FARMINGTON — Regional School Unit 9 board of directors meeting had an evening of good news stories on Tuesday, March 28, with many members of the board and community sharing positive comments during the good news segment of the agenda.
The first to share comments was outgoing director J. Wayne Kinney, who congratulated follow board member Scott Erb on his reelection. Kinney also acknowledged his successor, T. Will Jones.
Jones won the seat on Tuesday, Mar. 28, with 335 votes.
“Will and I have things in common,” Kinney stated to the board. “First of all, we both moved here several years ago largely because of family ties. Second, we both used to live in Oregon and in fact, we may have been in the same conference a couple of times. And lastly, we use our middle names which begin with W.”
Kinney also commended Jones, stating “the only other thing I want to mention because it appears that he’s picked up all the signs, which should give him universal admiration.”
Student representative Abigail Goodspeed also presented good news, stating that eight students, including herself, would be heading to University of Maine Orono for the Geological Society of Maine student research convention.
“I’m one of them and we’re just going to present projects that we did in Honors Earth Science our freshman year,” she said.
Goodspeed also highlighted the band, orchestra and theater programs for a number of different activities they were involved in across the different grades and schools, as well as public speaking contest put on by the Lions Club, for which she won third place.
Goodspeed also highlighted Mt. Blue student Henri McCourt, who participated in Nordic skiing Junior Nationals in Alaska.
Richard Wilde appeared before the board with a story of a recent crisis experienced by the Blue Crew robotics team at a meet in Durham, New Hampshire. “Our very last practice match, we had a catastrophic failure,” he said.
The team’s robot fell apart during a practice match just before their qualification match, Wilde said.
“When it fell, so did the hearts of every single kid there,” Wilde shared.
However, Blue Crew managed to pull themselves together and have a strong showing at the event.
“We missed the first two matches, and we ended up being in 38 place out of 41 teams before we even started to perform,” Wilde shared. “We ended the day at fourteenth, we ended qualifications at ninth place and we were the number five pick in the playoffs.”
“Unfortunately,” he continued, “we didn’t fare well in playoffs, and we were out in two rounds, but I was very, very proud of how much the kids pulled together. They kept the spirits up. And they ended up winning the creativity award for none other than that turret.”
Tracy Williams, principal of W.G. Mallet, also appeared before the board with some good news.
“Less than two weeks ago we had a family winter fun night at [W.G. Mallet] and unbelievably we’re out there sliding and having hot chocolate and cocoa and we had a good turnout,” she said.
“We [also] had a dental clinic that was held at [W.G. Mallet] and over 55 students were seen,” she continued. “We had, I think, the biggest number in the district and a good percentage of our kids of course, most of whom have never been to a dentist before and many kids had some really serious dental issues.
“And then it just made me think because I saw kids that day in the dental chairs. How many good things go on and we just don’t take the data on it?” she said. “How many kids need snacks and gloves and mittens and hats and on and on, so I just have to say I’m very proud of our staff and the collective effort for kids.”
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