The town of Fort Fairfield is busy preparing for another fun-filled week of events and activities that will take place during the 72nd annual Maine Potato Blossom Festival to be held July 13-21.

During Northern Maine Community College’s recent graduation ceremony, Dr. Beth Ann Collamore of Caribou received the 2019 NMCC President’s Award not only for her service as a medical professional, but also for her dedication to the college’s emergency medical services training program.

Caribou Police Department plans to recruit extra officers during Fourth of July week. In addition to impaired driving and speeding, the extra officers will be looking for traffic and criminal violations.

Mapleton Daze is here. Tonight is the bike rodeo at the Mapleton Elementary School Parking lot at 6 p.m. followed by the Family Movie Night featuring “A Dog’s Way Home” at the Mapleton Lions Hall at 7:30 p.m. Northern Light A.R. Gould Hospital will furnish the popcorn and water for refreshments.

Crown-O-Mane Bar & Grill, located at 18 Main St. in Ashland, recently celebrated their grand opening with a ribbon-cutting ceremony hosted by the Central Aroostook Chamber of Commerce.

The Maine State Police Troop F barracks in Houlton responded to 142 calls for service during the period of June 3-9, including the following.

It doesn’t seem like that long ago we were writing about winter dog care tips. Thankfully the days have been warm and beautiful.

The Mars Hill Town Council set its 2019 tax rate on Tuesday evening, raising the property tax rate by 1.4 percent to offer the town a budgetary cushion.

Marilyn Chase is a well-accomplished author, journalist and educator -- although she’s unlikely to laud her own success. She’ll celebrate her 90th birthday this October.

Easton FFA members bring home awards from national conference

115 Years Ago - July 6, 1904 Fish -- The government fish car recently completed a trip over the Bangor and Aroostook Lines, at Portage Lake putting in 12,000 trout and at Square Lake 50,000 land-locked salmon.

101 Years Ago - June 27, 1918 Manufacturing in the area -- W. F. Griffin, bookkeeper for the Stebbins Lumber Co. at Howe Brook, was in town.

On the first hot day this year, I followed Rita Gardiner through a field and apple orchard to a large garden plot that is part of the newly-resurrected SAD70 Greenhouse and Garden Project. Gardiner was hired to oversee the program in the early spring and since then she has weeded and picked rocks and pulled last year’s plastic mulch and weeded some more and coordinated the tilling and plantings in both the greenhouse and garden. Somehow, she has done this between her full-time job at County Physical Therapy and volunteering with her husband as their sons’ baseball coach. Along the lines of, “it takes a village,” she is quick to credit and talk about the amazing support system the school garden project has. That support system includes her family, a main reason she decided to take on this position. Both of her sons like to help garden and she is inspired by how her kids and others are open to learning about something that they don’t know about or maybe hadn’t even thought about before. Gardening in general creates many questions and she is looking forward to exploring answers with the students. Teachers have volunteered and are in charge of compost bins and planting experiments with different classes. A master gardener student volunteers her time with garden prep and planting, as do other parents and local farmers. There are some basic objectives with the project, including growing food and getting it back into the school kitchen for student meals, allowing students to harvest and potentially take some produce home with them, and to eventually grow enough to have an on-school farmstand that the kids would manage. That may seem like a lot to take on but Gardiner is aware of the steps that need to be taken to reach the program’s objectives and she has begun incorporating some of those this season. Her overall goal is to provide all students with life skills and have them experience the connection with where and how their food is grown. That’s an important connection living in an area that has a rich agricultural heritage but one that many families are now distanced from. Gardiner’s goal for the students is important but what I realized after meeting her is that she is also providing her sons and the students a positive example of what it means to be part of something much larger than yourself. Gardiner and the school garden support network are doing what strengthens communities everywhere, sharing their time, knowledge, and hard work to benefit the community we all work and live in. To keep track of what’s happening with the school garden project, like their FB page, MSAD #70 School Greenhouse and Garden.

Crimes related to drugs and addiction topped the list of Aroostook County grand jury indictments for May, District Attorney Todd Collins said on Tuesday.

Scott Austin of New Limerick was the winner of a John Deere lawn mower as part of an annual fundraiser sponsored by the Southern Aroostook Agricultural Museum in Littleton.

he Maine State Police Troop F barracks in Houlton responded to 123 calls for service during the period of May 27-June 2, including the following.

Cary Medical Center and Pines Health Services have announced the arrival of participants in the Maine Track MD Program, Jacquelyn O’Sullivan and Stephen Soohey, for their nine-month Longitudinal Integrated Clerkships (LIC).

The Washburn Memorial Library has announced the start of a new club for needle crafters.