A freshman high school track star is pushing back against state Rep. Laurel Libby’s campaign against transgender athletes.

In a letter published by the Portland Press Herald, Anelise Feldman, who attends Yarmouth High School, defended Soren Stark-Chessa, a transgender athlete who recently took first place in both the 1600- and 800-meter events.

Feldman placed second in the 1600, clocking a personal best of 6:16.32, she wrote. It was enough to earn her varsity status at Yarmouth High. Stark-Chessa finished 5:57.27 in the 1600 and 2:43.31 in the 800, just a second ahead of her next closest competitor.

“The fact that someone else finished in front of me didn’t diminish the happiness I felt after finishing that race. I don’t feel like first place was taken from me. Instead, I feel like a happy day was turned ugly by a bully who is using children to make political points,” Feldman wrote in the letter to the editor.

Stark-Chessa, a junior at Maine Coast Waldorf School in Freeport, testified last week before a legislative committee hearing a slate of bills concerning transgender athletes.

In an interview on Fox News last week, Libby lamented Stark-Chessa’s performance at the track meet earlier this month, accusing her of “pushing many, many of our young women out of the way in their ascent to the podium.”

But Feldman pushed back against Libby, saying that personal improvement is valued as much as the place where athletes finish. She wrote that athletics are the highlight of many students’ time in high school.

“No one was harmed by Soren’s participation in the girls’ track meet, but we are all harmed by the hateful rhetoric of bullies, like Rep. Libby, who want to take sports away from some kids just because of who they are,” Feldman wrote in the Press Herald letter.

In February, Libby took to social media to lament the performance of a different transgender athlete who had won a girls indoor track title. That post thrust Maine into the crosshairs of President Donald Trump, who threatened to withhold federal funding from the state over the inclusion of transgender athletes in girls’ and women’s sports, saying that violates an executive order he signed that month.

The day after Trump singled out Maine at a Republican governors’ event in Washington, he crossed paths with Gov. Janet Mills at an event at the White House. In a heated exchange, Trump pressed Mills on the state’s policy toward transgender athletes and the governor told the president that she would “see you in court.”

State law, specifically the Maine Human Rights Act, prohibits discrimination in education, employment, housing and more on the basis of race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, disability, ancestry or national origin.

There are no transgender athletes competing on any University of Maine System sports team. At the high school level, only two transgender athletes are competing during the current school year.

For the 2023-2024 school year, about 45,000 students participated in high school sports in Maine, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. (That does count students who participated in two or more sports multiple times.)

Between 2013 and 2021, the Maine Principals’ Association, which oversees scholastic sports for 151 public and private schools, heard from 56 trans students wishing to participate on a high school sports team consistent with their gender identity, only four of whom were trans girls.

Since that verbal sparring at the White House, the Trump administration has launched an unprecedented pressure campaign against Maine over the inclusion of transgender athletes. Key to that has been a slate of Title IX investigations from six federal agencies targeting the state, the Maine Department of Education, the Maine Principals’ Association, Greely High School in Cumberland and the UMaine System.

Last month, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi sued the state alleging it was discriminating against and failing to protect women and girls in violation of Title IX, a landmark 1972 anti-discrimination statute. Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey responded late last week, accusing the Trump administration of a slew of constitutional violations and asking a federal judge to toss out the case.

That case could ultimately land before the conservative U.S. Supreme Court, where the Trump administration could ask it to rule that Title IX outlaws athletic policies like the ones in Maine and more than 20 other states.

The U.S. Department of Education, whose Title IX probe is behind the civil rights lawsuit, has launched a separate probe into its state counterpart over allegations that dozens of school districts are hiding students’ “gender plans” from parents in violation of the   Family Educational Privacy Rights Act.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services also has referred a Title IX case to the Justice Department.

The Maine House censured Libby in February for her social media posts. She has sued House Speaker Ryan Fecteau in federal court to get her speaking and voting privileges back. But the courts have handed her two  setbacks.

Now she’s asking the Supreme Court to take up her case.

Beyond the investigations, the Trump administration has been trying to leverage federal funds to get the state to reverse its policies toward transgender athletes.

Almost immediately the Trump administration pulled funding for Maine Sea Grant. More than 30 states, Puerto Rico and Guam participate in the national Sea Grant program. No other Sea Grant program has seen its funding cut.

That funding was restored earlier this month after the Commerce Department renegotiated the award, though it’s unclear what — if any — changes were made.

In March, the Social Security Administration ended two programs allowing Maine providers to share birth and death information electronically, a move that meant new parents would have to travel to one of eight Social Security offices to register their newborns for a Social Security number.

The agency reversed that decision within 48 hours.

The acting Social Security administrator, Leland Dudek, took that move in retribution against Mills over her war of words with Trump, despite earlier statements calling it a “mistake.” He even brushed off a senior aide’s warning that it would increase fraud. In an email, Dudek acknowledged “improper payments” would increase, but it was necessary in order to punish a “petulant child.”

