February 1981
Work is moving ahead steadily on the steel framework for the $75 million biomass boiler at the S. D. Warren paper mill in Westbrook. The lighted Christmas tree that stood at the highest point has been replaced with a big U. S. flag.
Scott Paper Co.’s S. D. Warren Division and the city of Westbrook are considering a joint landfill dump on land between Stroudwater and Spring streets.
Extending Larrabee Road in Westbrook to the Five Star Industrial Park is under study, but may be 10 years away.
Gorham girls beat Lake Region 53-39 in the first round of the state Class B high school basketball tournament.
“Don’t Be Cruel, Save Our School” reads the big poster that has been erected in a window of Westbrook’s Forest Street School. But Superintendent Carl Knowlton’s budget continues to call for closing.
Cloudless skies, a gentle breeze and the strong sun combined to make Feb. 16’s 47 degrees seem like a summer day Monday. A Westbrook girl is shown sun-bathing in halter and shorts.
Westbrook Police Patrolmen Roland Bilodeau and Peter Murray persuaded a man to drop his rifle after he had fired three shots in a dispute with his girlfriend in Westbrook Gardens at 12:30 a.m. Police Chief Leroy Darling commended them for bravery.
South Portland is adjusting its zoning to accommodate group homes, in the wake of a 1978 consent decree that broke up the Pineland Center and sent the mentally retarded to group homes.
The South Portland School Board’s Long-range Planning Committee is all but ready to call for closing Skillin, Roosevelt and Hamlin Schools and maybe also closing Henley.
South Portland’s City Council is considering what to do with the former Reynolds School, which the School Department handed to the city in 1979. An elementary school, it closed in 1972 but briefly reopened for vocational classes in 1978.
Brian Peura, manager of the Gorham IGA Foodliner, is pictured in an ad presenting $1,000 to George Libby, the prize in this week’s drawing.
New rules at Gorham High School include a hall pass to go to the library, restroom, or a locker, except when classes are changing. Passes were dropped several years ago.
Two Gorham groups, the Concerned Citizens for Fairer Taxation and the Parents and Teachers for Education, are jointly sponsoring a candidates’ night in advance of the election March 10 of two Town Council members and one School Committee member.
Blue Seal Feeds and Needs opened its new store in Windham. Town Councilor Harold Haskell cut the ribbon.
Scarborough’s Zoning Appeals Board rejected the recommendation of the Planning Board and approved unanimously the plans of Waldron Scrap Iron & Metal for a new building at 391 Route 1.
When the groceries on the front seat started to fall, Mrs. Virginia Quinn, 57, of Saco, tried to save them. She wound up flipping her car onto its roof, demolishing it. Her injuries were minor.
Mr. and Mrs. Roy Hagerman, Queen Street, Gorham, vacationed eight weeks in Hawaii.
Linwood Timberlake, 26 Starboard Lane, Cape Elizabeth, knew Robert Lincoln, President Lincoln’s oldest son. It was 1928, and Timberlake was a circulation supervisor for the Washington Herald. Lincoln wouldn’t pay the carrier, insisting on paying his 15 cents to the supervisor every week.
February 1991
Six girls who are students at the University of Southern Maine posed in a Valentine’s Day greeting card for the men in the armed services in Operation Desert Storm.
A winter carnival next week will open Westbrook’s celebration of the 100th anniversary of its incorporation as a city.
Empty boxcars, in a string nearly a mile long, have been sitting idle on the Mountain Division tracks of the Maine Central Railroad in Westbrook for two months, to the annoyance of neighbors, who consider them unsightly and a potential hazard to children.
A state law enacted in 1972 gives unlimited borrowing power to the nine trustees of the Cumberland County Civic Center, who are appointed by the county commissioners. No approval by taxpayer referendum is involved. The trustees now are proposing to borrow and spend $38 million to build a convention center. South Portland City Councilman Kevin Glynn and City Manager Jerre Bryant called attention to the lack of voter control.
Bob Libby will retire March 1 after 10 years as Gorham’s town assessor.
Windham wants to start collecting $4,309 a year in property taxes on the Parson Smith House and its 126 acres, but the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities says it would have to sell. The house dates from about 1764. The society employs a caretaker family and opens the house for public inspection.
Blue Cross-Blue Shield is building its new headquarters in South Portland.
Under review in Gorham are plans of Hannaford Brothers Company for a 223,000-square-foot $13 million shopping center on Narragansett Street.
Mr. and Mrs. Philip L. J. Mailhot, 67 Lyman St., Westbrook, marked their 40th wedding anniversary.
Kendra, Jordan and Kristen Nelson, the triplet children of Paula Nelson, Birch Forest Drive, Windham, celebrated their sixth birthday Feb. 12.
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