Lionel and Normand Guay hope their spotlight will help spread good news about Lewiston-Auburn.
LEWISTON – The Brothers Guay don’t doubt for a minute that the world is going to be interested in their story.
They’re counting on it.
“Norm was joking that we’re going to end up on the Jay Leno show,” said Lionel Guay, 62, mayor-elect of Lewiston. Voters gave him a 76 percent margin at the polls Tuesday.
Brother Normand, four years younger and the mayor of Auburn since last January, expects a public relations bonanza for Lewiston and Auburn.
“I’ve talked with friends in television, and they say this is a big deal,” Norm said. “Two brothers, mayors of twin cities- you don’t see that very often.”
Oxford Networks is wasting no time taking advantage of the Twin Cities’ mayoral brotherhood. Norm Guay is scheduled to place the first official call on Oxford Networks’ new telephone network at 11 a.m. this morning. He’ll phone Lionel at Lewiston City Hall on the other side of the Androscoggin River.
It’s the first time the brothers expect to use their family relationship and elected positions to bring attention to Lewiston-Auburn.
It won’t be the last.
“I think we have great opportunity to bring some good publicity to our two cities,” Lionel said. “People are going to be interested in the brother mayors, and we intend to talk about Lewiston-Auburn the entire time.”
Maine historian Paul Mills agreed that it is rare in Maine history.
“There is always some cross-fertilization between cities, but this would be extraordinary,” Mills said. “Especially in Lewiston and Auburn, which are really so close in so many ways.”
Historically, father-and-son leaders have been elected years apart, Mills said. “But brothers in two cities so closely related – in the annals of Maine politics, I’d say it’s unprecedented.”
Best friends
The two have always been close, Lionel said. Their father, Lionel Guay Sr., died when Lionel was 9 and Norm was 5. Their mother, Anna, raised the boys on her own in Lewiston.
“We must have given her a hard time,” Lionel said. “We fought, of course, like boys that age do. We were just typical kids. But she taught us to have community spirit.”
Norm says Lionel is his best friend and a great influence on his life.
“I honestly do not remember the last time we were mad at each other,” Norm said. “You’d have to go back to when we were young boys, I think.”
The two grew closer after Norm returned from the military in the 1960s, he said. “We had more to relate to, as adults.”
By then, Lionel had started his accounting business. Norm, who’d worked as an announcer for the Maine Nordique hockey team for a time, joined the Auburn Police force in 1978 before becoming a parole officer for the state. He was elected to the Auburn City Council in 1992 and won that city’s mayoral race last year.
Behind the scenes
Lionel didn’t run for mayor just for the attention, he said. He has shied away from elected office in the past. Unlike his younger brother, Lionel prefers to work behind the scenes. While Norm was sitting on the Auburn City Council in the 1990s, Lionel was working to re-establish Lewiston’s annual Festival de Joie, a celebration of Franco-American culture.
“I think he’s more comfortable speaking in front of the public than I am,” Lionel said of his brother. “He’s just more at ease doing the public speaking.”
Friends, including his brother, began urging Lionel to run last December.
“But I’m pretty stubborn,” he said. “I’m not an easy person to influence in that way. I had to make up my own mind.”
Ultimately, Lionel was convinced that his experience working with community groups could help the city. Any publicity would be a welcome side-effect.
Norm agreed.
“The mayor’s job is largely ceremonial, in both cities,” he said. “We act mainly as ambassadors. But having both of us be mayor at the same time, I think, could be quite historic. I think we can use that to our advantage.”
There’s a lot of good going on here, Lionel said, from Oxford Network’s new Lewiston office and its cable TV-telephone network to the new Hilton Garden Inn in Auburn.
“But outside of Lewiston-Auburn, you don’t always hear about it,” Lionel said. “I think we can use the opportunity to spread the word. We have to.”
There will be other positives, Norm said.
“I had a fine working relationship with (Lewiston Mayor) Larry Raymond,” Norm said. “But we had to work to establish a relationship.”
He won’t have to work on that with Lionel.
“We know how the other works and thinks, and I’m looking forward to working together,” Norm said.
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