Category: Maine
Sandord Band’s Day in the Sun is its Most Demanding Performance Ever
SANFORD
Bangor Daily News
Drew FitzGerald
Boston University Washington News Service
Jan. 20, 2009
WASHINGTON — Sanford High School band director Matt Doiron took a picture of the thermometer outside the Wilbur Shaw hardware store in Sanford to show out-of-staters how good they had it: minus 2 degrees when his band left for the national capital on Saturday.
Tuesday afternoon turned out to be the band’s day in the sun, as students just old enough to earn their drivers’ licenses marched behind the nation’s top college and military bands for Barack Obama’s inaugural parade.
“I’m not sure anything prepares you for that first left turn onto Pennsylvania Avenue,” Doiron said. “Between goose bumps and a few of them choking back tears… they will think of their lives differently forever.”
Even without Washington’s very cold weather, Doiron said Tuesday’s parade was the band’s most demanding performance ever, and not just for the mile and a half march down Pennsylvania Avenue. After a 10-hour bus ride to a Washington suburb in Maryland on Saturday, the band assembled at 5 a.m. Tuesday near the Pentagon to be screened, along with their instruments, through a security checkpoint.
Though the band has performed at parades and football games in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont and Nova Scotia, Doiron said his students were used to having much more time to prepare.
“The last time we did a major parade, we had about five and a half months,” he said.
“Even that’s pretty hurried.”
Tuesday marked the end of a brief but hectic month for the celebrated band. Doiron said students struggled to prepare for the inauguration after learning they were selected over other Maine applicants on Dec 5.
Most of Doiron’s students had left class at about 2:30 that Friday afternoon when an aide at Sen. Susan Collins’ office told Doiron there was a call for him.
“There was a little pause, and they said ‘Mr. Doiron, Sen. Collins is on the phone for you,” the Sanford native remembered. “She asked if we had heard anything yet, and I said, ‘No.’ She said, ‘Great. I was hoping to be the first to tell you.’ ”
The band was scheduled to play for the annual Holly Days Parade that very evening, and within two hours of the senator’s call, someone had already made a banner boasting of the band’s accomplishment: “D.C. or bust”
Sanford junior Polly McAdam, 16, said it took a while for the moment to sink in. People were celebrating all weekend in Washington, where the sidewalks are often wider than many Sanford streets.
“It was kind of like a big party,” she said. “Everyone was selling T-shirts and in a good mood.”
McAdam said she started playing French horn in fourth grade, but her older brother, a trumpet player, has already graduated from Sanford.
“My brother’s jealous of course, but my parents are really excited,” she said. “They wanted me to call them all the time.”
Drum major Matthew Prive, 18, said the band, by marching in the inaugural parade, was representing more than Sanford High.
“We’re representing the state, our school and all of New England,” he said.
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Maine Native Showered With Praise for Directing Inaugural Events
ME DELEGATION
Bangor Daily News
Drew FitzGerald
Boston University Washington News Service
Jan. 19, 2009
WASHINGTON – The nation’s capital barely got a dusting of snow Monday, but inside Maine’s unofficial inaugural celebration here, Presidential Inauguration Committee Executive Director Emmett Beliveau was showered with praise.
The Maine native in charge of coordinating the long list of inaugural events taking place here rattled off a list of record-breaking statistics: The Washington Metro set a new Sunday record for rail ridership after the Inauguration’s opening ceremony by carrying more than 660,000 riders. Organizers expect that number to double on Tuesday. More than 80,000 people applied just to volunteer during Tuesday’s parade.
The whistle-stop tour starting in Philadelphia on Saturday also drew record crowds.
“Not only were the trains running on time, but they were ahead of schedule,” Beliveau said.
Beliveau was a celebrity among the political campaigners, lawyers and private businessmen who gathered Monday at the New Zealand embassy to celebrate Barack Obama’s inauguration. But support for the president-elect himself also ran high at an event Beliveau’s father Severin Beliveau, whose law firm helped host the event, jokingly billed as “90-10” bipartisan.
“His talk of being bipartisan and independent fits in well with the Maine political ethic,” Rep. Chellie Pingree told The Bangor Daily News. “He had an early strong support team in Maine, and it just grew.”
Pingree said the U.S. House of Representatives has already passed several pieces of legislation since members were sworn in Jan. 6, but she said lawmakers are “anxious” to see Obama assume office so they can get his feedback on their other proposals. The national economic stimulus package Obama proposed will be the first major order of business, she said.
“It will be a very strong package, because Congress has a strong hand in it,” Pingree said.
In a speech to the crowd, Maine Gov. John Baldacci hearkened back to his own experiences growing up in 1960, when his parents traveled as delegates to the Democratic National Convention where John F. Kennedy was nominated.
“It was an exciting time for him and our family, where a lot of new blood, enthusiasm and young people from all over the world coming together and trying to be this generation’s leaders,” he said. “Barack Obama, he’s tapped into the same network.”
Baldacci attended two inaugurations before this one, but he said they “aren’t going to compare” to the number of spectators from the United States and abroad who will be gathering in Washington and tuning in around the world to see Obama take the oath of office.
“We’re starting at a low point in terms of our relations around the world and in terms of our economy,” he said. “But I think we’re starting it all together.”
