RUMFORD – U.S. Sen. Susan Collins campaigned Friday in northern Oxford County, speaking with paper mill workers, town employees, school children and business owners.

Rumford was the first stop on the tour that included Andover, Hanover and Newry, and culminated in Bethel with an evening reception at the Bethel Inn and Country Club.

“Her visit was neat,” Town Manager Len Greaney said of the Republican from Caribou.

Collins spoke with town employees and the public during tours of the municipal building and Fire Department. Then, she met with a group of kindergarten students from Buckfield, Hartford and Sumner who had just finished touring the fire station.

She also stepped into Davis Florist on Congress Street to chat with owner Sherry Milligan and florists Diane Mitchell and Lisa Cormier, and bought a fall floral arrangement to hand-deliver to former Maine lawmaker Norman Ferguson Jr. of Hanover. She said she’d heard Ferguson was ill and wanted to visit him.

Prior to having lunch with community members at Brian’s Bistro on Hartford Street, Collins visited NewPage Inc. mill employees in the main office. She was also interviewed by Jolene Lovejoy for local access television station WVAC-7’s “Your River Valley Connection” program.

Regarding area issues, Collins offered little on the proposed Oxford casino, but expounded on wind power and its potential.

“I have not taken a position on the casino. I think it’s a state and local issue, and that’s why I’m not going to express a view.”

Regarding wind power and proposed projects targeting rural Maine hills, Collins said that’s an issue best tackled by local communities.

“One of the things we should do in Maine is to improve the electrical transmission grid, so that the power produced by these windmills can benefit us in Maine rather than going out of state.”

Regarding jobs, Collins said Maine has the potential to create clean energy employment with its abundance of wood, water and wind.

“An example is in the area of wind, although we have to be careful never to disrupt the wood supply for our paper mills. But there are areas of the state – particularly in Franklin County – where there used to be a lot of wood-turning mills that made everything from Popsicle sticks to toothpicks, and virtually all of them have closed.

“It’s exciting to think of the potential of reopening those mills and converting them into pellet mills . . . that would create jobs and help reduce our dependency on heating oil in the state”