Maine

University of Southern Maine welcomes freshmen to Gorham campus

Published

2 years ago

August 30, 2024

University of Southern Maine welcomes freshmen to Gorham campus

Emily Burrill, a freshman from Sullivan, carries a monitor into Upton Hastings Hall at the University of Southern Maine in Gorham on Friday, move-in day for USM’s freshman class. Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer

First thing Friday morning, volunteers were on the University of Southern Maine campus in Gorham wearing bright yellow “Welcome to USM” shirts and guiding vehicles to the front of Upton-Hastings Hall.

Hastings is one of several residence halls on campus where students are moving in this weekend. Dean of Students Rodney Mondor said roughly 550 freshman were scheduled to arrive Friday.

They include Emily Burrill, who is undecided on her major but thinks she might study physical therapy.

“I’m a little nervous, but my roommate seems really cool,” Burrill said.

Her father Richard joked he was “undecided still” about Burrill leaving home. They drove in from Sullivan, a town in Hancock County more than three hours away.

“He’ll miss me,” Burrill said.

“I just can’t believe she’s 18, going off to school,” Richard Burrill said.

Around them, students and their families were carrying pop-up chairs, shelves, lamps, dishes and bins of quick groceries.

“Gotta grab the coffee maker,” one mom laughed, following her daughter into the dorm. “Because that’s most important.”

Rose Brassard, left, Lily Allard, center, and Lauren Pflanz look over items at the free yard sale at the University of Southern Maine in Gorham on Friday. The university’s Office of Sustainability collects items students leave behind when they depart the dorms in the spring and offer them free to incoming students in the fall. Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer

On a lawn nearby, there was an even larger assortment of dorm room items for the taking at USM’s “free yard sale.”

Steve Sweeney is the Resource Recovery Supervisor for the school’s Office of Sustainability. At the end of every school year, the school accepts things students no longer want that’s still in usable condition, he said.

They’ll donate electric fans, books, shelves, shower caddies, clothing hangers, furniture and even dishes (some taken from the dining hall). Some of the more unusual items on display Friday morning include a bowl of nerf darts, a tie-dye kit and a snowman waffle iron.

Anything that isn’t taken this weekend will end up at the Freestore, which is open to students and staff throughout the year.

Sweeney said this saves the school about $2,000 a year that they used to spend on renting dumpsters.

“The students also save a lot of money by not having to buy this stuff,” he said.

Mondor, the dean of students, watched late Friday morning as roughly a dozen students perused the yard sale. He said he was looking forward to orientation this weekend, including an event to help new students navigate the bus system.

“With new students comes all kinds of new adventures,” Mondor said. “It’s always exciting because we have no idea what October will look like.”

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Maine

Maine needs to change its work zone signage | Opinion

Published

60 minutes ago

March 13, 2026

Press Room

Maine needs to change its work zone signage | Opinion

Dan Petersen lives in Augusta.

In the recent past I have had the occasion to drive north on I-295, then I-95 several times from Portland to Augusta, most recently in the early evening about 8 to 9. North of Portland, I encountered a posted work zone with a stated speed limit of 45 mph, with not one but two flashing signs also announcing the work zone.

On the way through the work zone, the road shoulders were narrowed considerably by Jersey barriers, but there were no lane changes, no work lights and no perceivable work going on.

As I approached Augusta, some 45 minutes later, a sign indicated a work zone with a speed limit reduced to 55 mph. This time, there was no change in the lanes of travel — all barriers and barrels were pulled back off the shoulders of the road to allow free use of the breakdown lane, if necessary. There were no work lights, no work activity, and all equipment was silently positioned at a distance from the highway and situated on or near entrance and exit ramps.

These events, and others similar, remind me of an incident that occurred to me on an interstate highway in New Hampshire. I was headed south on I-89, having recently crossed the Vermont state line. I saw a work zone sign reducing the speed to 45 mph.

In the next several hundred feet there were two barrels near the edge of the pavement, at a comfortable distance from the travel lane. That was it. No evidence of any construction area, no workers, no equipment, no Jersey barriers or other barrels, cones or such things. I slowed, but with nothing else in sight, accelerated again. Police stopped me. Trying not to be argumentative, I asked where was/is the work zone/speed zone. In the end, I was let off with a warning.

In the latter case, the barrels and sign were likely forgotten. I find it hard to believe someone set those up, then left for the day. Similarly, why is the speed limit in Augusta on I-95 at the Route 202 underpass reduced to 55 mph, especially when nobody is around? Neither travel lane was impeded, and there was a full breakdown lane through the entire area. In the first case stated above, and less concerning because of the narrowing of the road shoulder, why were there two flashing lights?