Baldacci frequently pointed to the poor economic conditions facing Mainers and all Americans as a heavy burden weighing on an otherwise high-spirited celebration, and pledged to push for federal help and state legislation “to create the kind of one-two punch that can jolt our economy.”
“Celebrations today, and tomorrow work begins anew,” he said.
New Zealand’s ambassador to the United States, Roy Ferguson, explained that the event took place at the embassy partly thanks to his longstanding friendship with Severin Beliveau and his partner at the firm, Simon Leeming.
“What I think is remarkable to outsiders is that you can have such a long election campaign in the United States and it can be very hotly contested, and then on the fourth of November, when the result is known, Americans come together,” Ferguson said. “What we’re celebrating today is really that coming together and that American spirit of optimism.”
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The Tradition Continues: 10,000 Wreaths Laid on Graves at Arlington Cemetery
WREATHS
Bangor Daily News
Maite Jullian
Boston University Washington News Service
Dec. 13, 2008
ARLINGTON, Va. — Cindy DeCosta took her time to lay a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery on the grave of Edmund S. Muskie, former Maine governor, U.S. secretary of state and U.S. senator. Her eyes were glossy with tears and her voice trembled as she thanked members of the Maine State Society for the opportunity they had given her.
For the first time Saturday, Cindy and her husband, Tim, who live in Windham, Maine, came to help place about 10,000 wreaths on the graves of fallen soldiers and veterans, a tradition that began 17 years ago.
“What better way is there to honor people who lost their lives for America?” she said. “The best part of it is to see people show their patriotism and take time out of their busy lives to lay a wreath. It is very emotional.”
Arlington was the last stop for the DeCostas, who left Harrington, Maine, last Sunday to accompany the two trucks carrying the wreaths given by the Worcester Wreath Co. Tim is a member of the Patriot Guard that escorted the convoy on its 750-mile trip.
“We cried all the way down here,” Cindy said.
On this cold but sunny Saturday morning, more than 3,000 people lined up under the McClellan red brick arch to get a wreath distributed from the back of the trucks. Families, veterans and couples slowly spread along the aisles of the cemetery.
Each picked a grave and laid a wreath. Some took pictures. Some had tears rolling down their cheeks. Other smiled. All kneeled down to write down the names of the soldier or veteran they honored on the stickers given for the occasion for the first time.
In two hours, the white graves of Section 12 of the cemetery were filled with wreaths with shiny red bows.
“This is a great, a wonderful thing to do,” Sylvia Wendt, from Rumford, and her three friends said in a chorus, with large smiles on their faces. “It is an honor to be here.”
Wendt has been coming to Arlinton for the past six years. On Saturday she was standing with her high school friends Susan Starr, from Scarborough, Cindy Flaherty of Saco and Gail Divine of Wallingford, Conn., who came for the first time.
They all went together to lay a wreath on a grave and then pay their respects to the veterans, spouses and children who also are buried at the national cemetery.
“You look at the names and dates,” Divine said.” It’s hard to explain, but you definitely make a connection.”
After all the wreaths were distributed, Wendt and her friends followed the group of Mainers to the grave of Muskie. Later on, they stopped at the Kennedy gravesites, the USS Maine Memorial and the Tomb of the Unknowns for a special ceremony.
What started as a small ceremony 17 years ago — when about 40 members of the Maine State Society, a Washington, D.C., organization that brings together Maine natives, laid about 4,000 wreaths — has become a national commemoration after a photograph of the wreaths, resting against gravestones on a snowy day, was e-mailed around the world three years ago.
Since then, the event has attracted many more volunteers. In 2005, there were 100. In 2006, 500. Last year, organizers estimate that around 3,000 people showed up. Some members of the Maine State Society said they thought there were even more volunteers on Saturday than last year.
Mary Beegle came from Dubois, Pa., with 35 other people for the first time.
“We have students in Iraq,” she said. “Our chaplain has just returned from Iraq. We all have connections and we are very privileged to be here to honor the people who did this for America.”
For the first time this year, Dec. 13 was officially “Wreaths Across America” day after the Senate unanimously passed a resolution this week introduced by Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins to “recognize the hard work and generosity of all those involved in the project.”
The program prepared more than 105,000 wreaths to be placed on graves at 354 cemeteries and monuments across the country and 24 sites overseas, including four in Iraq.
Lew Pearson, a member of the Maine State Society, said that next year three trucks will come to Arlington as the society keeps receiving calls from all over the country and abroad.
“People want to participate for the purpose behind this or because they have a family member or a friend buried here,” he said. “It means a lot to a lot of people. It’s great.”
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Barriers to Mental Health Care Access for Children Persist
MENTAL HEALTH
Bangor Daily News
Maite Jullian
Boston University Washington News Service
12/12/08
WASHINGTON – As the new U.S. Congress convenes next month, child advocates are putting their hopes in a bill Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins said she will reintroduce to address a national issue: the barriers families face in accessing mental health care for emotionally or mentally disturbed children.
The goal of the Keep Family Together Act, first introduced in 2003, is to promote mental health treatment for children in a family and community setting instead of in a residential facility.
The bill would provide states with $55 million a year for five years to support and maintain systems of care focusing on community-based services. It is intended to help families to get state services that are now either insufficient or too expensive and allow them to care for their children at home.
“It’s an issue that doesn’t come to the attention of policymakers that often,” Collins said in an interview. “Families tend to suffer in silence. This happens all over the country, but individual families are struggling on their own.”
