1. Calais Fire-EMS Members Honored with Prestigious Phoenix Awards for Life-Saving Efforts

    Four members of Calais Fire-EMS were each recently presented with Maine EMS’s prestigious Phoenix Award, a distinction given to emergency medical professionals who are directly involved in the successful resuscitation of a patient suffering a non-traumatic cardiac arrest outside of a hospital setting. The award recognizes not only the critical medical skills required in such high-pressure situations, but also the teamwork, quick decision-making, and dedication that result in patients returning to their lives neurologically intact.

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  2. Community Invited to Join Memorial Day Tributes in Calais

    Jayna Smith

    [email protected]

    Calais is once again preparing to pay tribute to the brave men and women of the U.S. armed forces who made the ultimate sacrifice. Memorial Day, observed this year on Monday, May 26, 2025, will be a day of remembrance and gratitude throughout the community.

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  3. Zachary Wentworth: Outstanding Graduating Student

    Zachary Wentworth, a 2022 graduate of Calais High School, is the Outstanding Graduating Student in the College of Education and Human Development (COEHD) at the University of Maine, Orono. He is a secondary education major with a concentration in social studies and a minor in history. 

    A Maine Top Scholar, a Maine Seacoast Mission scholar, and a Galen Cole Family Foundation scholar, Wentworth served as president of the University of Maine chapter of the Student Maine Education Association for the past two years. 

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  4. Kayleigh Scott Receives MPA Principal’s Award

    Kayleigh Scott, a senior at Calais High School, has been selected to receive the 2025 Principal’s Award, Principal Dean A. Preston announced last week. The award, sponsored by the Maine Principals’ Association, is given in recognition of a high school senior’s academic achievement and citizenship.

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  5. Calais Baseball Sweeps Houlton with Back-to-Back Wins

    Jayna Smith

    [email protected]

    The Calais Blue Devils rode a strong pitching performance from sophomore Noah White to secure a 6–1 victory over Houlton on Friday in the first of a doubleheader.

    White tossed six complete innings while allowing only three hits, one earned run, and striking out nine without issuing a single walk. He threw just 67 pitches, 50 of them for strikes, and faced only 21 batters.

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  6. Downeast Credit Union and Insurance Donate to Blue Devils Boosters

    Downeast Credit Union and Insurance recently donated $2,000 to the Calais Blue Devils Boosters’ upcoming golf tournament set to take place on May 17 at St. Croix Country Club. Proceeds go back to the Calais school system, supporting athletics, clubs, and groups. Students and faculty from Calais High School — including Principal Dean Preston, vice principal and athletic director Ben Collins, and boosters representatives Andrea Walton and Krista Collins — are shown with branch manager Kaileigh Deacon.

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  7. Calais City Council

    Jayna Smith

    [email protected]

    On Thursday, May 8, 2025, the Calais City Council met for its regular meeting, with Mayor Marcia Rogers presiding over Councilors Kevin Niles, Mike Sherrard, Elery Beale, Bill Quinn, and Jame Macdonald. Councilor Pete Foster was absent from the meeting.

    What follows is a brief summary of the meeting, with the full meeting available for viewing on the City of Calais’s Facebook page.

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  8. Girl Scouts Earn Silver Award for Flag Boxes and Lesson Plans

    Girl Scouts from Pembroke, Ami Griffin and Amakehs Mendoza, earned their Silver Award for creating comprehensive lesson plans on flag etiquette and constructing a flag retirement box. The Girl Scout Silver Award — the highest honor a Cadette can earn — is achieved when Girl Scout Cadettes focus on an issue they care about in their community and take action to make a difference.

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  9. Spring’s Foraged Favorite Returns as Fiddleheads Pop Up

    Jayna Smith

    [email protected]

    Fiddleheads — the young, coiled fronds of the ostrich fern — are a treasured spring delicacy in Maine, New Brunswick, and across the Northeast and Maritime provinces. According to the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, although many ferns have fiddleheads, not all are edible. Only the ostrich fern is recommended for safe consumption.

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  10. UMM’s 114th Commencement Highlights Native Culture

    Will Tuell

    Not even a dreary, drizzly, mid-May morning could dampen the spirits of the 70 University of Maine Machias students receiving diplomas on Saturday. Friends, family, professors, and community members packed into the Reynolds Center gym for the 10 a.m. right of passage. Yet remarks by Class of 2025 Valedictorian Emma Soctomah and Passamaquoddy Tribal historian Dwayne Tomah, the ceremony’s keynote speaker, gave the proceedings a distinctly Passamaquoddy feel. 

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  11. Campus Follies

    Jon Reisman

    Higher Education in America is in for some change. The change process is not pretty or pleasant, but it is necessary because American higher education is the source of quite a bit of the toxic ideology and idiocy that has poisoned America in recent years, including identity/oppression politics, critical race theory, equity, and climate alarmism. DEI divas and defenders were created and trained on America’s campuses. 

