A percentage of people seem to be hard-wired or drawn to community service, leadership roles, and events in which they can serve their neighbors and fellow citizens. The Amateur "HAM" Radio Service offers a path to many rewarding public service opportunities.

Amateur Radio is regulated by the Federal Communications Commission, and one of the primary purposes for the existence of the Amateur Radio Service is "the value of the amateur service to the public as a voluntary noncommercial communication service, particularly with respect to providing emergency communications."

Connecticut Bound: Machias Area Little Leaguers Representing Maine in its First Ever New England Tournament

By Will Tuell

By Paul Sylvain

While Machias might serve up one heck of a July 4th parade, and throw a pretty good Blueberry Festival, the western Washington County town of Milbridge is not to be outdone when it comes to celebrating its annual weekend-long Milbridge Days each July. 

Whether you spend only a few hours or most of every day there, you’ll find plenty to see and do. And when you wrap up the entire weekend in clear, sunny, near perfect summer weather, as it was this past weekend, it can’t get much better than that.

By Paul Sylvain

It seemed only fitting, somehow, that an event first held at the Jacksonville Campground in East Machias, just months after the carnage and destruction of the Civil War ended, should — on July 23 — turn to honoring a group of area military veterans with the presentation of Quilts of Valor.

By Paul Sylvain

More often than not, the first couple of select board meetings following the annual town meeting are fairly routine. Such was the case at the Machias select board’s July 23 session. While it was light on business, it was long on discussion, where the bulk of the 80-minute meeting centered on the Upper Machias Bay Master Plan.

By Nancy Beal

The Beals selectboard was kept busy this July, holding two regular meetings and a third session related to a proposed aquaculture ordinance with an attorney. Sandwiched in between money issues was an effort to recognize all those who had contributed to the town’s successful centennial celebration during the weekend of July 11.

By Will Tuell

Dr. Zafar Ahmad, who began practicing orthopedics at Down East Community Hospital (DECH) in Machias late last year, may be a long way from Great Britain where he grew up and studied medicine, but the Pakistani native said in an interview last week that he feels right at home in Downeast Maine mending broken bones, replacing hips, and helping patients from the area’s labor-intensive fishing industry get back on their feet. 

By Will Tuell

On a bright sunny day in late July, the last place you would expect to find a group of ten junior high school boys and girls is waiting for a school bus at 6:45 a.m. Yet, it was just such a day on July 24 when the very bus that delivers many of them and their friends to and from Elm Street School in East Machias during the school year rolled up to take the youths and their four chaperones on a mackerel fishing trip none will soon forget. 

By Paul Sylvain

Efforts to raise funds and community interest to restore Machiasport’s 152-year-old Liberty Hall back to its former grandeur as a hub for activities in the town of about 1,000 residents took center stage, so to speak, at an open house there last Saturday. 

By Paul Sylvain

Washington County Sheriff Barry Curtis and Commissioners David Burns, Billy Howard, and Courtney Hammond are weighing the possibility of entering into a county vehicle leasing arrangement with Enterprise Fleet Management Services in Boston.

If an agreement is reached, it would mean that, instead of replacing aging vehicles by purchasing them through traditional car dealerships, the county would eventually be replacing them at a regular five-year interval through Enterprise.