She said the bill would encourage states to create more cost-effective and innovative services. It also would establish a task force to make recommendations on how to improve mental health access and services in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems.
“It is providing some funding resources for the kind of services that parents need,” Carol Carothers, executive director of the Maine National Alliance on Mental Illness, said. “Just people recognizing that it’s happening would help. There hasn’t been much progress so far.”
Collins said she is introducing the bill to help reduce the number of parents who relinquish custody of their children and place them in the child welfare system or the juvenile justice system as a way to provide them with care.
“I don’t think there is much difference in Maine,” Carothers said. “I don’t have a line of families calling, but it is still an issue. It is still really hard to get treatment.”
The issue was brought to light in a 2003 Government Accountability Office report, requested by Collins and Reps. Pete Stark, D-Calif., and Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., which showed that parents placed more than 12,700 children into the child welfare or juvenile justice systems in fiscal year 2001 so that they could receive mental health services.
Because 32 states didn’t provide the GAO with any data, the report concluded that “the number of children placed is likely to be higher.”
Since then, no new data have been compiled because states don’t track this practice, but Collins said she will request the GAO to update the report.
During hearings in 2003 before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Tammy Saltzer, then an attorney for the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, a Washington-based advocacy organization, said that “when families are uninsured or have exhausted their private insurance benefits, both mental health providers and public child welfare agency staff often advise parents that relinquishing custody of their child to the state is the only way to obtain services.”
She also said that it resulted in children being placed in more expensive and less supportive residential placements.
Even if families’ relinquishing custody is more the exception than the rule, as Darcy Gruttadaro, director of the child and adolescent action center at the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said, families still have difficulties getting mental health care for their children.
A 20-state survey the alliance conducted reported that “64 percent of families with children with special health care needs, including children with mental illnesses, are turning down jobs, raises and overtime so that they can remain in the income bracket that qualifies their child for Supplemental Security Income and Medicaid.”
Middle-class families are especially affected. Their salaries are too high to get Medicaid but too low to cover the cost of therapy and medication, outpatient visits or residential treatments – especially since insurance companies impose caps on costs and stop reimbursements after a period of time, said Lee Carty, spokeswoman for the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law.
The GAO report said residential treatment facilities can cost up to $250,000 a year for one child. One outpatient therapy session can cost more than $100.
Since 2003, progress has been made, thanks to state and federal regulations adopted in the last few years.
The Family Opportunity Act, signed into law in February 2005, included one of the provisions in Sen. Collins’ bill that would expand Medicaid coverage to children with mental health disorders under the Katie Beckett waiver, which allows Medicaid eligibility for home care to be determined by the individual’s income and assets and not the income and assets of the family. In this way community-based services are available to eligible children who otherwise would be in residential treatment facilities.
The mental health parity law, attached to the economic bailout bill in October, was another welcome step. The law, which goes into effect in October 2009, requires companies with more than 50 employees to provide equal insurance coverage for physical and mental health services.
Maine, along with 41 other states, already has a parity law, but employers who self-insure didn’t have to follow it. Under the new federal law, they will have to.
Child advocates still think that more needs to be done, especially considering what happened recently in Nebraska, where more then 30 children were abandoned under the state’s safe haven law. Most were either waiting for mental health care or had been treated for mental illness.
“There are significant loopholes in the parity laws both in the states and at the federal level,” Carothers said. “In the small-group market there is no parity, so for many of the country’s citizens, there are significant limits on insurance coverage. And many states are putting additional limits on Katie Beckett these days because of the cuts to Medicaid and to mental health services in general.”
According to Carrie Horne, the assistant director of the Maine National Alliance on Mental Illness, the state recently implemented an annual premium for families receiving aid under the waiver and will soon double it, which drives families to choose to drop out of the program, she said.
The Bazelon Center’s Carty said that the recent parity law and the Family Opportunity Act help but that they are “still a drop in the bucket.”
“To make a real difference, we need a comprehensive mental health care reform,” Carty said.
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More Job Losses are Expected in Maine as the Recession is Going On
JOBLOSSES
Bangor Daily News
Guanlei Ren
Boston University Washington News Service
December 08, 2008
WASHINGTON—For Michael Lynch, a junior at the University of Southern Maine, it’s a tough time to be looking for a job. But it could be worse if he lived in some state other than Maine.
As bad as the recession-driven employment picture is in Maine, it’s slightly better than in the nation as a whole—though that may not be much of a consolation for someone seeking a job.
Lynch is a full-time musical theater student. Starting this summer, when he transferred to the university’s Portland campus, he had been looking for part-time jobs. Until a month ago, he didn’t get one.
“It’s pretty hard to get jobs in Maine,” Lynch said. Because of the bad economy, several of his friends who are also students couldn’t find part-time jobs as well. He said that a lot of people in Maine spend two hours each way commuting to Boston to work.
Like Lynch, people find that it is getting harder to find either part-time or full-time jobs not only in Maine but also the whole country.
In November, the nation shed 533,000 jobs and the unemployment rate rose to 6.7 percent, a 15-year high, up two-tenths of a percentage point from October, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Dec. 5. The jobless rate is likely to peak at 8.5 to 9 percent sometime late next year, many economists have predicted.
For now, the picture is a little bit brighter in Maine, where the October jobless rate was 5.7 percent, better than the national rate but still the worst since September 1995.