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  12. Dragons Edge Blue Devils in Tight Battle

    Jayna Smith

    [email protected]

    In a game that came down to the final outs, the Woodland Dragons held off a late push by Calais to secure a 4–3 win in varsity baseball action Friday, May 2, 2025.

    Woodland pitcher Gaige Farrar earned the win, throwing six and one-third strong innings. He allowed just three hits and three runs while striking out 12 and walking four. Liam O’Neill came in to close, earning the save.

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  13. Quoddy League Legend Passes at 84

    Phil Stuart

    One of the best-known players in the Quoddy Baseball League has passed away at the age of 84. Richard “Dickie” Norton of Addison played in four different decades and was one of the most productive hitters that the league produced during the 30 years of its existence. 

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  14. PTO Read-a-Thon Sparks Love for Reading, Brings in Over $4,500

    Jayna Smith

    [email protected]

    Students at Calais Elementary School turned pages last month during the school’s annual Read-a-Thon, organized by the Parent-Teacher Organization (PTO). The three-week literacy and fundraising event saw 113 student participants collectively read for an impressive 33,526 minutes — equivalent to nearly 600 hours.​

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  15. Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive Returns This Saturday

    Jayna Smith

    [email protected]

    Every second Saturday in May marks the annual Stamp Out Hunger National Food Drive, a nationwide event hosted by the National Association of Letter Carriers.

    This Saturday, May 12, 2025, letter carriers across the country will once again take part in this massive one-day food collection effort – the largest of its kind in the nation. Now in its 32nd year, the initiative has contributed over a billion pounds of food to local pantries and shelters.

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  16. Downeast Credit Union and Insurance Donate to Irene Chadbourne Ecumenical Food Pantry

    Downeast Credit Union and Insurance recently donated $989 to the Irene Chadbourne Ecumenical Food Pantry. This is part of the Ending Hunger in Maine campaign, a statewide initiative supported by Maine’s credit unions to fight food insecurity.

    “The Irene Chadbourne Ecumenical Food Pantry noted that our donation came at a wonderful time — as they had just received a large, unexpected bill,” stated Calais Branch Manager Kaileigh Deacon. “It feels good knowing our fundraising efforts really do make a difference in our community.”

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  17. Canadian Liberals Win 169 Seats, Conservatives Reach 144, Resulting in Another Liberal Minority Government

    Pierre Little

    OTTAWA — As the dust settles on the 2025 federal election, analysts say a convergence of U.S. influence, pocket-book concerns, and strategic vote-splitting helped deliver the Liberals a minority victory while consigning the Conservatives to opposition.

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  18. Knights of Columbus Step Up to Support Local Schools and One of Their Own

    Council #49 of the Knights of Columbus recently donated $800 each to the special education departments at area schools and to the Beckett Center, thanks to funds raised through their annual “Tootsie Roll Drive.” The drive generated over $3,000 in total to support children with disabilities. Pictured are Kaylee Lursen of Woodland, Charity Williams of Princeton, Grand Knight Michael Boies, Tamara Clark of Calais, and Troy Donvan of the Beckett Center. (Submitted photo)

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  19. Storytime at Lincoln Memorial Public Library

    Last week’s Storytime at Lincoln Memorial Public Library was very busy with students from Pembroke and Dennysville, two of the 13 being new to the group and particularly delighted with the hand puppets that they discovered in a box! The story of the day was When Will It Be Spring? by Catherine Walters, a question many had been asking, I’m sure. The wondering baby bear, however, had fallen back to sleep when spring finally did arrive!

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  20. Sewall Memorial Congregational Church

    Bonnie Lyons

    Church services are at 4 p.m. every Sunday with Pastor Ron and Colin Windhurst.

    Last Thursday was the National Day of Prayer. Every year Helen Brooks opens the church for the Day of Prayer. Our Pastors, Ron and Colin, helped with the program. In the picture are Ron, Colin, Sally, Chelsea, and Helen. Mary took the picture.

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  21. Cooke USA Cleaning Up in Washington County

    Cooke USA organized or participated in shoreline cleanups in six municipalities over five days in April, in and around Earth Day on April 22. The cleanups were coordinated by Cooke USA's fish health team, which includes fish health technicians Jessica Lindsay, Jaelynn Matthews, and Susana DeFrank. 

    One of those cleanup events took place earlier in April and was coordinated by the town of Machiasport and its harbormaster, David Cale. About a dozen employees from Cooke’s operation in Machiasport’s Bucks Harbor district participated in that effort. 

