AUGUSTA (AP) – A governor’s promise to a 12-year-old Boy Scout who emerged safely from the northern Maine woods after being lost for more than a week was fulfilled Tuesday – nearly seven decades late.

Donn Fendler got lost on July 17, 1939, while hiking with family members on mile-high Mount Katahdin. The search for the boy from Rye, N.Y., drew national media attention.

After Fendler walked out of the woods on July 25 by following a stream and telephone line to a sporting camp on the East Branch of the Penobscot River, then-Gov. Lewis Barrows invited him to the State House in Augusta and promised him a lifetime fishing license.

But the license never materialized – until Tuesday.

Fendler mentioned the promise to Maine Conservation Commissioner Patrick McGowan when the two met last summer. McGowan told Gov. John Baldacci, who decided to make good on his predecessor’s promise.

Welcoming him into his office, Baldacci presented the gray-haired Fendler with the lifetime fishing license. McGowan paid interest on the old debt with a decorative canoe paddle autographed by Baldacci.

Fendler, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, was taken slightly aback by the attention, saying he was “just a dumb kid who got lost in the woods.”

Fendler gave the governor a copy of the book he co-wrote with Joseph B. Egan, “Lost on a Mountain in Maine,” which tells about Fendler’s 1939 adventure and is read by classes in many of Maine’s elementary schools.

“It tells you what not to do if you get lost,” said Fendler, who added that he has plans for the canoe paddle given to him.

“I’ll be on the East Branch of the Penobscot next week,” promised Fendler, who lives in Tennessee and returns to Maine every summer.

AP-ES-06-05-07 1548EDT

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