“The national slowdown is definitely affecting folks in Maine,” said Adam Fisher, spokesman for the Maine Department of Labor. “We know that more people are losing their jobs.”
According to the department’s Center for Workforce Research and Information, Maine had a net loss of 5,600 nonfarm jobs through October since the current recession began a year ago.
“The unemployment rate is rising over the last year in virtually all the states,” said Glenn Mills, director of economic research at the center. “The downturn is affecting Maine as well as other regions.” Unemployment insurance claims have been up significantly in recent months.
According to Mills, the largest job losses in Maine since last December were in the construction, retail trade and accommodations and food services sectors, which lost 2,100, 2,100 and 1,600 job losses respectively.
Mills said job losses “were impacted by a range of factors, especially the housing crisis and high gas prices and poor weather in the summer, which moderated tourism from usual levels.”
A middle-high end restaurant owner who didn’t want to identify herself or her business said her customer loss was very significant and her profit was down roughly 30 percent. . People tended, she said, to flock to McDonald’s.
One of her customers, a building contractor, already has lost in December four contracts , the restaurant owner said.
“The economy is slowing down,” said assistant professor Karen Buhr at the University of Maine. “There is not as much of a demand for new things to build, new offices, new stores or new houses.”
“The housing crisis is hurting Maine uniquely,” Fisher said. “We produce a lot of the building materials.”
People are also having difficulty borrowing money in the face of the credit crunch, Buhr said. “If people don’t have a lot of extra money or they are less certain about how stable their jobs might be, they might be less likely to go out and buy a lot of extra things.” That, in turn, leads to more job losses in retail trade.
Freedom Power Equipment runs a sales and repair service for lawn and garden equipment in Bangor. Bob Cousins, the manager of the company, said “more people are fixing their older equipment to make it last than they are replacing them.” His company does a big repair business and, he said, it has been quite busy this year while sales of new equipment have slowed. Although the sales have been fair this year, “we could see a drop,” Cousins said.
“I think everything in the whole country is feeling [the recession,]” he said. “Our suppliers that we buy from have cut back on inventories that they keep.” As some plants closed their business and some manufacturers reduced their products, Cousins has found some things hard to get.
The six-employee company hasn’t had to lay off any workers so far, Cousins said, and he hopes there’ll be no layoffs in the future. “But we don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said. “What I think is happening is the cost of everything we deal with is making it very hard to make a profit.”
The Maine Consensus Economic Forecasting Commission recently revised its outlook for next year, predicting that the average unemployment rate in Maine is expected to climb to 6.1 percent and that 4,300 wage and salary jobs will be lost. Job losses will still be concentrated in the construction, manufacturing, trade and leisure and hospitality sectors, the commission said.
There are a few economic bright spots. From last December, 1,500 job gains were recorded in the professional and business sectors and 900 more in education and health services, according to the Center for Workforce Research and Information’s Mills. Those job gains are also expected to continue in the next year, according to the forecasting commission.
Compared with states with a “high concentration of industries that are doing poorly,” such as Michigan and Ohio, both heavily dependent on auto manufacturing, “we are not performing extremely well, but not as badly,” Mills said.
Piscataquis County, in central Maine, had the highest unemployment rate in the state in October, 9.1 percent, well above the national average. Other counties, such as Franklin, Oxford, Somerset and Washington, also have jobless rates greater than the national rate.
Mills explained that much of that region is sparsely populated, heavily forested and has a higher than average concentration of jobs in forest products industries – logging, paper manufacturing, sawmills – and other industries in decline or adversely affected by the falloff in construction and the general economic downturn.
As to the current recession, Buhr said: “I hope it’s shorter rather than longer. I really don’t know how long it will go.”
The recession and the rising jobless rate are challenges not only for the federal government but also for the state. Lowering taxes is probably a way to solve the problem, Buhr said. But that, she added, would mean less revenue for government to spend to meet these economic challenges.
“It’s a tradeoff,” Buhr said, and governments will have to find the right balance. “There isn’t a perfect answer.”
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Pingree Spends Orientation Week Finding Her Way Around
PINGREE
Bangor Daily News
Maite Jullian
Boston University Washington News Service
11/21/2008
WASHINGTON – Democratic Rep.-elect Chellie Pingree describes orientation week for new members of the House as being like the first week of school.
“Half of the time is spent finding your way around,” she said.
On Friday morning, Lisa Prosienski, Pingree’s campaign manager and future chief of staff, led the way through the numerous hallways and floors of the U.S. House office buildings exploring potential offices for the new Maine representative and her Capitol Hill staff.
Office picking is an institution on the Hill. On Friday morning, new members gathered for the traditional lottery, which Prosienski described as “quite a ceremonial process.”
Offices are picked by seniority – the longer you have served the higher you are on the list. When members retire or lose and their offices become available the current members get to decide if they want to move to a vacated office. Then there is the lottery for new members.
Getting number one means you’ll get to choose first. Getting the last one means that you may end up with one of the offices on the 5th floor of the Cannon House Office Building with no windows and low ceilings.
Prosienski picked number 17 – out of 54 – and was pretty lucky. By early afternoon, she and Pingree knew they will be in room 1037 of the Longworth House Office Building. As Pingree had wished, she will be on a lower floor, and will have windows.
But before settling in on the first week of January, new representatives and their teams have tons of work to do. The new members’ orientation week was designed to give the freshmen some help in organizing their offices and understanding their new role.