And on April 1, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins informed Mills that her department was pulling funding for programs that feed schoolchildren, children in day care, at-risk youth outside school hours and adults in care settings. In a letter to the governor, Rollins warned that “this was just the beginning” for Maine because of alleged Title IX violations.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration signed a settlement with Maine agreeing to “refrain from freezing, terminating, or otherwise interfering with the state of Maine’s access to United States Department of Agriculture funds” over “alleged violations of Title IX.” In exchange, Maine dropped its lawsuit challenging the freeze.

In April, Bondi announced that her department was pulling $1.5 million in “nonessential” funding from the Maine prison system because of a transgender inmate housed in a women’s prison.

The national nonprofit that owns most of Maine’s newspapers on Tuesday announced that it sold 21 of its newspapers in Colorado to a company that media observers say is known for cuts to local newsrooms.

The National Trust for Local News described the move to sell the Denver-area publications to Tempe, Arizona-based Times Media Group as a restructuring that will “allow the organization to maximize its long-term impact and sustainability in the state.”

Will Nelligan, chief growth officer at the National Trust for Local News, described the sale as a way to “reduce our footprint in greater Denver without reducing local journalism there, all while positioning ourselves to grow in the parts of Colorado where the need for our unique model is greatest.”

Neiman Journalism Lab reporting on the sale described Times Media Group as “a company with a history of gutting local outlets.”

The National Trust has owned most of the newspapers in Maine since 2023 when it bought five dailies and 17 weeklies from Reade Brower, who still owns several newspapers in the midcoast and Hancock County.

The purchase, which included the Portland Press Herald, Lewiston Sun Journal, Kennebec Journal in Augusta, Times Record in Brunswick, Waterville-based Morning Sentinel and more than a dozen weekly papers across southern Maine, was heralded a way to safeguard local journalism at a time when small newspapers are regularly sold to private equity funds that then strip them of their assets.

In recent months, the Maine Trust saw a wave of high-level departures, and in March announced lay-offs of 36 full-time and 13 part-time positions, along with plans to reduce its print operations to save money.

The sale of the 21 Colorado papers was announced one day after the National Trust appointed its new CEO Tom Wiley. He replaced co-founder Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro who resigned in January.

French breakfast radishes, Hakurei turnips and Swiss chard are for sale at the Andrews Farm display in the Augusta Farmers Market at Mill Park on a Tuesday afternoon in early May. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

AUGUSTA — Rain patters on the pavilion at Mill Park on a Tuesday in early May.

It’s nearly the end of the day for the Augusta Farmers Market, but the energy is high. Kids stomp around in muddy yellow boots, vendors chat with each other and somewhere, a family is boiling fiddleheads for the first time.

Farmers market season takes root in May with the promise of sweet vegetables and sunny days ahead. Vendors change, products trend in and out and markets shift locations, but the interest in buying local remains strong each summer in Maine.

This summer, after some uncertainty, the Yarmouth Farmers Market is back — right in front of town hall. Fiddleheads are available for a short stint in Augusta, and farms are extending their growing seasons. On top of the usual ebbs and flows, recent warehouse E. coli outbreaks and Avian flu-related egg shortages mean more Mainers want to know where their food is coming from.

Mike Perisho, farmer at Andrews Farm in Gardiner and a vendor at the Augusta market, said Mainers are especially tuned into growing season.

“In Maine, people aren’t that removed from having a big family garden or growing up on a farm themselves,” Perisho said. “And so they know when to look for in-season vegetables. We can surprise them with early tomatoes, but they know already when rhubarb is coming, beet greens, asparagus, peas, stuff like that. It’s a good thing, because people are on the lookout.”

THE GOODS

Caitlin Jordan, owner of Alewive’s Brook Farm, brings vegetables, fruits, baked goods and seafood to markets in Portland, South Portland, Saco, Scarborough and Yarmouth.

She said she is planning to increase this summer’s stock of value-added products like apple-cinnamon muffins, zucchini bread and carrot cake — all made from crops grown on the farm in Cape Elizabeth.

Caitlin Jordan, pictured in 2022 irrigating her family farm in Cape Elizabeth. Now the chairperson of the Portland Farmers’ Market, Jordan says she plans to increase the farm’s value-added products, such as baked goods and soup. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer

“I mean, I know everybody loves vegetables and whatnot, but people have less time on their hands,” Jordan said. “So us being able to create some of those favorites that people don’t necessarily have the time to do themselves — you might not want to make an entire carrot cake yourself, but being able to buy a piece of carrot cake right from the farm is fun.”

Jordan took over the farm from her father in 2023. The change has allowed her to experiment with different varieties of crops and find creative ways to package farm products.

