Echoes magazine releases anniversary edition

    A cover full of covers identifies the 20th anniversary edition of Echoes magazine released this month. Filling the front, back and inside back covers of the 81st edition, colorful miniatures of Echoes covers trace the life of the magazine from 1988 to 2008. Published quarterly in Caribou, Echoes is dedicated to the theme of “Rediscovering Community,” portraying qualities of life at risk and disappearing in many places.     “Echoes affirms that knowledge of rural experiences can help us live in modern society — that there is permanence in the midst of change and value in remembering our roots,” said Kathryn Olmstead, editor-publisher. “People across the nation respond to stories and images showing how Aroostook County retains the sense of community they knew as children.”
    For Kevin McCartney of Caribou, “Community” is the answer to the question of why he loves northern Maine, the topic of an essay in the current Echoes. “For me, ‘community’ is to humans what ‘ecology’ is to the natural world,” writes the University of Maine at Presque Isle geology professor. “In an area of fewer people rather than many, everyone takes on greater importance.”
    In addition to McCartney’s essay, the anniversary edition contains features, life stories, poetry, fiction and columns by writers with Aroostook connections from Utah, Texas, Colorado, Minnesota and Florida, as well as Hancock, Hermon, Howland and Winslow, Maine.
    In honor of the anniversary, two regular columnists and several frequently published photographers reflect on their work, identifying their most satisfying Echoes publications and describing what inspires them to write and create images.
    “I love to write pieces that give readers a chuckle,” said Glenna Johnson Smith of Presque Isle, author of the column: Old County Woman.”When a woman my age told me that we shouldn’t drive downstate alone because someone might accost us, and when she explained that a woman could buy and inflatable man to ride with her — right then I knew I was ready to meet ‘My Brother Victor,’” Smith’s favorite essay because “readers laughed when they read it.”
    John Dombek of Santa Clara, Utah, likes to write about truths that puzzle him. “I look for a way to illuminate it by writing something that might contain its essence,” says the author of the column “Beyond Washburn Street” (where he grew up in Houlton).
    Favorite cover photos selected by Echoes photographers fill a colorful center spread, illustrating the comments of photographers Ray Burby of Caribou, Michael Gudreau of Presque Isle, Shari Ireland of Castle Hill, Stephen Leighton of Fort Fairfield, Erni Roberts of Gorham, Darlene Rossignol of St. Jacques, N.B., Janet Stephenson of Washburn, Roger Stevens of Lincoln and Steven Young of Frenchville. Leighton expresses a theme typical of their reflections on their work when says, “There is beauty everywhere if you take time to notice.”
    Among the features in Echoes No. 81, Jack Pasqual of San Antonio, Texas, recalls the era when his father owned shoe stores and specialty shops in Presque Isle, Caribou and Van Buren; and Larry Smith of Boulder, Colo., and Dana Smith of Lake Elmo, Minn., collaborate on a story about their grandparents’ cross-country camping trip in 1931-32.
    David Bergquist of Hermon pays tribute to “Houlton’s Speed King” in a biographical essay about James Frederick Dow, UMaine Black Bear football star and Army Air Corps pilot who died in a formation flying training crash in 1940.
    “In 1942, the Army Air Force would honor James’s memory when it named its new Bangor army base ‘Dow Field,’ “ Bergquist writes. “James’s name would be on the lips of 100,000 airmen as they passed through Bangor during the war years on to air battles over Fortress Europe and to an uncertain future.”
    In personal life stories, Dan Ladner of Presque Isle immortalizes a nuisance raven that raised havoc in his hometown, and Charles Huckins of Leesburg, Fla., remembers how he felt as an 8-year-old when he helped harvest blueberries on his grandparents’ farm in Warren, Maine.
    “My shoulder ached for days,” Huckins writes, “but I will always remember the joy of being treated as a member of the crew.”
    The current Echoes contains poetry by David Brainerd of Holden, Betty Anderson of Caribou and Daphne Crocker of Hancock, and a fiction piece by former border patrol agent J.D.Aiguier of Winslow. Columnist Glenna Smith writes about one of her teacher mentors, Avis Lamoreau, and John Dombek portrays the feelings of a father upon his daughter’s marriage.
    Members of the international Echoes community will gather at the University of Maine at Presque Isle July 20 to celebrate 20 years of Echoes. Writers and photographers will display, sign and sell their work and a program will feature readings by Smith, Dombek, Aiguier, Ethel Pochocki of Brooks, Rhea Cote Robbins of Brewer and Annaliese Jakimides of Bangor. Doors open at 3 p.m., and the program begins at 4 p.m.
    For more information visit echoesofmaine.com.
    Olmstead can be reached via mail at Echoes, P.O. Box 626 Caribou, Maine, 04736; by phone, (207) 498-8564; or online at kathryn.olmstead@umit.maine.edu.