July 1981

The front-page photo by Ray Foley shows Christopher Havlicek, 10, jumping off Frye’s Leap into Sebago Lake – a 40-foot drop into 50-foot deep water. Chris is the son of Boston Celtics basketball star John Havlicek.

People who moved out of 80 Brown St., Westbrook, left behind two guinea pigs. Police took them to the Animal Refuge League.

White Bros. Co. is reconstructing Westbrook’s Haskell Street. The job will take about a year.

“Wild Turkey” is entertaining this week at the Polynesian Village in Westbrook.

Young’s Farm Market is advertising vegetables picked daily – string beans, red potatoes, beet greens, carrots, summer squash and pickling cukes.

Gorham is debating whether to build a fire station at White Rock and replace fire engine No. 5 with a $90,000 pumper.

John and Theodore Hatch, brothers from Biddeford, were hurt when gasoline fumes blew up at the Amoco station on Lower Main Street, Gorham. John, 24, was taken to the hospital and listed in serious condition. A wall of the station was blown out.

BH2M engineers of Gorham recommend that Windham build a track and all-purpose athletic field near the high school at a cost of $180,000.

A 4-year-old girl from Canada was being blown out to sea in a small rubber raft at Pine Point. Paula Thompson, 21, of Scarborough, who was swimming, saw the peril and swam after the raft. The little girl was crying when Paula caught up with it, out beyond the breakers.

Tonya Pratt, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Robert M. Pratt, Jr., 129 Puritan Drive, Westbrook, is in Bordeaux, France, for July, visiting Anne Beauvieux, who has been an exchange guest here two summers.

Walter Jr. and Nina Meserve Braley, 445 Stroudwater St., Westbrook, marked their 25th wedding anniversary July 14.

Gwen Jongerden, 13, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Franciscus Jongerden, South Street, Gorham, is spending six weeks with her grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius Jongerden, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Walker Memorial Library will hold its fourth annual pet show Aug. 7.

The Scarborough Marsh Nature Center will hold “Catch The Wind,” a program exploring wind currents, breezes and bird flights.

Corsetti’s grocery and take-out food service, 110 New Gorham Road, Westbrook, has tripled its floor space. Larry Marzilli is manager.

The Gov. Joe Brennan All-Stars will play the S. D. Warren Fabulous 40s in baseball to benefit the Jimmy Fund. Mayor William O’Gara will be guest umpire.

The Gorham Youth Baseball Tourney starts Friday. Two Gorham teams will play against teams from Old Orchard Beach, Standish, Hollis and Buxton.

July 1991

At the Rogers Ski Center in Scarborough, a man used a credit card to buy a backpack and a pair of wool socks. A reporter at the Boston Herald called the store later to say he was wanted for the murder of a woman from Salem, Mass. By the time police caught up with the man in Washington County, the victim’s body had been found by a lobsterman, wound in trap lines. The man said she fell overboard, but the body was tied to an anchor.

Paul and Dianne LeConte of Westbrook published a warm letter of thanks to Roland Albert, six others who are named, and “all the rest” of the staff of the Men’s Shop (just closed) for “a very uplifting experience.”

In a letter, Mary Adams, Garland, writes: “Augusta is only going to pile on the taxes. We’ll have to save ourselves if there’s any saving to be done.”

Bill Williamson, reviewing Maine history, writes that the state was first settled before 1610 and went without any newspaper until New Year’s Day, 1785 – 175 years.

Westbrook Police were called to 17 Walker St. at 1:15 a.m. because a woman was trying to break into an apartment. As it turned out, she lives there and had lost her key.

Westbrook has accepted Saunders Drive as a city street. It runs 1,560 feet from the Westbrook Arterial to a cul de sac.

Notices of new Westbrook valuations for real estate taxes are going into the mail this week.

Scarborough’s Board of Education approved “conceptual designs” for a $6.1 million school for kindergarten and grades 1 and 2.

The Westbrook Housing Authority’s new apartment house for the elderly on East Bridge street will be named “Mill Brook Estates.” The first apartments have been occupied this month.

The Scarborough Historical Society is ready to hang a new portrait of Rufus King (1755-1827), who ran for President against James Monroe in 1816, was a signer of the U. S. Constitution and lived on the Dunstan Landing Road.

Gorham Town Councilor Janice Labrecque was elected to a three-year term on the Cumberland County Budget Advisory Board.

Pat Steele, Smith Avenue, Steep Falls, has tapes of more than 40 Standish Town Council meetings – all but two of those that have been shown on cable TV. Standish switched to council-manager government in January, 1987.

Suburban Agway, Westbrook, is offering a free flea bath for your dog July 27.

Girls from Gorham’s Junior Girl Scout Troop 110 held a bridging ceremony over the Wild River during a campout at Evans Notch in New Hampshire’s White Mountains.

Rev. Joseph Ford is new pastor of St. Edmund’s Roman Catholic Church, Westbrook, succeeding Rev. Harold Mooreshead, who moves to Mechanic Falls. Ford also continues as finance officer of the diocese.

Westbrook High School’s Class of 1941 held its 50th reunion at the Cascades, Scarborough, where they held their senior prom 50 years ago.

Jeffrey A. Brackett, D.M.D., a 1979 graduate of Scarborough High School, has returned to Scarborough to practice dentistry.