“A lot of this week has been about administrative and procedural issues,” Pingree said. “We were given stacks of paper and applications. I had been told there would be those things but I didn’t know there would be so many endless details.”
Besides receptions and celebrations, including a dinner below the U.S. Capitol Rotunda and a reception at the botanical garden, it was more about sessions to learn about pensions and benefits, the rules surrounding staffers, anti-discrimination laws and how to set up an office.
But Pingree said she did have time to think about being in Washington.
“Did we really win? Are we really here?” she said. ”It is so exciting to be here. I knew it would be great but I hadn’t assessed the impact of winning with Barack Obama.”
Prosienski, who has been working on and off with Pingree since she ran for the U.S. Senate in 2002, is also eager to be on the Hill.
“It is very exciting,” she said. “This is a tremendous opportunity. I would expect a fast moving Congress and a lot of work.”
They both are going back to Maine for Thanksgiving, but they won’t have too much time to rest. Another orientation session is planned for the first week of December at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge, Mass., and they have to work on taking over from Rep. Tom Allen, who lost his challenge to Sen. Susan Collins.
“We have so much work to do,” Pingree said. “We are making a transition, picking up on cases Tom Allen was working on.”
She also has to interview and hire staff – up to 18 members for D.C and Maine offices – study the numerous issues that need to be addressed, build a Web site and learn about communications on the Hill.
Even though the team is still in transition, Prosienski said she already has received a phone call for Rep. Pingree. And the Blackberry Pingree got this week, the “internal communication system” of the Hill as Prosienski called it, is already getting messages.
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A National Treasure Once in the Hands of a Mainer
FLAG
Bangor Daily News
Maite Jullian
Boston University Washington News Service
Nov. 21, 2008
WASHINGTON – When the light of dawn broke on September 14, 1814, Francis Scott Key was able to see the American flag flying over Baltimore’s Fort McHenry. He then knew that the British bombardment of the fort had failed.
The poem he wrote to celebrate America’s triumph in that battle became the lyrics of the national anthem and made the Star-Spangled Banner an icon in American history.
Almost 200 years later, the early light of dawn has been replaced by soft blue lights and the 30-foot by 34-foot Star-Spangled Banner lies behind glass doors at a ten-degree angle, in a brand new and dramatic display at the National Museum of American History, which reopened Nov. 21 after going through a two-year renovation.
It took seven years to restore the most famous flag in American history and ensure its survival. And at the center of the project was Bangor native Marilyn Zoidis. As senior curator of the project, Zoidis realized from the beginning what a huge challenge they faced.
“The first time I actually got to examine the flag, my stomach fell to my feet,” she said. “I thought ‘what have I got myself into?’ I turned to the chief conservator and asked her if the flag could be saved. She said she thought we could do it, that it was the plan. Over the next seven years, we implemented that plan.”
The extent of the work needed on the flag, which was originally 30 feet by 42 feet and was acquired by the Smithsonian in 1907, became evident only after it was taken down from the main hall of the museum in 1998. The original plan was to remove the linen backing and put it back on display.
“Much of the flag had been lost over time because of the light, use and being on display,” Zoidis said.
Zoidis was hired from a pool of national applicants in 1999 to lead the restoration. She worked on the project until 2006, when it was completed, sharing with the Smithsonian her expertise in telling stories through artifacts.
“She has a special gift in using an exhibition to tell compelling history,” said Kent Whitworth, executive director of the Kentucky Historical Society, where Zoidis now works. “I never met anybody better at that. She brings intellect and energy, tenacity to these projects. It was a great day when she arrived here.”
For the flag’s restoration, a new lab with a glass wall so visitors could see the work progressing was built within the American history museum, one of the Smithsonian Institution’s museums which is located on the national mall here.
The $18 million project started in 1999 went through four stages: removal of the linen support, detailed examination of condition and construction of the flag, cleaning treatment, and long-term preservation plan.
When Zoidis, 59, talks about the Star-Spangled Banner, her excitement over its historical signficance is evident.
“I always felt a tremendous sense of responsibility to get it right, to ensure the long term safety of the flag and that stories told about it tell a complex history of America,” she said. “It is a very complicated symbol which reflects a complex history of American society.”
As the curator, she was “the content expert supposed to know everything there was to know about the Banner and flags in general,” Julia Forbes, the former senior educator on the project, said.
“The flag is a metaphor for the nation in many ways,” Zoidis explains. “We can go through wars, an economic downturn, riots or strikes but we can emerge as a nation with resilience and hope. The flag represents that.”
In recognition of her accomplishment, the Washington D.C.-based Maine State Society is presenting her with its annual Big “M” Award on December 13, which rewards Mainers for their professional achievements or contributions to their state.
“This is very, very nice,” she said. “I am deeply touched that they would think of me, that they would give it to me. It is from my home state that I love so dearly,” said Zoidis.
Zoidis is now the assistant director of the Kentucky Historical Society. She could have stayed at the Smithsonian and written a book, but the museum was closing for renovation and she was looking for her next challenge, driven by a will to move forward and experiment, qualities reflected in her professional choices.
Zoidis was born in Bangor. Her grandfather moved there from Albania in 1904. Her father and his two brothers opened the restaurant Pilots Grill in 1940, a “community institution of sorts,” she said, but which closed in 2002.
