It was about 30 minutes before the start of the awards ceremony on Sunday, June 11, and the Lewiston delegates were beginning to get nervous, when there was a quiet knock at the door.
Adbi Shiekh, representing the Lewiston office of Catholic Charities Maine, interrupted to introduce a new friend – Abdi Dirie, a Somali immigrant living in Durant, Texas, and one of Durant’s delegates to the competition.
The two had met earlier in the hotel lobby.
“He asked me how I could be there to support a city that had treated me so badly,” Shiekh said. But Shiekh defended Lewiston. The white supremacists who protested the Somali migration in 2003 – and made national headlines – were from out of town. Most of the people in Lewiston had welcomed the Somalis and worked hard to help them fit in, Shiekh said.
After talking with Shiekh, Dirie went to a nearby movie keepsake store where he bought three small Oscar statues and had them engraved. He awarded them to Lewiston officials: Mayor Lionel Guay, City Administrator Jim Bennett and Assistant City Administrator Phil Nadeau. With tears in their eyes, they carried the statuettes with them to the awards ceremony.
Trade-off
Hossain Naji, a track star at Lewiston High School, missed the state finals to go to Anaheim. He took some ribbing from his teammates and his coach about that decision.
“But I think it shows extreme amounts of character that he decided to do this,” Jim Bennett said. “He worked hard to help get us here, and now he’s seeing it through.”
There was a huge sense of relief and loud cheers on Saturday night when Bennett announced that the LHS track team had claimed the state title.
New ideas
Kelin Sevit of the Lewiston Youth Advisory Council came back inspired. He hopes to create a date-rape and acquaintance violence program for teens modeled on one created by the city of Schaumburg, Ill. He hopes to make a similar program part of the youth council’s projects this year.
Seth Roberts of Andover College said he liked a kids’ night out program created by the city of Golden, Colo., and an outreach program between community colleges and the local high school in Pharr, Texas.
“I can really see that happening in Lewiston,” he said.
Winnable
Delegates also came home convinced that Lewiston’s best days are still coming. The fact that they got as close as they did shows that Lewiston has changed.
Delegate John Paul Spellman summed it up: The old Lewiston is dead and members of Lewiston’s Youth Advisory Council would be the last ones to know the city as it was.
“Your children will never know the Lewiston you grew up with,” he said. “They’ll never know the old Lewiston, the one with no confidence about itself.”
Where was Auburn?
One judge wondered why Lewiston was there without Auburn. Shouldn’t they be talking about efforts to work together and combine services?
Mayor Lionel Guay listed cooperative efforts between the two cities. That effort was mentioned in the city’s application, but not in the presentation. Look for future applications – if there are any – to play up the Twin Cities aspect.
Auburn was actually named an All-America City in 1967, the last Maine city to get the honor.
Comments are no longer available on this story