Happy summer to you all! The golfers among you will be interested to know that Julie M. Green of Bangor was inducted into the Maine Golf Hall of Fame. For many years, she was one of the state’s premier female golfers. In 1964, Julie became a member of the Bangor Municipal Golf Course, where she was the youngest women’s club champion. One of the highlights of her career came in 1990 when she captured the Maine Women’s Amateur title. Julie was involved with the golf program at Husson University in Bangor, where she worked for many years.
The poets among you will be interested to hear that Gary Hotham was named the 2022-2023 honorary curator of the American Haiku Archives at the California State University Library in Sacramento, CA. This honor recognizes his five decades of deep involvement with haiku, starting as a teenager in 1967. Gary has published numerous haiku books and is currently serving as a nominator for Red Moon Press annual anthologies and as the first vice president of the Haiku Society of America. Based on the belief that “haiku and related poetry can enrich lives, the American Haiku Archives is dedicated to the collection, preservation, and promotion of this poetry as a vital component of literature in the English language. Established 12 July 1996 as an inclusive educational and scholarly resource … the Archives seeks to make its material accessible to the general public, especially students, poets, writers, and scholars… [and] exists with the hope and confidence that present and future generations will continue to enjoy and benefit from the reading, writing, and studying of haiku and all related poetry.” For more information and to hear Gary reading some of his haiku, check out this link: shorturl.at/kCS17.
Mark Dodge sent me an email in early April about his life since he left Orono in 1972. “I am fortunate that I stay in touch with so many of my fraternity brothers from Sigma Phi Epsilon, so most of them know what I have been up to. I worked for the family business in manufacturing from 1972 until 2002 when I began to teach machine tool technology at Nashua Community College, where I am still working. When I was at Maine, I always thought that the professor at Maine who taught the mechanical engineers in their machine shop class had a great job. The students were bright budding engineers and not the high school kids who were placed in shop class because the high schools thought they weren’t college bound. Now I teach mostly non-traditional students from all over the world and all ages the skills they need in modern manufacturing. I have no plans to retire from this very rewarding job. I still get to enjoy time off and have stayed in touch with many other Maine grads. I still go to Maine in the summer at my camp in Waterboro and have lived in New Hampshire for 35 years now. Maine is truly ‘The college of our hearts always.’”
My personal news is that after 28 years as a freelance instructional editor for the training industry, I finally retired at the end of September 2022. Now I have more time to write more news for all of you to read, but first you have to send it to me! (Not-so-subtle hint…)