PARIS – Babies born in Oxford County in 2005 will get a little something special to mark their arrival.

Stephens Memorial and Rumford Community hospitals will join with Oxford County to provide the infants – or more likely their parents – with “Bicentennial Baby Certificates.”

Larry Glatz, who’s heading up next year’s salute to 200 years of county existence, said both hospitals’ community relations officers were embracing the certificate plan. He asked County Commission members who met Tuesday if they’d be willing to sign onto the project, and perhaps, the certificates as well.

Commissioners Steven Merrill and Frederic Kennard endorsed the plan.

They also told Glatz they’d lend their support to another effort saluting America’s only Oxford County: colorful signs that will proclaim Oxford’s uniqueness and declare 2005 as its bicentennial year.

The signs, designed by McLaughlin Signs and Truck Lettering, are topped off with a friendly, smiling black bear.

Glatz said the 8-foot-high welcomes to the county will be posted along roads such as routes 26, 2 and 302 that lead into Oxford, although he noted it might not be wise to post a bear on Route 26 in Upton, a rural town known for bear hunting.

He and others at the meeting agreed it might be wise to put up signs in areas where there are homes with people who could keep an eye on them.

Glatz suggested that businesses could sponsor the signs, expected to cost about $550 each. Poles for them and the cost to install each sign could add up to another $50 to the cost, he said.