By Paul Sylvain

From Santa and a live Nativity display to Wesley’s Tree Festival and brightly decorated floats, the spirit of Christmas was on full display throughout the Shiretown this past weekend in Machias. 

By Phil Stuart

The 2023\2024 high school basketball season officially opens on Dec. 8.  That is the date that high schools are eligible to play their first countable games.

For the most part, girls' teams kick things off with their season openers on Dec. 8. The Jonesport-Beals Royalettes travel to Machias for a matchup with the Lady Bulldogs.  Calais journeys up to Lincoln to face Mattanawcook Academy, and Woodland plays the Narraguagus Lady Knights in Harrington.

By Will Tuell

With the Christmas season in full swing, Downeasters could be forgiven for not paying attention to the goings on in the mountainous country of Nepal -- some 7,100 miles from Machias, as the crow flies. But for one local church, the festive time of year is the perfect time to be working to spread the Gospel to and improve the quality of life in a remote Himalayan nation gripped by sex trafficking.   

by Jonathan Reisman

“I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.

By Will Tuell

In what has quickly cemented itself as a Downeast Christmas tradition, the Wesley Tree Festival returned to the Lee Pellon Center in Machias last weekend. The festival, which got its start in and quickly outgrew the East Machias Town Hall (fire department), seems to get bigger and bigger with each passing year, even though four-year-old Wesley Keeton lost his life a decade ago in a tragic four-wheeler accident. 

By Paul Sylvain

A Robbinston woman accused of murdering her former lover and principal drug supplier last year in Pembroke, faces a prison sentence of 32 years after changing her plea to guilty in Washington County Superior Court on Dec. 7.

In changing her plea from not guilty to guilty, Rebecca Moores, 43, admitted to shooting 53-year-old Paula Johnson in Johnson’s home at 515 Leighton Point Rd, in Pembroke, on Feb. 9, 2022, Moores was arrested in Pembroke on July 6, 2022, and charged with Johnson’s murder.

Board Uses New Checklist, Approves Two Other Permits in 45-Minute Meeting

By Paul Sylvain

The Machias Planning Board has cleared the way for a new county public safety building to be built on the site of the former District Attorney’s office building at 85 Court St.

By Paul Sylvain

After three grueling days of jury selection and pre-trial discussions between attorneys and Judge Robert E. Murray Jr., the trial of accused murderers Kailie Brackett and Donnell Dana Jr. finally got underway Friday morning in Washington County Superior Court in Machias.

Brackett, 39, and Dana, 40, both of Pleasant Point, Perry, are charged with “intentional or knowing or depraved indifference murder” in the stabbing death of 43-year-old Kimberly Neptune on April 21, 2022. 

by Jonathan Reisman

By Will Tuell

Wayne Smith’s recent piece about Christmas wreath-making, known simply as “wreathing” to most longtime Downeasters, got me to thinking about my own family’s forays into the woods in search of fir boughs -- “tips” -- during the months of November and December and our own family wreathing operation out of my grandfather’s garage. 

“Oh, I ought to write that up,” I said to myself, not really expecting to have the time to do so amidst several other articles I had in the works at the time. 

By Paul Sylvain

“Dike is OPEN”!

Who could have ever imagined that those three little words, composed of just ten letters in all, would be the buzz of the town? But, a buzz, they did stir, shortly before noon on Dec. 15, when Machias Town Manager Bill Kitchen blasted them out in an email to local media.

By Nancy Beal

The joint board that determines what happens in the three schools in Union 103--Beals and Jonesport Elementary Schools and Jonesport-Beals High School—held its annual meeting last week at which members elect officers for the board and a superintendent to oversee the schools. In 45 minutes, there was a new board chair and superintendent.

by Jonathan Reisman

The explosion of campus antisemitism and support for Jewish genocide (from the river to the sea) has shocked many Americans, but for this retired professor who spent 40 years on New England college campuses, it is no surprise at all. The sources of that antisemitism are relatively easy to identify.

By Will Tuell

There wasn’t a seat to be found at the Machias Valley Baptist Church amphitheater last Thursday evening as parents, teachers, and community members gathered to watch the 42 Machias Valley Christian School students from preK-6 re-enact the birth of Christ as only children can. 

By Nancy Beal

A committee of seven Jonesporters who had put in three years of work and spent $35,000 of town-appropriated funds to create a comprehensive plan for their town brought it before the inhabitants in a required public hearing on Dec.14. Selectman and committee member Harry Fish called it a “vision of what Jonesport’s looking to for the future.”

By Will Tuell

No one person is responsible for the resurgence in activity at the Jonesboro Grange, a nondescript white building overlooking the Chandler River on Route 1, which nearly closed several years ago due to lack of activity, but in the years since Grangers resuscitated their home, the venue has become synonymous with a wide array of fun, family-friendly events such as the most recent “Grinch at the Grange,” summer and fall festivals, and a Veteran’s Day lunch honoring America’s servicemen and women. 

by Jonathan Reisman

I have bipolar dreams and nightmares about 2024. Many consequential issues and events are on the agenda, and there will undoubtedly be some surprises as well. I have been alternating between sweet dreams and terrifying nightmares.

National Popular Vote

By Will Tuell

Citing a desire to work with an active, hands-on Board of Directors to both enrich the arts and entertainment scene Downeast and showcase the region’s vibrant history, David Plath, the Milbridge Theatre and Community Arts Center’s newly minted executive director, is already setting the wheels in motion for an active 2024.