October 1980
A new building is under construction for the Portland Museum of Art. Its collection, numbering more than 5,000 items, is being inventoried and will be placed in safe storage.
The Soil Conservation Service has issued a new map of Cumberland County. Of the county’s 563,640 acres, 69,273 acres are designated as prime famland – land best suited for producing food, feed and forage.
Ed Langlois is chairman for the first-ever reunion to be held Saturday for those who worked in the South Portland shipyards before and after we entered World War II. About 32,000 worked there, for Todd-Bath or the South Portland shipbuilding Corporation. About 200 are expected at the reunion. They’ll see projections of 85 slides of shipyard operations and the Liberty and Victory steel cargo ships they built.
Mrs. Jan Phillips, Portland, is new librarian of Baxter Memorial Library, Gorham.
Duane Damon, son of Mr. and Mrs. Edgar Damon, Norway, and Pamela Ayers, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. George Ayers, Gorham, were married Aug. 9. They will make their home on Main Street, Gorham.
McLellan’s “History of Gorham, Maine,” first issued in 1903, is being reissued in a printing of 500 copies.
A photo at a Democratic rally in Gorham shows State Senator Ronald Usher, Town Committee Chairman Carolyn O’Brien, State Representative Ada Brown and congressional candidate Harold Pachios.
Pamela Dingle is new assistant principal of Windham High School.
Dunstan Hook & Ladder will hold a dance Friday night to help pay for the new addition to the Engine 6 fire station in Scarborough.
The Scarborough Lions Club will sell hundreds of items in an auction Saturday. Half of the proceeds will go for the fire station addition, the rest to the town. Included are some furniture from the 105-year-old Pillsbury House and things that have come into town possession.
To save energy, Westbrook has covered the windows of Saccarappa School and half of the high school’s windows this summer.
October 1990
A man from Boston and a man from New York City were arrested and two others are sought, all accused of holding up a gambling party of about 50 men in the Westbrook home of a Westbrook restaurant owner. Most of those involved are Orientals.
Westbrook’s Planning Board voted 3-2 against a proposed sewage sludge composting plant after visiting one in Unity. The smell was horrendous, reported board member Leo Lagasse.
Westbrook’s City Council has voted for only one pickup a year of bulky wastes, in the spring, thus eliminating the October pickup.
A Massachusetts study shows that the risk of leukemia (blood cancer) is four times higher if you live near the Pilgrim nuclear power plant.
On Friday, Westbrook will be Maine’s Capital For A Day. Governor John McKernan will visit, and his staff will be in Walker Memorial Library 9 a.m.-5 p.m.
About 30 people joined John Mikolay Sunday in cleaning Westbrook’s Beaver Pond. On Monday, city trucks hauled away what they pulled from the waters – seven 55-gallon-size bags of compressed trash; two big bags of recyclables; a heap of tires; two mounds of brush and tree parts; and miscellaneous metal.
Gary Massanek, a former member, was appointed to the South Portland Planning Board Monday by the City Council. He replaces Dan Grover, who resigned. At the same meeting, William York submitted his resignation from the Planning Board.
Controlled Environment Equipment Corporation is moving from Westbrook to the Gorham Industrial Park. It makes clean-rooms for industry.
Standish will pay the Animal Refuge League $3,783.50 next year for shelter services.
John Boyden, Republican, and Elden McKeen, Democrat, of Windham, are rivals for the Maine House of Representatives.
Mr. and Mrs. A. Wayland Hawkes (Edna Skillins), 105 Spring St., Westbrook, marked their 50th wedding anniversary. Edna was the American Journal’s office manager 1960-1978.
U. S. Secretary of Labor Elizabeth Dole and Maine Gov. John McKernan spoke to the 165 employees of the Irwin Company Monday at Open House in its plant in the Gorham Industrial Park, where it makes taps, dies and small hand tools.
South Portland’s city and school costs will run $100,000 higher than their budgets if fuel costs stay at the levels they now have reached – 80 cents a gallon for heating oil and 85 cents a gallon for gasoline and diesel. That’s the prediction of Les Akerly, school finance officer.
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