Get ready for Homecoming 2024! Check out Hotel Ursa, a new on-campus option for Homecoming or Reunions!
The Homecoming dates are Oct 18-19, 2024 — The Class of 1988’s 35th Reunion was last year, but you can always come back for Homecoming!
I enjoyed following Maine hockey while attending games in Boston, New Hampshire, and Orono! Reunited with alumni and friends and was lucky enough to gather with alumni from Penobscot Hall while attending the Northeastern men’s hockey game in Boston. As of this fall it will have been 40 years since I was a freshman from New Jersey, so impressionable and excited to make new friends! What do you remember? Tell me for the next edition!
After 40 years of coaching high school basketball, soccer, and tennis, Peter Murray G has decided to call it a career. Peter served as the head coach of Dexter Regional High School basketball team for the past 30 years and recorded over 300 wins.
He has been named to the Maine Basketball Hall of Fame for 2024 and is the longtime president of the Maine Association of Basketball Coaches.
Tom Peaco (business admin) is the president and CEO of the University of Maine Alumni Association, and he was the first speaker of the year at the General Student Senate (GSS). Tom reported there are currently 110,000 alumni living across the world and half of them still reside in Maine, with Massachusetts as the second-most alumni-populated state. Florida is close behind with 4,000 alumni. Tom was quoted as saying to the GSS, “We want you to know that we’re here. You may or may not realize it now, but you’re going to miss this place when you leave. So, it’s our job to keep reminding you about why you love it here.” He also told them, “We look forward to keeping in touch with you now as students and as you go off into the world after you leave!”
Those of you who follow UMaine sports may have seen all the effort Tom and his team made throughout the fall and winter months at football games, Homecoming 2023, women’s and men’s hockey, along with women’s basketball and the special watch party in Boston when our women’s team played Ohio State! Fantastic alumni turnout at all events! Tom and his wife, Michelle Coosard Peaco ’92, are a wonderful dynamic duo and were responsible for setting up and serving as alumni greeters at all these events!
The fourth-generation potato-growing operation in Exeter, ME, Crane Brothers, is co-owned by Steven Crane (Coll of LS&A) and his cousin, Jim Crane ’82. Steve and Jim took over from Steve’s father, Neil Crane ’58, who still works during planting and harvesting season, and Jim’s late father, Vernon Crane. Steve’s son, Matthew ’17, and Jim’s son, Ryan, also work on the farm. The farm’s potatoes have been going to Frito-Lay, Inc. since the 1960s.
In 2020, Steve and his wife, Becky, purchased Dragonfly Farm and Winery in the nearby town of Stetson and their daughters and their husbands moved home to operate the business. On Saturdays, the tasting room is so busy that all family members help.
It sounds like an excellent weekend road trip destination!
Matthew A. Kenney (Coll of A&S) has opened many exciting restaurants from Maine to California and beyond. (The Portland Press Herald covered a news story on 1/23/24 that was based on an LA Times article.).
Catherine DeWick Johnson (education and English) attended and volunteered as a greeter at several of the UMaine alumni-sponsored Black Bear hockey team events. She enjoyed meeting fellow alumni, hearing updates about UMaine, and plans to participate in upcoming events in 2024. Catherine also reports reuniting with five of seven of her former resident assistant (RA) group from Penobscot Hall (circa 1987) and hopes to connect with the final two in time for Homecoming 2024!
Catherine also enjoyed a chance meeting with Kate Marshall Ford (business administration), in a busy convenience store in York, ME. Catherine was in her first hours of a long drive through a winter storm from Brunswick, ME to Philadelphia for her granddaughter’s second birthday party — and in the few minutes inside the store, despite wearing all the winter clothing, these two were able to recognize each other — who said Black Bears change over 35 years!?