She graduated from Bangor High School in 1967 and got her undergraduate degree from the University of Maine in 1971. After teaching at James F. Doughty School, named Fifth Street Junior High at that time, and then at Bangor High School, she got a master’s degree in education in 1978.
“Then a job opened up at the Bangor Historical Society,” she said. “I was able to concentrate on the stuff I love: the artifacts and documents.”
Presenting and sharing history with the public through exhibitions has always been her first passion.
“It’s an important obligation to preserve the history of a community and to share it. It is a way to reach people who don’t think they are going to like history,” she said. “The idea of finding something that people will like to see in a hundred years, conserve it and capture its meaning is something incredibly exciting for me.”
She was the executive director of the Bangor Historical Society from 1983 to 1987 and then went to Freeport, where she held the same position at that city’s historical society for two years.
In 1992, she got a master’s in American history from Carnegie Mellon University and became the director for research and collections at the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania in Pittsburgh for one year.
Interested in social and cultural history, she started a doctorate program in American history at Carnegie Mellon but the offer to work on the flag derailed that plan and she never completed her dissertation.
While on a fellowship at the Smithsonian to complete the last chapter of her dissertation, she heard that the museum was looking for a curator for the Star-Spangled Banner Project. She was “stunned” to learn she was one of the five finalists and ultimately she was selected for the job.
Abigail Ewing, the former curator at Bangor Historical Society who worked with Zoidis for a year, was not surprised when she learned Zoidis had landed a job at the Smithsonian.
“She left here [Bangor], went to Freeport and went to graduate work. She was getting into more challenging positions and bigger projects,” she said.
For the people who worked with her, Zoidis is a passionate historian who brings with her intellectual stimulation and energy.
“She was very open and giving with her research,” said Suzanne Thomassen-Krauss, the chief conservator of the project. “She was always enthusiastic about finding questions to my answers. We could discuss and share. It made our jobs easier.”
“I really loved working wither her,” Forbes said. “She is so smart and very passionate for her work.”
Whitworth still sounds amazed that Zoidis agreed to work at the Kentucky Historical Society.
“Kent was looking for someone who could help in the next stage of developing and I was looking for the next challenge,” Zoidis said.
Withworth said she has surpassed his expectations in the two years she has been working there.
“She has been a great adviser in terms of exhibition, administration, development and marketing,” he said. “She has infused this place with a lot of intellectual energy. We went through a real transition with her. We are just very fortunate, thanks to Maine for sharing Marilyn Zoidis with Kentucky.”
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A Glance at UMass-Dartmouth Graduates’ Capital Life
UMD
The New Bedford Standard-Times
Guanlei Ren
Boston University Washington News Service
November 19, 2008
WASHINGTON— It is a city for politics. It is also a city for people to chase their dreams. Seventeen young graduates of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, listed as “friends” on a Facebook group for university alumni, are chasing their dreams in the nation’s capital.
But they don’t really know each other. They were invited to join UMass Dartmouth—Washington D.C. Alumni Club on Facebook, a social networking Web site, by friends of friends or by their friend’s friend’s friend.
Some of them were willing to share their stories of life in the capital city, to talk about their dreams and to reflect on whether the real world is what they expected.
Lee Lukoff, a Republican from South Dartmouth, came here for the politics after graduating in May from UMass Dartmouth with a degree in political science. With no Republican members of Congress from Massachusetts, Mr. Lukoff sent out applications to numerous Republicans, both in the Senate and the House, and said he was fortunate to get an internship with Rep. Tom Feeney, R-Fla.
“I really liked my internship because every day I felt like I was doing something important,” Mr. Lukoff, a graduate of Dartmouth High School, said.
He said he learned how Congress works from the inside and how a congressional office works. He was responsible for writing letters to constituents about issues they were concerned with, compiling newspaper articles and attending committee hearings and policy briefings, where he would take notes and write memos.
“Despite the fact that I was unpaid, few people get the chance to intern for a congressman, and the experience can pave the path to future jobs in politics and in government,” Mr. Lukoff said.
Rep. Feeney lost his seat in the Nov. 4 election, and Mr. Lukoff, like other office staff, is helping pack up the office and moving on to job hunting in other congressional offices, think tanks, interest groups and non-profit organizations.
Amy Morse also was a political science major and graduated from UMass Dartmouth in 2003. In the capital city, unlike Mr. Lukoff who works directly in politics, Ms. Morse works as a communications and policy associate at a non-profit and nonpartisan organization—the Committee for Economic Development.
After graduating from college, Ms. Morse was hired by the John Kerry presidential campaign and worked for a year in her home state of New Hampshire campaigning for the 2004 Democratic nominee. She held signs in the freezing cold, made hundreds of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and made more phone calls than most people make in a lifetime.
Now she said she values Washington as a place for public service more than a place for politics.
“Working in economics is a great perspective on how valuable our human resources are in this country,” she said.
When she was in college she did an internship with Youth Serve in New Bedford, working as a mentor to at-risk youths; in Washington, she volunteers with the public school reform effort.
She dreams of running for office in New Hampshire, Ms. Morse said. “I really enjoy policy and working with people.,”
Nicole Di Fabio, a 2006 graduate from UMass Dartmouth, is semi-involved in politics, she said. “I feel that everything is political to some extent or another.”
