A resident of Norway for the last 21 years, Marge Medd came to Maine in 1974. She has been an advocate for education ever since. Medd was recently honored for her work with Jobs for Maine Graduates (JMG). That honor included a plaque which features personal notes from Maine’s last four governors, for whom she worked — John McKernan, Angus King, John Baldacci and Paul LePage. Beyond her long stint as chair of the Oxford Hills School Board, Medd spent 10 years on both the state Board of Education and the Maine State University Board of Trustees. She is in her second term on the Maine Public Broadcasting Network Board of Directors and is also chair of the University of Maine at Augusta Presidential Search Committee. In addition to serving many other organizations, she is a lay member of the Overseers of the Bar. When she isn’t doing community work, she spends time with her husband, Bill, three grown children, their spouses and five grandchildren. A member of the Heywood Club, she talks about her work here. 

 

A: I was born in Pittsburg, Pa. I have one brother. He is five years older. We grew up on Long Island in Manhasset, which is a commuter town 16 miles east of the city. It was my parents dream come true to live there. My father sold copper tubing. He had customers all over eastern and middle America. He was full of personality and great at sales. My parents moved to the town so their kids could go to college.

 

A: In high school, I was involved in the sports that were available to girls at that time. I did softball, half-court basketball and volleyball. I was a also a cheerleader. Our biggest trick was being able to do a split and a cartwheel. There were only two of us who could do that. It was not about athleticism. It was about getting the student body to participate in sports. I graduated from high school in 1960 and then went to Tufts University. I ended up being a physical education major. There were 12 PE students in my class. I’d had a fabulous female role model at my high school where I did a lot of dance. That was also a part of Tufts. I was an OK athlete, but I was not 6-foot 2-inches or a champion tennis player. 

 

A: I worked for a year at a women’s junior college. While I was teaching, I married Bill. We were junior high school sweethearts. I was fortunate to get a job at the University of Rochester. That job put him through medical school. My being on the faculty gave us tuition benefits that had previously only been used by wives. My chair had to jump through hoops to prove that my spouse was entitled to tuition benefit.

 

A: Bill was drafted into the Air Force during the Vietnam War. My mom had set up cribs in the house because she was sure Bill would go to Vietnam and I would be living there. Instead, we went to Las Vegas with our two kids. We were there for two years. I taught swimming and tennis to officers’ wives. No one wanted to spend money, so I had group lessons. I would not go on the course for less than $100 so I had 10 students. Oh, the brashness. We had a great time, too. 

 

A: Bill graduated in 1968 and then did extra training in cardiology at Emery University in Atlanta. Then he decided he did not want to be a cardiologist. We got together with the Wares. (Bill and Don Ware had gone to Wesleyan together.) We talked about what we wanted to do with our lives. We agreed to go someplace where we could make a difference. We looked at four different communities and ended up coming here, where the hospital needed us and there were eight towns, a broader base and a bigger concept.

 

A: It became clear that with young three kids and Bill’s having to work every other night, all night, that I was not going to be able to go to work. So I was a stay-at-home mom. On snow days, we would go to Barjo’s for lunch. It was cool. I did do billing in Bill’s office, but I only had to do that when they needed help. When my kids started school, Bill and I formed a pact. He would not be on call Monday nights, and I would run for school board. That started everything. It was not long before I was chair. After I was elected, we created education and performance criteria for board members. We decided we needed to have elementary schools in each of the eight towns. Some were renovated and some were built. Getting through the state process, getting on the building list, getting communities to buy in and pay their share was major work. 

 

A: Yes, I was chair of the state Board of Education at the time. We set the standard for the state for what high schools could look like. The consolidation of the two schools was ground breaking. Gov. King thought it was too much money. The Bangor Daily News said the state board should vote it down. I was the board chair, but my term was up at noon. During lunch, because of the editorials, people said, they could not vote this through. Mary Jane McCalmon, who was superintendent of our district, told them all they had to do was listen to what we had discussed with an open mind, and see if that wasn’t what we wanted for the future. The vote was unanimous after that. It was the transformational moment. Kids in the same school would be able to take both academic and tech classes. We did the jump shift and people came from all over to see it. Everyone copied us. 

 

A: Roland Sutton got together with Jock (McKernan) and in 1993 became one of the founding members. I was also a founding member. JMG is a private nonprofit that provides dropout prevention and school-to-work transition services for at-risk youth. It program specializes in kids who underperform or who need extra focused help. Of the 31 states which this kind of program, Maine has been ranked number one in outcomes. It has helped 28,000 people in Maine.

 

A: When I was in my 50s, I went to Harvard and got a master’s in public administration. My children were gone. Even with all of my experience and even at the age I was, I did not know what I would do for employment, so I went back to school. After that I chaired the Growth Council of Oxford Hills. I was able to use my connections and my K-12 advocacy work to help turn that barn into the University College of Norway/South Paris, the 10th and last center in the state. I did not get a job. It turned out to be a job. 

 

A: Yes, I ran, before I was a trustee, for Maine Senate. I was the Democratic candidate twice. I am not a fervent party loyalist. I care about what gets done and not what party I am affiliated with. My goal was to unite people, to reach the common goals that we all have. If it meant I had to do one thing and then another and then cross over, I am a person who does that.

 

Marge Medd displays her Jobs for Maine Graduates commemorative plaque signed by four governors of Maine.