By Paul Sylvain

Residents in Machias and neighboring communities awoke Tuesday morning to the tragic news of the sudden passing of the Shiretown’s energetic and much loved Town Manager Bill Kitchen. 

Kitchen, who passed away sometime Monday, Sept. 9,  will be remembered for his tireless devotion and efforts to help promote and grow the town that he so clearly loved. He was Machias’ biggest cheerleader and will be sorely missed.

By Will Tuell

By day, Elm Street School in East Machias educates some 200 pre-kindergarten through eighth grade students, but this weekend one of the area’s largest elementary schools will be transformed by an eager group of “fiber fanatics” into a yarn connoisseur’s paradise as the annual Machias Fiber Festival gets underway Saturday, Sept. 14. 

By Paul Sylvain

To be, or not to be — an “official” town road, that is — is the question Machiasport town officials finally settled a week after the Cutler selectboard asked permission to use an Eastside road for access to Cutler’s clam flats in Holmes Bay.

By Paul Sylvain

Anybody wanting a thrill ride without the expense of an amusement park ticket need look no further than Port Road — Route 92 — in Machiasport. How bad is it? To paraphrase Jerry Lee Lewis, it could definitely shake your nerves and rattle your bones.

A nine-mile section of Port Road was slated for repaving in the state Department of Transportation’s 2024 paving plan. However, with summer on life support and the peak construction season drawing to an end, the Maine DOT has ruled out a complete Port Road repave for this year.

By Wayne Smith

Sept. 11, 2001, was a tragic day in the United States that nobody will ever forget. Everybody knew where they were when America was crippled after two planes crashed through the Twin Towers in New York, another plane went into the Pentagon, and some brave Americans overpowered terrorists to crash a third plane into a Pennsylvania field before even more lives could be taken. 

By Paul Sylvain

As schools go, Fort O’Brien in Machiasport is small, even for Washington County. While this year’s enrollment numbers weren’t available as of press time, FOB had about 48 students this past school year and should be around the same this year. 

By Paul Sylvain

An Aug. 8 ruling by Maine Business & Consumer Credit Court Judge Michael A. Duddy in a case pitting Jeanne Tennison against the town of Machias and Graham Holdings LLC was apparently 20 months too late for embattled property owner and developer Wesley Graham.

Eastport Arts Center’s “Stories We Tell” Festival, a collaboration with the Sipayik Museum and The Quoddy Tides, continues with The Malaga Ship: A Story of Maine and the Middle Passage, a performance by award-winning and world-renowned storyteller Antonio Rocha, on Saturday, Sept. 14, at 7 p.m. at Eastport Arts Center.

Using his body and tenor voice, Antonio sings, narrates, and moves through this poetically toned and heart-wrenching historical story. The story is partially told from the ship's point of view.   

By Nancy Beal

In a historic boat shop on Jonesport’s Moosabec Reach, where sawdust covers the floor and daylight penetrates ancient uninsulated walls, the 83-year-old great-grandson of a Beals Island boat building dynasty is extending the family tradition by restoring a lobster boat he helped to build nearly half a century ago. Isaac Beal won’t return to fishing in the Christopher, but he hopes to get one last run down the Reach next July to top off the racing success he enjoyed in her 20 years ago.

By Paul Sylvain

What began at the Aug. 26 Machiasport selectboard’s meeting as a simple appointment to fill a planning board vacancy, melted into a pointed discussion about a model aquaculture ordinance reintroduced by Protect Maine’s Fishing Heritage at the selectboard’s July 22 meeting. 

Although not specifically on the selectboard’s August meeting agenda, one thing quickly became evident. The planning board and other town officials want no part of the model ordinance offered last month by Protect Maine’s Fishing Heritage.