Clark Neily wrote with news that he was inducted into the Francis Crowe Society of the UMaine College of Engineering in May 2023. “This was a great honor,” he said, “but quite a surprise as my degree is a BA (physics). I attribute this recognition to (a) being old; (b) having worked on Apollo a long time ago; and (c) once having been invited by Dr. Bennett to call him “Clarence.” Clark lives in Allston, MA.
Happy, healthy cows are what Brigeen Farms in Turner, ME, is all about, and owners Mary and Steve Briggs and Betsy and Bill Bullard were featured last fall in MaineBiz after they received a $65,000 grant from Maine Farmland Trust to upgrade infrastructure and technology, reduce costs, and improve efficiencies of scale. According to its website, the 850-acre family farm, which dates back to 1777, has more than 1,000 cows with average daily milk production of 95 pounds per cow.
Judith Grace and Jeffrey Mabee ’91G made headlines in the Bangor Daily News in January — and for the better part of seven years in the newspaper I work for — after a Norwegian company proposed to build a $500 million land-based salmon farm in Belfast, ME, and tried to take a piece of their land for access to the waters of Penobscot Bay. Backed by the city of Belfast, the company embarked on a complex scheme to establish ownership rights. With the title to their lovingly restored home on the bay clouded as a result, Judith and Jeffrey were forced to put retirement on hold while their land title case went all the way to Maine’s Supreme Court. They won. Nordic finally exhausted all legal options and closed up shop in January 2025. At this writing, Judith and Jeffrey still have a case for damages set to be heard in October.
Coincidentally, I’ve been covering the Nordic saga for The Republican Journal and now its successor, The Midcoast Villager, since the fall of 2022, and interviewed Judith and Jeffrey this past winter after Nordic bowed out.
Judith, a native of Troy (about 30 miles southwest of Bangor), grew up on the farm where her father was born. She “rushed myself through” UMaine to graduate in August 1964, but was officially a member — and identified with — our class. Although Judith lived in North Estabrooke Hall in our freshman year and I was in South Estabrooke, we never met! We laughed recalling the annoying freshman rules we suffered through.
An English major, Judith graduated with enough education credits to teach high school English, later switching to alternative elementary ed. “And then I went to get my master’s at the Harvard Ed School and ended up in the counseling program,” Judith told me. After that she opened a private counseling practice, which she still does part-time in Belfast. Judith and Jeffrey met when Jeffrey came to the Belfast area “to fish.” Jeffrey, a Syracuse graduate, eventually got his master’s degree from the College of Education and Human Development in 1991 and joined Judith in counseling.
I was sad to learn of Nina Higgins Ward’s passing in January 2023. She and Suzanne Casey roomed together in York Hall, where I also lived, for three years. A star of the zoology department, Nina had to fight to get into medical school –— tough for women to be accepted in those days — and ultimately graduated from Women’s Medical in Philadelphia. I stayed with her temporarily in Camden, NJ, where she was raising and showing Dobermans. Dogs (and horses and more) remained a huge part of her life, and years later her Anatolian Shepherd “Tipper” took Best of Breed at Westminster. Nina practiced in Maine and elsewhere, winding up in North Carolina in the 1990s. There she was active with Anatolian Shepherd Rescue efforts and the Mensa Society, and was a small business owner with her Briar Patch Farms.
Sally Day Brown, a retired minister in Glastonbury, CT, sent a quote for 2025: “Optimism is a choice; kindness is a choice; giving is a choice; respect is a choice. Whatever choice you make, makes you. Choose wisely.” – Roy T. Bennett, author.
See you next time.