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  22. Daffodils, Equity, and Forsythia Sage

    Jon Reisman

    Forty Mays ago, my late wife Ernie and I moved into a largely unfinished house on Cathance Lake in Cooper. May is lovely — cool, bugless mornings, full of sunrise concerts from songbirds, ravens, and woodpeckers, with loon warbles and serenades in the evening.

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  23. **BREAKING** Maine State Police Make Arrest in 1984 Murder of Linda Maxwell

    Linda Maxwell, age 18, was last seen in the Calais area on August 23, 1984, after spending the evening with friends. Two days later her body was recovered along the shoreline of the St. Croix River in Robbinston, in Washington County. Despite an extensive investigation at the time, the case remained unsolved.

    On Thursday May 1, 2025, over 40 years later, the Maine State Police made an arrest in Linda Maxwell’s murder.

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  24. Blaze Displaces Tenants in Baileyville

    See below for ways to help those affected

    Jayna Smith

    [email protected]

    Fire crews from multiple towns responded to a structure fire at a two-story apartment building on Hillside Street in Baileyville early Saturday morning, April 26, 2025.

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  25. CDRC Strikes Up a New Season of Summer Music Downtown

    Jayna Smith

    [email protected]

    Calais Downtown Revitalization Coalition (CDRC) is excited to announce the return of the popular summer concert series, once again lighting up Tuesday evenings downtown at Flat Iron Park.

    This year, CDRC is taking a large role in organizing the concerts, working alongside longtime organizer Brittani Holloway. Local businesses will continue to sponsor the concerts, helping to bring great music and vibrant energy to the heart of the community.

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  26. Former Schoolbus Driver Charged with Gross Sexual Assault on a Minor

    Paul Sylvain

    A 67-year-old man was arrested at his Wesley home on April 23 and charged with six counts of gross sexual assault involving a minor.

    According to a prepared statement issued by the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, Duane E. Geel was arrested without incident by sheriff’s deputies on a felony warrant issued by the Machias Unified Court following an extended Sheriff’s Office investigation.

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  27. New Sheriff’s Office Nears Completion

    Washington County Sheriff Barry Curtis is seen after checking out work on the nearly completed Sheriff’s Office building on Court Street on April 24. Curtis said a May ribbon cutting ceremony is still possible, but there are still many details to be addressed, the least of which is making the physical move from the aging sheriff’s office building directly across the street.

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  28. Motor Vehicle Pursuit Ends in Crash and Arrest; One Fatality, Three Detained

    Jayna Smith

    [email protected]

    A high-speed pursuit that began in Hancock County and extended into Washington County on Saturday, April 19, 2025, ended in tragedy and the arrest of a 21-year-old Bangor man.

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  29. Making a Difference: First National Bank Steps Up with Donations to Local Food Pantries

    First National Bank recently announced that it has made donations totaling $38,250 to organizations fighting food insecurity, including 35 food pantries in the bank’s market area. “First National Bank deeply values the essential services that our local food pantries offer to our neighbors in need,” acknowledged Tony C. McKim, President and CEO. “As a Maine community bank, we are dedicated to supporting these vital organizations as they work to help families put food on the table.”

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  30. Princeton’s Fire Association’s Spring Craft Fair

    This past Saturday, Princeton’s Fire Association persevered, despite the Washington County heavy spring rain storm and a callout for a structure fire in Baileyville. The Craft Fair was set up at the fire station, with the local crafters having a wide assortment of items and the Girl Scouts’ young representatives working hard to sell their cookies. The Weenie Wagon crew of Robert Ripley, Susan Cilley, and Moses Cilley took over the kitchen. They cooked up hot dogs, sausages, and their new item, steak and cheese. All proceeds went to the association. (Photos submitted by Sandra Smith)

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  31. Addison Man Killed, Another Seriously Injured while Dragging for Scallops in Massachusetts

    Incident Remains Under Coast Guard, State Police Investigation

    Paul Sylvain

    For the second time in four months, families and friends of Washington County scallop fishermen are mourning the loss of a loved one taken much too soon, while a second man remains hospitalized with broken ribs and other injuries.

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  32. Smith’s Towing & Recovery Team of Local Student-Athletes Set to Face Off Against the Harlem Wizards

    Jayna Smith

    [email protected]

    Get ready for a fun, high-energy night on Friday, May 16, when the Harlem Wizards basketball team comes to Woodland High School.

    This event promises a night of jaw-dropping “trick hoops and alley oops,” as the Harlem Wizards take on a team of local student-athletes and teachers in an action-packed game. Expect plenty of laughs, impressive skills, and a great time for the whole family.

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  33. Calais City Council

    Jayna Smith

    [email protected]

    On Thursday, April 24, 2025, the Calais City Council met for its regular meeting, with Mayor Marcia Rogers presiding over Councilors Kevin Niles, Mike Sherrard, Elery Beale, Pete Foster, and Bill Quinn. Council James Macdonald was absent from the meeting.

