Cheers to state veterinarian Don Hoenig, a guy with a reputation for being a bulldog about enforcing health regulations in Maine’s commercial farming operations. His zeal is what has kept Jack “Austin” DeCoster’s birds in Turner clean, and the public here safe from tainted eggs.

Mainers have breathed a collective sigh of relief in recent weeks as we’ve watched the national salmonella enteritidis outbreak linked to DeCoster’s Iowa farms, thankful the eggs produced and packaged at his farms in Turner are not the source of the contamination.

There have certainly been salmonella outbreaks in Maine, including an outbreak in January that was linked to packaged peanut butter crackers, but there have been no salmonella outbreaks here because of egg farm practices. That’s because Maine — with Hoenig in charge — strictly enforces controls on these farming operations to prevent such a thing, including requiring young birds to be vaccinated and then monitored through blood tests as they age. It’s a simple thing to require since healthy birds will produce healthy eggs, which is what consumers expect to buy.

They don’t expect what happened to Sarah Lewis of California, who ate a custard tart at her sister’s graduation and fell ill, and had to be hospitalized in an intensive care unit. The tart contained eggs from one of DeCoster’s Iowa barns, and Lewis has suffered horribly.

On Wednesday, DeCoster told Congress — under oath — he was “horrified” to learn that the eggs produced at his Iowa farms might have been the cause of the salmonella outbreak, an outbreak that forced the recall of a half-billion eggs last month.

How horrified could he be? He must know, since he’s involved in the farming operations in Iowa and in Maine, that the regulations are different in each state, and are much looser in Iowa than in Maine. He must know he’s not required to vaccinate his birds in Iowa, inviting large-scale infection throughout his barns.

So, is he really horrified? Or is that just egg on his face?

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“They are delightful, well-mannered and intelligent.” What sweet words for West Paris parents to hear about their children, and hear it they have.

In the fall, West Paris fifth- and sixth-graders transferred to the Paris Elementary School instead of attending the Agnes Gray School in their own town, allowing the Oxford Hills School District to cut administrative costs at the West Paris facility.

The shift means that 28 percent of the students at the Paris school are new this year, a rare event for elementary schools, but the staff, administrators and students are coping well.

So well, that at Monday’s SAD 17 Board of Directors meeting, Paris Principal Jane Fahey remarked how delighted she was with the new students’ manners and intellect.

What a terrific way to start the school year under this consolidated plan.

And cheers to the parents for getting their children off to such a good start in life.

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