“We’ve been making stuff for years, but really trying to come up with new and fun things each week,” Jordan said. “We’re talking about making different kinds of soups, like, we raised turkeys so we could make a turkey soup, or just so simple as to make a vegetable soup later, once we have more veggies available. Just stuff like that, getting more creative beyond just the farm fields.”

Other farmers are also experimenting with their products. Perisho said this year will be the first time Andrews Farm can offer cucumbers and tomatoes when demand is high.

“Once the weather really gets nice, people start asking for tomatoes, and in the past we wouldn’t be able to supply those until late July or August, and now we can have them by middle of June — cherry tomatoes at least,” Perisho said. “We’ve added heaters to some of our formerly unheated greenhouses, and we turn up the thermostat in April, plant about a month earlier than you could otherwise.”

Then there are the crops with a season as short as it is sweet — to some. A wild fern that unfurls each spring, its taste like a cross of broccoli, asparagus and green beans, fiddleheads are a nutrient-rich, spring delicacy in Maine. They’re also an acquired taste, said Lee Brown, who forages fiddleheads and sells them at the Augusta Farmers Market as an independent vendor.

Fiddleheads are a sure sign of spring in New England. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

Brown — better known as “the mushroom man” because of the wild mushrooms he sells the rest of the year — said people also recognize him from his nine years of selling fiddleheads at the market and wheeling them around near Shaw’s and other spots in Augusta.

“People look for me this time of year,” he said.

In a matter of weeks, fiddleheads will be out of the season and all eyes will be on tomatoes, cucumbers, potatoes, corn and summer fruits. Vendors must plan far ahead to meet seasonal demands, but Perisho said new growing techniques provide some flexibility.

“We just have the ability in Maine, with some modern growing techniques, to grow fresh food 12 months out of the year,” Perisho said. “And I think that’s the future. It’s better for you. It’s better for the economy. I can keep staff on year round. So that’s where we’re headed, at least.”

EXTENDING THE SEASON

Andrews Farm has produced lettuce 52 weeks a year for the last three years, but other products will be available earlier than ever, Perisho said, sold at markets and at their new farm stand Wednesdays through Saturdays in Gardiner.

“Our game plan is just to have popular things early,” Perisho said. “It seems like there’s always that early enthusiasm about produce, but if you don’t have season extension, you’re really limited to salad greens until almost July. So trying to have some of those popular summer crops early has been well received by our customers, for sure.”

Customers are increasingly choosing farmers markets over supermarkets, according to Jordan, who said she sees new and old faces shopping each week.

“You have the people that come every week and you get to meet them and get to know them as as regulars, and then it’s always uplifting to see the new faces that come out, week after week,” Jordan said, “and see that more and more people are becoming more aware and more interested in where their food is coming from.”

Sean Mulkern restocks the display at the Wild Fruitings booth in the Augusta Farmers Market under the gazebo at Mill Park. High season approaches for Maine farmers markets. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

For many customers, buying local is not just a matter of sustainability and support for Maine’s economy, but health, said Nathan Swett of Ash Hill View Deer Farm in Carmel. Swett sells venison and related products at the Downtown Waterville Farmers’ Market and also frequents markets in Orono, Hampden and Bangor.

“Just knowing the farmers that are producing it and what’s being put on the crops seems to be a lot more important to people,” Swett said. “They want to know where their food is coming from and how it’s processed. Because people are getting tired of all the pesticides and everything else that’s being put on foods, the growth hormones and all these other things that we keep learning more and more about that shouldn’t have been in our food to begin with.”

Peggy Totapley, clerk at the Augusta Farmers Market, hands out vouchers for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, a state program offered at many farmers markets that allows customers to buy crops and food with vouchers. Augusta’s program means a lot to people who need extra help to afford groceries, she said.

From greeting vendors at the beginning of the day, handing out vouchers and watching crops cycle through the season, Totapley said working at the farmers market feels meaningful.

“I like the people and I like the customers,” she said. “I’ve worked at other shop sort of situations, and I prefer this. The farmers market seems more meaningful to me, more basic. We are very lucky to have this roof. It’s a nice place. You can see the birds.”

Under that roof and many like it, vendors spend several days of each week together as they hop from market to market. Perisho said he took a break from in-person markets last year but found he missed the community.

“I actually was hiring out our farmers market staffing this last year, but I really missed it,” Perisho said. “It’s really cool to have that face-to-face interaction and get off the farm. We’re a really tight-knit vendor group. Most of these vendors have been selling at this market for at least five years, if not ten. It’s a cool community gathering, once a week.”

Jordan’s father sold products at Maine farmers markets for 20 years. She said the community has been invaluable — especially as she continues his legacy.

“He’s not able to go to the markets anymore. And people ask, every week, how he’s doing,” Jordan said. “They genuinely care. Like I said, you become a family.”

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