Ms. Fabio’s job as a research associate at the Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology is her first job after graduation. She said she was very persistent in looking for jobs related to her majors—anthropology and women’s studies. Her dream is to be a professor of anthropology and women’s studies.
“Many people may view these disciplines to be more abstract, and not understand what comes from having a background in these areas,” Ms. Fabio said. “But in reality, these disciplines help you to understand life and other people as deeply as one can without actually being in the person’s shoes.”
In Ms. Fabio’s opinion, Washington is a city that seems to value social science far more than other cities do. So she looked endlessly in the “right places,” she said. “I would have continued to look until I found what I thought was right for me.”
In February 2008, her alma mater’s women’s studies department invited her to speak on a panel with Gloria Steinem, a women’s movement leader in the 1970s and co-founder of Ms. Magazine, in front of more than 200 people. “I think that is one moment in my life that I will always remember and value above all others,” she said.
For Paul Ferrari, an English literature major who also graduated in 2006, his most valuable lessons at college were not directly from classes but from his involvement with the UMass Dartmouth Theater Company, a student-run organization.
In his senior year, he was the president and company manager and learned not only how to work with his peers but how to cope with also a variety of administrative tasks, including negotiating the university’s bureaucratic contracting system.
Originally from Webster, Mass., Mr. Ferrari is currently working as a communications associate at a non-profit national education organization—the Council of Chief State School Officers.
“I am interested in politics, and am thrilled to be living in D.C. during such an exciting time in American history,” Mr. Ferrari said.
But, he said, he will probably end up working in the arts in some capacity. Before coming to Washington he had a year-long internship at a theater in Florida. Though it was a great experience, Mr. Ferrari said, it wasn’t “socially and professionally where I wanted and needed to be.”
In Washington, he said, “there’s always someone willing to engage in a conversation about current events and what’s going on around them. I feel like it was harder to have those conversations in other places.”
The mix of people and the opportunity to talk about current events is one of the attractions of the city, Mr. Ferrari said.
The four UMass Dartmouth graduates say they enjoy meeting friends after work, spending time at the gym and visiting the city’s numerous public and private museums. Mr. Lukoff, who minored in history, said his favorite museum is the National Archives. Ms. Morse, who likes art, favors the Philips Collection and the National Gallery of Art. Ms. Fabio loves the National Museum of Women in the Arts. And Mr. Ferrari is a big fan of the National Gallery of Art as well as the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden..
“Work hard and play hard” is a Washington mantra, Ms. Morse said. However, after one year of living in Washington, she has found it is too expensive to “play hard.” Young people working on the Hill and for non-profit organizations don’t make much money, she said.
To all the four of them, the difference between campus and professional life has a common point—a relatively fixed schedule.
“I understand now why my parents went to bed so early when I was younger,” Ms. Fabio said. “Working full time really changes the amount of energy I have when the work day ends.”
As to the future, three of them have a specific graduate school plan. Mr. Lukoff is a part-time public policy student at George Mason University. Ms. Morse is applying for a public affairs master’s program at American University. Ms. Fabio is to start her graduate studies in anthropology at George Washington University in January.
As for Mr. Ferrari, he said, “I haven’t made plans to settle down and live here forever.”
What’s the next stop for him? “I will probably move to where grad school brings me next. I am not in a rush to find that out yet.”
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Maine Senators Seen as Major Players in the New Senate
MAINEGOP
Bangor Daily News
Maite Jullian
Boston University Washington News Service
11/07/08
WASHINGTON – As moderate Republicans, Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins will play a major role in the new Senate as both political parties will hunt for their votes to pass, or block, major legislation.
“They are going to be very critical players in the Senate,” said former Rep. Charlie Bass, head of the centrist Republican Main Street Partnership. “They will be in a position to police legislation.”
In the 111th Congress, President Barack Obama’s legislative agenda will not face as much resistance in the Democratic-dominated House as it will in the Senate. Although the Democrats will have at least 56 seats in the Senate, they won’t have the 60 votes required to end a filibuster, a tool used by the minority to delay or block votes on legislation.
If Democrats can’t find common ground with the minority leadership on a bill, they would have to reach out to Republicans. And the most likely to support them are the moderates.
“They are going to be so influential,” Douglas Kriner, assistant professor of political science at Boston University, said. “Since the Democrats won’t have 60 seats and because there are differences within the Democratic caucus, they’ll have to reach across the aisle.”
The group of moderate Republicans went from six to four senators after the election, Bass said. The two others are Sens. Norm Coleman of Minnesota and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.
In 2007, Snowe and Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana created the Common Ground Coalition, a bipartisan group whose goal is to bring members from both parties together to work on major issues.
And Collins was part of the Gang of 20, a bipartisan group that worked in September on an energy bill.
The Maine senators also sit on influential committees. Snowe is a member of the Senate Finance Committee and Collins is on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and the Armed Services Committee.
With these bipartisan records and important positions, their votes will be coveted by the Democrats.
According to Christian Potholm, professor of government at Bowdoin College, this configuration will also be beneficial to Maine.
“Democrats are going to have to turn to them,” he said. “This is a great thing for Maine. We have two senators at the very center of power and activity.”
Snowe and Collins each said the new political configuration is not much of a change regarding their work in the Senate, as they will keep promoting a bipartisan approach.
“This is the way I have always worked,” Collins said. “The difference is the margin. Democrats clearly will be reaching out to moderate Republicans so it should strengthen the role that I play.”
