Isabelle Birdsall Schweitzer
Please send me any of your news. There are two print issues per year. There also is a class Facebook group and class notes section at umainealumni.com/classpage/class-of-1975/.
As I write this on a beautiful September day, my family prepares to head to Maine for my oldest daughter’s wedding. We are really looking forward to it. Let’s hope we get treated to some of that wonderful Maine September weather. Fingers crossed.
Curtis Lunt ’85G has retired as Monmouth town manager after 12 years. In total, he worked as a town manager for 44 years, which included six towns in Maine and New Hampshire. He was surprised to find that creating parks and trails in the towns were some of his favorite projects. That, and working to keep taxes reasonable. During retirement, he hopes to find time for duck and turkey hunting, golfing, bicycling, and kayaking. It sounds like an active retirement ahead.
Somehow, I think Ellen Rix Spring and I might have crossed paths with all the Maine races we both ran throughout the years. Sorry we didn’t know each other. Ellen has been running since 1979 and continues to run now. She has done every event type, from 5K to triathlons, including finishing 27 Boston Marathons, with 24 of them in consecutive years. Quite a feat. Her plan is to keep running and moving as long as she can. When not running, Ellen is the librarian and media specialist at Oceanside High School in Rockland.
Thanks to the tremendous generosity of Paul and Giselaine Coulombe, a two-story addition is being added to the East Tower of Maine Medical Center. The tower will be renamed the Coulombe Family Tower. This gift, which will add 64 patient rooms to the oncology services, was due in part to the wonderful care that has been provided over the years to the family.
“Survivor Bob” (Bob Crowley) has waged a war against the browntail moths in Maine since the late 1970s. As a forestry major, this was the perfect job for him. For five years he walked the Maine coast from Old Orchard Beach to Bath, plus Reid State Park and the Casco Bay islands, destroying nests as he found them. Then funding was cut, with the moth remaining on just two islands. Browntail moths are now entering Maine in massive numbers, defoliating entire neighborhoods. The tiny hairs they shed also can cause severe skin rash and respiratory problems. For several years after funding was cut, Bob sounded the alarm, with no action being taken. He now stages an annual event to get friends to join him to shoot down the nests on one island, but this does only a little to help, due to the large area they now cover. He really regrets not being able to finish the job back in the ’80s. Currently, there is research into trying to find a way to stop their spread in Maine.
The official portrait of retired Governor Paul LePage G is part of the official collection of the Maine State Museum and will hang on the third floor of the State House, along with portraits of other recent governors. The portrait of LePage sitting in the Blaine House study was painted by Ken Hendrickson of Rockport.
Please send your news to me or to the alumni office and enjoy the months ahead.