It has been my experience that cars speed through work zones at times when no workers are around, and there are no lane shifts or narrowing of the road to be concerned about. By insisting on reduced speed when no danger is present, the Maine Department of Transportation “cries wolf” when it should save such things for instances where it really matters. Travelers keep up their speed because they see nothing has changed from the usual.

How about a change in MDOT policy? Reduce the speed only in cases where the road narrows or the lanes shift. And save the flashing signs for those times when workers are present, and use them to announce that workers are present only when they are, in fact, present. Then the public will know that, at that particular time, it is important to slow down.

I believe that with a little thought, the MDOT can improve things at construction sites for the traveling public, and for themselves. Example: At the beginning of the construction of the overpasses at that same I-95 intersection with Route 202 in Augusta, the entrance ramp onto I-95 north was, essentially, an amateur drag race.

The entrance ramp was placed at a 45-degree angle to the highway. But instead of an acceleration lane there was a stop sign. Anybody entering the highway at that point had to stop, crane their neck hard to see traffic over their left shoulder (side mirror was not helpful at 45 degrees), and then accelerate from a dead stop to 55 mph to keep from getting run over by any northbound traffic.

At some point MDOT must have either heard complaints, or realized this safety issue, and put in a short, but needed, acceleration lane, and a sign warning the northbound traffic of those trying to get on. I just wish it had done that from the beginning.

So, I suggest that MDOT change its signage policy to make sense. Let’s continue that thought by allowing free flow of traffic in work zones when appropriate, and notify the public with flashing lights when — and only when — workers are present.

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Maine

Maine lawmakers discuss several new plans to address child care crisis

Published

13 hours ago

March 12, 2026

Press Room

Maine lawmakers discuss several new plans to address child care crisis

AUGUSTA (WGME) — There are several new plans to take on Maine’s child care crisis.

Lawmakers and child care workers rallied for the bills at the State House Thursday.

That includes investing $15 million into Maine’s child care affordability program and prioritizing lowest-income families on the waitlist.

Another bill would increase reimbursement rates for infant and toddler care, which carry the highest costs.

That bill would also fund care for off-hours for families who work second or third shifts.

Supporters say affordable, accessible child care isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity.

“Child care is not just, it’s not glorified babysitting,” Senate President Mattie Daughtry said. “These are people who literally, you know, are shaping the future of our youngest citizens. They’re teaching them crucial skills. What might just look like holding a pair of scissors or gluing down a collage together is setting down important neural pathways that will set up that child for success.”

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Maine

He’s been to every town in Maine, mostly for something to say. | Column

Published

1 day ago

March 12, 2026

Press Room

He’s been to every town in Maine, mostly for something to say. | Column

Jeff Hewett of Cape Elizabeth said that there are 454 cities and towns in Maine. He has been to all of them. He keeps a map of Maine near his office in the distribution area of the Maine Trust for Local News. (Daryn Slover/Staff Photographer)

Several years ago, Jeff Hewett was at a dinner party when the subject of obituaries came up. He realized, other than being “an avid Red Sox fan” — as he’d seen in so many posthumous biographies — he wasn’t going to have much to say in his.

He didn’t have kids and worked the same job for most of his career. Another dinner guest reminded him that he could say he’s a cribbage player, but again, so are most Maine men, he said. Hewett needed something more.

An eighth-generation Mainer who’s proud of his roots, he decided he was going to visit every incorporated town and city in the state — 454, by his count — and, unlike most people who claim to have “been everywhere,” he would take a picture to prove it.

Hewett, 64, who lives in Cape Elizabeth, is easing into retirement from a 38-year career in printing sales that started at the Times Record in Brunswick and, in 2019, was relocated to the South Portland plant that prints the Portland Press Herald, now owned by the Maine Trust for Local News.

In embarking on his quest, Hewett didn’t map out a route to take through the state or choose a certain time or place to start. He just happened to be on Isle au Haut in the fall of 2018, on his annual hiking trip with a group of friends, when — remembering his obituary idea — he realized he probably wasn’t going to make it out to the remote island off the Midcoast again anytime soon. So, he found the town hall and asked his buddy to take a picture of him.

When they got back to the mainland, he realized he could check off Blue Hill while he was there, and Belfast, too.

“It started the ball rolling,” he said.

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Hewett on Isle Au Haut, where he started his mission of visiting every town and city in Maine. (Courtesy of Jeff Hewett)

Every photo after the first one has been a selfie. Not that he hasn’t had plenty of company on his travels. There’s been his neighbor and frequent cribbage opponent Mike Drinan, who gave him a ride on his boat to Chebeague and Long islands in Casco Bay. Client-turned-friend Janet Acker did the same to Swan’s Island, off Bass Harbor. One of his hiking buddies, Ron Morrison, stuck around after a trip to make a few stops by Bangor and has accompanied Hewett elsewhere.