“When it comes to major issues, we have to develop solutions that embrace a bipartisan approach,” Snowe said. “No party has a lock on good ideas. I want to work to fuse those differences and be a catalyst to embrace change to solve issues.”
Bass said that although they always worked according to what they believed in rather than sticking to the party lines, a change is coming.
“I don’t think their philosophy will change but their influence definitely will,” he said.
Snowe and Collins said that cooperation across party lines is more important than ever to address the issues that the country is facing.
“Too many issues have been seen as partisan or an opportunity to score political points,” Collins said. “The American people want us to work together.”
Snowe said that unlike the past two years, the new Congress has to put aside differences to address the country’s pressing problems.
“There is a greater pressure on both sides to answer the overwhelming message sent in the election,” she said. “We have to show that we’ve got it. Too many wanted to play the partisan game and as a result there was a repudiation of the status quo of the last Congress.”
On whether the two parties will actually cooperate, Collins and Snowe are confident, but cautious.
“I am seeing it but we have to get beyond the talking point,” Snowe said. “It didn’t happen the last two years. If we haven’t heard this message then something is really wrong.”
“I am concerned whether Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nevada) and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) will be willing to take a less partisan approach,” Collins said. “My hope is that Obama will set a tone that encourages bipartisanship on both sides.”
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No More Funds for Wireless Carriers in Maine?
FCCMAINE
Bangor Daily News
Maite Jullian
Boston University Washington News Service
10/30/08
WASHINGTON – While Americans will be electing their next president on Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission is set to vote on a proposal that critics worry would cut funds to wireless companies providing cell phone towers in rural and underserved areas of Maine and other states.
If approved, Maine wireless carriers would lose $13 million in federal money from the Universal Service Fund’s high-cost program, according to Connecting Rural America, a coalition of advocacy groups, community leaders and elected officials opposing the cuts.
The federal funds, the coalition says, would be used by wireless carriers to construct cell phone towers in rural communities in Maine.
Robert Kenny, a spokesman for the FCC, said that discussions on reforming the program to reduce and redirect costs have been around for years and that the time has come for implementing the changes.
“There is more and more demand for high-speed and broadband services,” he said. “We need to reform to address those demands. Without any reform, these programs couldn’t be sustained and could be eliminated.”
Kenny said specifics about the proposals won’t be made public until the vote next week. But he said the FCC, besides redirecting funds, wants to change the formula allocating funds to wireless carriers.
To receive subsidies, the companies would have to reveal their costs – they are not required to now – and make a five-year commitment to build broadband infrastructures.
Earlier this year, the commission started the reform by capping payments to wireless carriers to 2008 amounts until the program is evaluated.
Besides restricting phone coverage for consumers in underserved areas, critics say, these cuts would be damaging for Maine businesses and first responders such as firefighters and police officers.
“In rural areas, if there is no signal, people are unable to get help,” Penobscot County Sheriff Glenn Ross said. He is a member of the Maine Sheriffs’ Association, which is part of the coalition opposing the FCC proposal.
Ross said that local law enforcement officials are confronted all the time with weak phone coverage, phone conversations breaking up and areas without signal.
Deputies, who all have cell phones, need to be able to have access wherever they are. And coverage problems may result in not being able to locate people in need of help or protection as the officers use triangulation, he said.
“People are moving towards cell phones, and we need to put the money there,” Ross said. “Great advances have been made thanks to the money from the [Universal Service Fund] invested in Maine, but it is not the time to stop.”
In 2007, Maine received more than $36.5 million through the fund’s high-cost program. More than $13.3 million went to wireless carriers, according to data from the FCC Web site.
US Cellular is supposed to build 18 towers in several Maine rural areas this year, and 16 next year with the projected $9.7 million from the fund. Without the federal money, it won’t be possible, Jack Rooney, president and CEO of US Cellular, said in an interview.
“The intent of the FCC is to eliminate payments to wireless carriers,” he said. “It will have a negative impact in Maine. Some of the rural areas where we build towers can’t afford them, so we use [the federal] funds to build them.”
Earlier this year, the federal payments to wireless carriers were capped to allow the FCC to evaluate the program and launch a “path for comprehensive reform,” according to a May FCC press release.
The FCC said the cap on payments to wireless carriers was necessary to “stem the explosive growth” of the Universal Service Fund, financed by consumers who pay more than 11 percent on their phone bills.
The payments to wireless carriers have grown from about $1.5 million in 2000 to more than $1 billion last year, according to the press release. “Left unchecked, this staggering growth forces consumers to pay excessive and ever-increasing contributions to the fund,” the FCC said.
Even if the FCC eliminated payments to wireless carriers, consumers would save only 30 cents a month on their phone bills, Rooney said.
Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins sent a joint letter earlier this month to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin asking the commission to reconsider the proposal.
“By limiting the program that supports carriers in rural areas, we risk causing a major setback in the endeavor for universal service for the people that need it most,” they said in a joint press release. “First responders depend on efficient and reliable cell phone service to do their jobs and save lives.”
The FCC created the Universal Service Fund in 1997 to provide telecommunications services of quality to rural and underserved areas.
Through four different programs, the USF subsidizes high-cost rural phone companies –wireless and landline carriers – Internet and telecom connections for schools and libraries, phone service for low-income customers and telecom costs of health care providers that use telemedicine.
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