad, featuring the reggae band Stream, on Thursday, August 1; the festival will wrap up on Sunday, August 4, with the weekend’s second “How Was the Show?” community chat at Lewiston’s Bear Bones Bear.

In between, there will be full-tilt performances by Joanna Kotze, nora chipaumire, and J-Sette artists jumatatu m. poe & Jermone Donte Beacham, whose “This is a Formation: Intervention” – comprising equal parts performance and street action – will take place in Portland on August 2 and in Lewiston on August 3.

On Tuesday, August 6, Festival Plaza and Main Street will be the scene for the Auburn Police Department’s National Night Out against crime. This annual event, beginning at 5:30 p.m. and continuing until dusk, invites Auburn residents downtown for a family-friendly block party featuring food, fun, and live music.

The Reverend James Grumbine, Jr. has been named the transitional pastor of Auburn’s Court Street Baptist Church. He succeeds retiring Rev. Dr. David R. Clark and will assess the spiritual gifts of the parishioners and the programming needs of the congregation to prepare the church for its next permanent pastor.

The following is an excerpt from Governor Mills’ remarks at her July 15 opioid response summit, “Turning the Tide: Maine’s Path Forward in Addressing the Opioid Crisis.”

You know, I subscribe to many newspapers, national and local. One I picked up at breakfast the other day began with a description of a city neighborhood which sounded like the setting of a television crime drama. It read:

“The sidewalks are littered with cigarette butts and people loiter outside the nearby grocery store. A man and a woman, both in their pajamas, scream at each other from opposite ends of the sidewalk. 

“A driver with all the car windows rolled down yells as he blows through a stop sign. The tires screech loudly as the car whips around the corner.

“The neighborhood children spend most of their day outside, riding their bicycles up and down the connecting streets. But by 8 p.m. they all disappear. Even if they aren’t on curfew, it’s as if they know better than to be alone on these streets at night.

Members of the Edward Little High School Class of 1959 celebrated their 60th Reunion recently at the Fore Seasons Restaurant at Turner Highlands Golf Club in Turner. Forty-four classmates and 16 guest attended the reunion dinner, where the guest speaker was Rachel Desgrosseilliers, executive director of Museum LA. Other reunion highlights included a guided tour of Museum L-A, an evening social gathering, and a cake with an edible photo of the Edward Little statue. The class plans to have its next reunion in 2021.

LA Arts, in collaboration with the Bates Dance Festival, will present “Do You Know What’s Worrying Me?”, a live visual art and dance performance by New York-based artist Jonathan Allen and dancer-choreographer Joanna Kotze, with music by Ryan Seaton, as part of Art Walk LA on Friday, July 26, at 6 p.m. Free and open to all, the performance will take place in the LA Arts Gallery at 221 Lisbon Street in Lewiston.