    What follows is a brief summary of the meeting, with the full meeting available for viewing on the City of Calais’s Facebook page.

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  34. Equity Limbo

    Jon Reisman

    “Equity” is promoted across Maine State Government and the University of Maine System as part of broad Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts and within specific policy initiatives like the Climate Action Plan, which has a significant and significantly funded equity component. What equity does not have is a definition. Promoting an undefined policy goal is pure policy malpractice. Determining what equity actually is and what Maine State Government is doing to promote it has turned into a strange dance called the equity limbo. 

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  35. Pope Francis dies during the Octave of Easter

    Pierre Little

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  36. What's Up, Calais?

    Jayna Smith

    [email protected]

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  37. Egg-citing Fun Returns to Calais Fire Station

    Jayna Smith

    [email protected]

    On Saturday, April 19, the Calais Fire Association continued its long-standing tradition by hosting its annual Easter Egg Hunt at the fire station.

    Children were welcomed by none other than the Easter Bunny and invited to participate in a festive egg hunt set in and around the fire trucks. Each child received a number and was challenged to find the eggs marked with their assigned number.

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  38. Calais’ Historic Homes Presentation Continues with Part Two

    Jayna Smith

    [email protected]

    Following the great response to April’s event, the St. Croix Historical Society has announced a continuation of its presentation, The Houses of Calais, led by local historian Jerry LaPointe.

    Part two of the presentation will be held on Monday, May 5, at 7 p.m. at The Holmestead, 527 Main Street, adjacent to the Holmes Cottage. Like the first, this event is free and open to the public, with light refreshments served.

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  39. Man Charged in 2017 Death of Wayne Foss Sentenced to 16 Years in Prison

    Paul Sylvain

    Seven-and-a-half years after the body of 48-year-old Wayne Foss was found dead in the charred remains of his Whitneyville mobile home, a New York City man has been sentenced to serve 16 years in prison for his role in Foss’ death.

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  40. Lincoln Memorial Public Library

    Last week, on Tuesday, the older students from the Pembroke School, who usually attend Storytime, were off on a field trip, leaving only three students to enjoy It’s Mine by Leo Lionni and making colored paper linking chains, with their names and a little something about ourselves on each strip. These are now decorating the library, instead of the, now out-of-season, snowflakes. Although the school vacation preempts Storytime this week, the Edmunds School students will be enjoying the same book and craft next week.

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  41. Spring Clean-Up Just Got Easier with Free Dump Days

    Jayna Smith

    [email protected]

    Spring is the ideal time to freshen up homes and properties, but getting rid of junk, garbage, and other accumulated items can quickly become expensive when factoring in disposal fees at the transfer station.

    Fortunately, thanks to the Calais City Council’s approval of “free dump days,” residents can save money while sprucing up their properties and contributing to a cleaner community.

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  42. Dragons Reload, Blue Devils Rebuild

    Jayna Smith

    [email protected]

    As the spring season settles in, Calais and Woodland High School baseball programs are gearing up for what promises to be an exciting year on the diamond. Woodland High School, a perennial contender under Coach Ryan Lincoln, returns with high expectations and veteran leadership. Meanwhile, Calais High School enters a new era under first-year head coach Randy White, with a young team embracing a rebuilding season with optimism and youthful energy. 

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  43. Calais and Woodland Softball Take to the Field

    Jayna Smith

    [email protected]

    As spring unfolds, local softball fans can look forward to an exciting season on the diamond as the Calais High School Blue Devils and the Woodland High School Dragons take the field with high hopes, strong leadership, and plenty of talent.

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  44. Student Artists Shine as Rhubarb Festival Gears Up for Fourth Annual Celebration

    The fourth annual Rhubarb Festival is set to return to Kendall Farm in Perry on Saturday, June 7, from noon to 5 p.m., with food, live music, demonstrations, and family-friendly fun in store — and a fresh batch of award-winning student artwork to promote it.

    The festival’s annual rhubarb-themed art competition featured 12 entries from local students at Calais Middle High School (CMHS), Eastport Elementary School, and Shead High School. For the fourth year in a row, art teachers Bobbi Tardif (CMHS) and Sara Myrick (Eastport Schools) inspired their students to participate.

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  45. What Could Go Wrong?

    Jon Reisman

    I spent most of a mid-April afternoon waiting to testify on LD 1494, a “Resolve, Directing the Office of Procurement Services to Study Adapting the Procurement Process to the State Climate Action Plan.” The resolve didn’t get a lot of attention from the Soros-bought-and-paid-for (SBAPF) Maine legacy media, and I’m pretty sure that the majority of the committee is happy about that. 

    Here is the LD 1494 summary:

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