May 11, 1983
Cheers, applause,and a standing ovation greeted a 6-0 decision by the Westbrook School Committee Monday to start a middle school in September. The changes that go with it will touch every school except the high school. The audience of about 100 persons was dominated by teachers, whose union gave strong support to the plan, and included several citizens who also spoke in its favor. Three citizens who had some reservations spoke, and one of them presented a petition with 418
signatures asking for a delay and for treating all sixth-graders alike. The committee vote rejected the petition. Half of the sixth grade will go to the present junior high, because there’s not enough room there for them all. Canal and Congin schools will keep their sixth grades.
When Roger Knight’s ancestors settled on the County Road, the Indian war-whoop was still rattling through the woods of Maine, and one of the settler’s risks was death by tomahawk. Peace brought security, and in security the settlers and their descendants cleared and tilled the land and made a good living from what it grew for more than 200 years. But creeping irresistibly out from the cities, development has engulfed farm after farm in the years since World War II, right up to
Roger Knight’s borders. His farm consists of 390 acres in Scarborough, Gorham and Westbrook, but its closest tie is with Westbrook, where the farm buildings stand. Roger is the great-great-great-great-great grandson of Col. Thomas Westbrook, for whom the town was named. Westbrook died in 1744 and lies buried in the woods on the land of his
sister Mary and her husband, Nathan Knight.
Happily for Roger and Sally Knight, with the help their family and friends, the Knights launched a three-track plan for dealing with the development threat. First came Hillside Lumber, a sawmill on the hill behind the house that is expanding into the general building-supply business. Then came a new barn for a modernized Knight dairy herd. This month, a new Smiling Hill Farm Ice Cream store on the farm opened its doors to the public. The Knight children are involved in all three operations. At Hillside Lumber, daughter Darlene Wallace, 25, is the bookkeeper and son Michael, 21, is in charge of yard sales. Darlene’s twin brother David is the dairyman in charge of the barn and dairy herd. Daughter Rebecca Curry, 24, is in charge of the ice cream business. Two other Knight children still in college are Marsha, Michael’s twin, studying forestry and wildlife at University of Maine, and Warren, 23, specializing in political science at Bates.
May 12, 1993
Eric Thomas, 6, was playing in a gully near his Westbrook home on March 30, 1992, when he found a $50 bill. His mother, Annette, and father John, explained to him that it belonged to someone, and it wouldn’t be right to just put it into his pocket or his piggy-bank. Eric turned it over to Westbrook police. His act of honesty and civic responsibility was so unusual that it threw the Westbrook Police
Department into considerable confusion about the rules for handling that $50. Eric finally got the bill to keep Wednesday, and with it, words of praise from police Capt. Paul McCarthy. Eric’s money-gully runs between Lugrin and Alberta Drive, Incidentally, he has been back “2 million times” looking for more money.
The Westbrook Eagles Club will host a big benefit evening for the family of young Amanda Watts Saturday. It will start off with a dinner, from 6-8 p.m. There will be a five-piece band, The Renegades, with dancing from 6-1 a.m.
Police were looking for a 14-year-old boy who shot six Westbrook children with BBs using a high-powered, pump-action air rifle Thursday and Friday. They have his rifle. They said Elizabeth Brown, 133 Spring St., took it away from him after she saw him shooting boys at the Beaver Pond. The boy, who lives on the north side of the Presumpscot River, shot two younger children who were walking in Westbrook Gardens
Thursday, police believe. On Friday he showed up with his rifle at Beaver Pond and began shooting frogs. Then he turned the rifle on four boys who were fishing. Luckily, none of BBs did permanent damage, but they left welts on the chest and arms of the boys who were hit, police said. The rifle had a muzzle velocity above 600 feet a second. Police expected to catch up with the boy this week when he was due in court on unrelated charges.
Suspended Westbrook firefighter James Rogers did teach a fire class in Westbrook for pay May 2, but it was not for the Westbrook Fire Department, Westbrook Chief James Roman said last week. Rogers was paid by the Cumberland County Fire Chiefs to teach in a Fire Attack School. He taught smoke evacuation to a class that met in a vacant house across Warren Avenue from the Westbrook police station, Roman
said. Rogers was suspended for 30 days without pay by Roman on April 23 after failing to report promptly that he damaged a backhoe.
The Gorham Town Council will apply for grant money to buy an old railway bed between Access Road and Cressey Avenue for converting to a walking trail. The decision last week came after representatives from the Gorham Trails organization asked the council to endorse a grant application they wanted to make for the same money.
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