A woman who inspired it all with a letter to selectmen nearly a decade ago sat in her wheelchair Thursday on the stair-landing of the new Fairbanks School building.

Doris Gay, a longtime resident of Fairbanks village, wrote a letter to Farmington officials after fire destroyed the century-old school house in 1998. Gay suggested rebuilding it as a community center.

Though the building was no longer used as a school, it was dear to many who had attended it, from children to teachers.

Gay had been a student there, along with others at the ribbon-cutting ceremony Thursday.

She wheeled up to the gold ribbon with classmate Elena Barker at her side. Barker held a pair over-sized shears and together, with Barker’s hand over Gay’s, the two cut the ribbon. It opened the building and opportunities for community members to meet or hold gatherings.

“It’s very exciting. It’s been a very long nine years of fund-raising and a lot of work,” Fairbanks School Neighborhood Association member Patty Jacobs said. “We’ve come a long way from cleaning out the dirty, burned-out basement.”

– Donna M. Perry

Hotter than coffee

A Maine State Police trooper thought he’d seen everything on the road until a certain vehicle pulled up at a tollbooth in Gardiner over the Fourth of July weekend.

Trooper Tim Marks was stationed at the barrier toll on the lookout for motorists lacking seat belts or showing signs of drinking and driving.

When a woman from Kentucky pulled up to the booth watching an episode of “Gilmore Girls” on her laptop, Marks was stumped.

While Maine law bars drivers from watching television behind the wheel, it’s “vague” on the subject of other electronic devices, Maine State Police spokesman Stephen McCausland wrote in a recent agency newsletter.

Marks asked the woman to concentrate on her driving and leave the reruns for occasions when her vehicle’s engine was turned off.

The woman explained that she was tired and that watching Rory and Lorelai helped keep her awake.

– Christopher Williams

Obama, maybe

The national Democratic Party will send a lot of campaign workers to Maine in the coming months, but a visit from presidential candidate Barack Obama is unlikely, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said Friday.

“New England is not on the way to anyplace,” said Dean, a former governor of Vermont. “I wouldn’t want to rule it out, because (John F.) Kennedy actually did come here.”

A staffer came up and clarified his comments, saying it was too early to know whether Obama would visit Maine.

The campaign plans to open an office in Auburn soon.

– Bonnie Washuk