COPLIN PLANTATION – Taxpayers in Coplin Plantation will be asked to congregate at 7 p.m. Tuesday, July 15, at the Stratton-Eustis Community Building on Main Street to decide on appropriating more money for ambulance service.

At the town’s annual meeting in late March, Coplin Plantation voters opted to raise $3,119 for ambulance coverage through Franklin Memorial Hospital. Although $5,009 was requested from FMH to service to 140-resident town, residents wanted to make a statement about their opposition to the drastic increase in subsidy cost, and find out more about the increase.

Now, they will be asked to raise $1,890, which will be taken from surplus, to pay the remainder of the cost of coverage.

In a separate article, voters will be asked to choose whether to appropriate $7,000 from surplus toward lowering taxes. If the article is approved, the mill rate is expected to decrease by .40 mills.

The surplus account will also take another slight hit if voters agree to pass article 3, which asks them to appropriate $3,600 to pay for rent for town office space.

Salem gears up for old-fashion party

SALEM – Residents here plan to step back in time and party this weekend as the town holds its third annual Farmers Founders Day.

According to one of the event organizers, April Grant, the two-day festival is, “A chance to bring the town together and have some fun.”

The schedule of festivities for this year’s FFD could be interchanged with a fair from 1900 and include sack and wheelbarrow races, wood-splitting, fly-casting and pie-eating contests and the frying pan and hay bale tosses.

These field events will take place where Grant grew up at Coffren’s Farm, right next to Dellie’s Store on Route 142 between Kingfield and Phillips.

The event leads off with a parade at 9 a.m. on Saturday morning that will feature the Old Crow Indian Band.

Later in the day will be an auction. “We’ll take anything as long as it’s legal and moral,” teased Grant about the items in the auction. “No husbands and no kids.”

Saturday night will be a beanhole supper at the town’s Community Building followed by a county and bluegrass concert at the fire station featuring A and E’s Hill County Music.

Sunday, FFD rolls on, starting with an early morning pancake breakfast at 7 a.m. at the community building. Then Grant says, it’s back to the ball field for a game featuring the town’s firefighters at 1 p.m.

The festival is organized by the town’s volunteer fire department and the Pine Tree Club, which Grant explains is a group of Salem women who do community service projects like putting on monthly concerts, fixing up the community building and sending some extra money to community members in dire straits.

“These ladies really work their buns off,” she notes of the Club.

For more information about either the Pine Tree Club or the Farmers Founders Day, contact April Grant at 678-2874.

Strong receives

federal funding

STRONG – The fire department in Strong was the latest town to benefit from a slew of grant awards being dolled out to town’s across the county via the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program, or the FIRE Act.

Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe announced on Wednesday that Strong’s department has been awarded $29,700 for fire operations and firefighter safety.

“These grants allow our firefighters to obtain the tools and training they require to protect our communities,” the senators said in a joint statement. “Not only do these grants help towns throughout Maine remain safe, they also help to protect the health and safety of the firefighters who risk their lives every day.”

Strong is the third town in the county to receive funding through this program. So far, New Vineyard’s fire department has received $29,340 in federal money meanwhile Chesterville collected $49,050.

sdepoy@sunjournal.com
Kids create

at arts program

WILTON – Although school isn’t in session for the summer, the Academy Hill School in Wilton is getting good use.

This week, the pitter-patter of 90 pairs of the sneakered feet of young student filled the halls and livened up the classrooms, as the school became a colony for budding artists enrolled in Foothills Summer Arts.

Activities at the arts programs included poetry, creative movement, theater, music and kite-making.

Crouched on the floor, 10-year-old Kayleigh Morin, of Farmington, worked diligently on coloring a vibrant peace sign circled by green and blue colored spikes on the kite she had built out of trash bags and thick-stock paper.

“I am enjoying the camp a lot,” she said, her sneakers, hand painted in a rainbow of colors, tucked beneath her as she pressed the marker hard onto the plastic with a fierce determination, hoping to drain out every last bit of purple ink. “I am making a lot of new friends and it’s a fun experience, even if your not that good at art.”

For Morin, the camp is a chance to find her inner Monet and herself. “Whether you are weird, wild or wonderful, people here will respect you,” she said maturely, before rushing to shelve her kite and join the group for an end of class meeting.

It’s here in the art classroom with acidic marker fumes swirling in the air that students gather to rate a busy day of creative classes by pressing two thumbs up, or down, or at half mast, into the air. Mostly, it’s two thumbs way up in a go-see-this-movie kind of way.

As she rushed out of the room, Morin offered a final bit of advice for aspiring artists. “If you want your art to look like real life, go buy a camera. It’s really important to be creative.”

sdepoy@sunjournal.com
sdepoy@sunjournal.com