On Wednesday, I was assigned to go to Walton Elementary School to cover a 9/11 ceremony.

Principal and former music teacher Mike Davis led a ceremony focused on students helping others. Wearing lots of red, white and blue, students sang patriotic songs, thanked first responders and honored 9/11 victims they never knew. 

Many made pledges to be kind and help others, including Hassan Abdullah and MacKenzie Strout, 8-year-old third-graders, who are pictured with their written pledges.

Way to go, kids.

— Bonnie Washuk

Durham Warriors Survival Challenge: Plans for ‘Season 2’ already underway

That first night in the woods was rough on the 18 strangers strategically spread throughout Bob Crowley’s land as part of his first “Survivor”-inspired challenge, and on the resident beaver.

“We put some down by the pond and the beaver was not happy about them being there so it kept slapping his tail,” Crowley said. “Some thought it was a fish, some thought it was a moose.”

Crowley, the popular Southern Maine physics teacher who won “Survivor: Gabon” in 2008, organized and hosted the first Durham Warriors Survival Challenge on his 100 acres in Durham. Contestants ages 24 to 64 from around the country paid $250 to be part of the experience.

There were 17 challenges, no bathrooms, little food and, at night, near-freezing temps.

“I would dare say there has never been a night on ‘Survivor’ that was as grueling as what we put them through (the first night),” Crowley said.

Throughout the four-day event, there were sprains, strains and scrapes and a few people medically pulled for bum ankles, but nothing serious.

“We played them hard and they had a good time,” he said. “It was beyond my wildest expectations.”

Contestants raised more than $5,000 for the Durham Warriors Project, a nonprofit that pays for veterans and military families to camp at Crowley’s Maine Forest Yurts.

The Survival Challenge winner was Russell O’Cain of South Carolina, though “we had two Mainers in the top four,” Crowley said.

He still hopes to make it an annual event. “We were signing things, ‘Season 1.'”

Find cast interviews and challenge footage, which is still being added, on YouTube under “Durham Warrior Project.”

— Kathryn Skelton

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