Fernand Despins stands with his clarinet around the turn of the 20th century. The Lewiston native was born in 1896. He attended St. Charles Borromeo College in Sherbrooke, Quebec, and Bates College in Lewiston, and graduated from Boston University Law School in 1918. He was mayor of Lewiston from 1939-1940. He was involved in many local arts and literary clubs, as well as serving as the International Snowshoe Convention chairman in 1935. Franco Philes is a weekly feature offering a photo from the Franco-American Collection at the University of Southern Maine’s Lewiston-Auburn College in Lewiston.