Sharon Dawley was a beloved Martel Elementary School teacher known for her devotion to her third-graders. This week, Martel staff and students mourned her unexpected death. Some wrote letters. Some attended her funeral.

Darlene Letourneau, who taught with Dawley for more than 20 years, knew there was something extra she had to do. Letourneau completed Dawley’s lesson plans.

Dawley, a Martel teacher for 34 years, liked to have things planned in advance. Out sick the day before she died, she told Letourneau she had to come in to complete her lessons. She was concerned that a substitute wouldn’t know her students, wouldn’t give them what they needed.

Dawley died before she was able to finish those plans. Days after her death, Letourneau did it for her.

“I couldn’t let her not have this,” she said. “I wanted to do it just so her spirit will know her plan book is finished and up to date.”

– Lindsay Tice
Hold the phone

Franklin County commissioners and their counterparts in the Maine County Commissioners Association discussed several proposed legislative bills with their lobbyist, Bob Howe, during a conference call Tuesday.

The call postponed the Franklin County Commission’s scheduled agenda for an hour.

Commissioners from Cumberland, Franklin, Knox, Penobscot and Waldo counties weighed in on a number of bills pertaining to rural patrol, county jails, county real estate taxes, court security and guns on county property, among other issues.

A bill that garnered flat-out opposition from most, if not all, of the participants, was L.D. 249, which would require county commissioners to calculate the cost of shared policing services.

Those on the line agreed they needed to keep on top of several bills that pertain to rural patrol.

“We need to defend what rural patrol does,” said an unidentified voice from another county.

– Donna Perry
Four’s the charm

By the time citizens of Farmington got to Article 26 on the warrant of their annual town meeting last week, major budget items were already resolved. But a proposed article authorizing $1,000 for two local snowmobile clubs elicited more discussion than articles requesting six times as much.

“Here comes the real discussion,” whispered Police Chief Richard Caton III.

“The snowmobile clubs always take the longest,” he added.

The article was amended four times before it passed.

First, the article was amended to correct the year. Then Mitch Boulette, director of public works, informed voters that one of the two snowmobile clubs had disbanded.

“Missing Links (of New Sharon) is extinct,” he said, somewhat ironically.

After amending the article to keep only Northern Lights of Industry as the funding recipient and a failed vote – 31 to 42 – to give the club $500, the article passed, providing the club with $1,000.

– Jodi Hausen