Hearty Maine Hello from Northern Virginia! I hope everyone is having a good summer.
Hélène Acker Farrar presented a solo exhibition titled “What We Carry” at the Maine Jewish Museum in Portland from January 9 to February 25, 2022. The exhibit displayed over 20 paintings exploring “the weight of burden” carrying a sense of play into deep introspection and a response to the current social climate and culture. She painted all works of art in the ancient medium of encaustic, a molten beeswax paint. Hélène is known for her bold and textured nature-inspired paintings of trees, critters, birds, and flowers. She is a teaching artist at her farmhouse studio in Manchester and for the Farnsworth Art Museum and has taught across New England including the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. She shows her work nationally and has been invited to participate in many exhibits, some of which include the Saco Art Museum and the Art Complex Museum. Hélène recently released her first illustrated children’s book, The Deer Man. Further information can be found at her website: helenefarrar.com.
Congratulations to Sarah Williams on being awarded the Joanne Ruiz Achievement for Excellence in Clinical Practice and HIV Awards by the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care in November 2021. After graduating, Sarah worked as a chemical engineer and then returned to school to get her master’s in nursing. She is now an advanced practice nurse. Sarah is married and has two daughters.
Lynn Bentz Fontaine sent in her update from Yokota Air Base, Japan, where she has been working as an embedded health provider since 2021. After graduating, she went on to earn her MSW at Boston College. From 2008 to 2017, and 2019-2021 she worked in Germany as a behavioral health provider. She happily reports that she is with a couple of other UMaine alumni in Yokota! (And we also learned that she and I were both in Wiesbaden, Germany, at the same time!)
Abby Deitz Manahan ’04G became Regional School Unit 13’s first distance learning coordinator this spring. She had been Boothbay Region High School’s technology integrator. Abby started her career as a marine scientist serving projects at UMaine’s School of Marine Science. She moved to Boothbay Harbor to manage the Maine State Aquarium and then served as community education scientist at Bigelow Laboratory in the early 2000s. Abby earned her master’s in education in science education from the university in 2004. She committed to science and instructional technology in education through work with the Maine Department of Education, the Mid-Coast School of Technology, and the Maine International Center for Digital Learning. She also served on the RSU12 school board as Alna’s representative before returning to the school district five years ago.
Bangor broadcaster Wayne Harvey started his new human resources job at Northern Light Health in March. He departed the Morning Line sports radio talk show on The Ticket WEZQ of Bangor, where he had been since 2019. Prior to the Morning Line, Wayne was the co-anchor of the WABI TV5 Morning News from 2008 to 2019. Wayne began his broadcasting career in 1993 when he was hired by Kiss 94.5-FM of Bangor to do Maine high school basketball tournament updates. He has done play-by-play announcing for college and high school games throughout his career and said he is interested in still doing games from time to time if his schedule permits. Wayne was also the announcer for harness racing at Bass Park in Bangor, but stepped down last year after 22 seasons. He is also a high school soccer referee.
Congratulations to Alexander and Brianna Renshaw, children of Valerie Goslin Renshaw, who were named as co-recipients of the Class of 1998 Scholarship for this past 2021-2022 academic year! Alexander was a senior and Brianna was a junior, both majoring in business management. The Class of 1998 Scholarship Fund is awarded to descendants of our class. Please consider contributing to the fund when you donate to the University of Maine Foundation.
Please continue to send in updates on yourself and our classmates! Follow the Class at facebook.com/groups/UMaineClass1998/