He’s gone by himself at times. Once, after returning from the Sugarloaf area, he realized he’d missed a town. So, one Saturday, he drove back up to New Vineyard, took a photo and went home.

“Some of them were just random. ‘Hey, we’re in Lyman; let’s find the town office,’” he said.

Most of the time, he’s been accompanied by his wife, Mary, whom he met on a blind date, though she knew him from his days bartending in the Old Port, he says, and “wanted nothing to do with me.” Their 30th anniversary is in September.

He says she partly comes along for the free lunch, the quality of which can vary depending on where they are. (They were pleasantly surprised by burgers they had in the Penobscot County town of Lincoln.)

She’s also told him that she likes just standing back and watching him talk to the people he meets wherever they are, whether it’s someone working at a town office — where he takes all his selfies, if the town has one — or giving him directions when the GPS leads to the middle of nowhere. (His car has never broken down, but he’s gotten lost plenty.)

Hewett often explains what he’s up to, which sparks a conversation. He remembers telling a woman working in a town office in northern Maine — in Allagash, he thinks — that he had come a long way to see her that day, from the Cumberland County town of Cape Elizabeth. Oh, she said, I’m from South Portland.

“Being in the business I’m in, you wind up having a connection everywhere,” he said.

He was staying with friends in Houlton when they ran into a man introduced to Hewett as Don Douglas, a member of the Maine Baseball Hall of Fame. He asked Douglas if he knew fellow hall-of-famer Bob Curry from his neck of the woods. Ah, yes, he said, the crafty left-hander.

“People know people,” Hewett said.

His “gift of gab” has helped him get rides from strangers on islands, when boats have dropped him too far from the town office to walk. There was the harbormaster on Chebeague, and the woman on Swan’s in an old Subaru, who offered to show him and his wife the prettiest beach on the island, then left them in her driveway while she went to have lunch with her brother. He flagged down a pickup truck for a ride back to his friend’s boat. When he told her what happened, she said she knew the house he was talking about; that woman was probably one of the Rockefellers.

The same skill for conversation has been essential to his career, as a liaison between commercial printing clients from all over New England and newspaper production staff. It’s also what landed him the job as the de facto tour guide for the South Portland printing plant, being one of few people who can both explain how the process works and entertain a crowd.

His travels have given him something to talk about with people back at home, too. At least a couple times a week, he said, a place he’s been will come up in conversation, when he’s asking someone where they’re from or talking about their Maine vacation. If you’re going to Washington County, he’ll tell you, Eastport has more going on than Lubec. If you’re thinking about visiting Vinalhaven, he’ll suggest you get on the ferry to North Haven instead.

He’ll give you an assessment of the town office there, too, from the utilitarian Quonset huts in places like Passadumkeag and the unimpressive sign on a flagpole in Ripley to the stately Queen Anne-style town hall in New Gloucester and the quaint, white clapboard building in Bowerbank on Sebec Lake.

He can show you. He’s got all the photos on his phone and in a searchable gallery on a website that his brother made for him. Flipping through them shows his thick gray hair and beard getting lighter over the six-year span. Sometimes, he’s in sunglasses or a baseball cap, others a winter hat. In the one in front of the Medford town office, he thinks he looks like a lobsterman who just returned from sea, though his tan is actually from driving with the top down on the 2006 Porsche Boxster he bought in 2020 to improve his cruising.

“Do I look like I’ve had a hard day there, or what?” he said.

A few of the photos are at the signs for town lines, when he couldn’t find a municipal office, like in the Washington County town of Vanceboro. Border patrol agents there couldn’t help him either; they all live in Calais, they told him.

His final stop, at Frye Island in September of 2024, didn’t fail to deliver a tale worth recounting. He and his friend were sitting at a cafe by the ferry landing when a public works crew showed up. The dock plate was broken, and cars — like the one they decided to take over — wouldn’t be able to board the boat to Raymond until it was fixed. Fortunately, a few hours later, they were back on the mainland, his mission accomplished.

Hewett has taken plenty of day trips since then, but in more random directions now that he doesn’t have a destination to check off — to Bath in search of an electric fry pan or Parsonsfield just to go for a ride.

Although he knows about the Boothbay Harbor couple who’s been to every Maine post office, he hasn’t heard of anyone else who’s visited every town.

As he cuts back on his work week, he plans to start tackling the state’s 28 or so plantations, most in far-flung places. He’s looking forward to revisiting Aroostook County and to his first trip to Matinicus, an island 20 miles out to sea.

It will give him something to do with his newfound free time, and something else to say.

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