Join Cub Scouts

Pack 86 Cub Scouts in Gray is gearing up for another year and now is the time to join. A sign-up night will be held at on Tuesday, Sept. 18 at 6:45 p.m. in the Gray-New Gloucester Middle School cafeteria.

Designed for boys in first through fifth grade, Cub Scouting combines outdoor activities, games, and more in a fun and exciting program that helps families teach ideals such as honesty, good citizenship and respect. The Boy Scouts of America is composed of more than 1.2 million volunteers working together for the sole purpose of helping its more than 3 million youth succeed in life. For more information or if you are not able to make the sign-up night, contact Rusty Quinn at 657-2820.

Patriot Soccer Challenge is coming

The Patriot Soccer Club will hold its eighth annual Crossroad Challenge on Oct. 6 and 7. The event brings 5,000 or more people into Gray on Columbus Day Weekend. Watch for the scarecrows and the pumpkins painted like soccer balls.

PTSA gearing up

The first Parent Teacher Student Association meeting of the year will be held on Sept. 20 at 7 p.m. at the Gray-New Gloucester Middle School library. If you can’t make the meeting, but would like to support PTSA, information went home with students last week and is available at the schools. It only costs $10 for a family membership or $5 for individuals. Funds enrich your child’s school experience. The fall fundraiser is under way, students have catalogs with the popular wrapping paper selection and many great gift ideas and wonderful chocolate offerings.

Fifth-graders are going to camp

A couple of dates for you: If you didn’t make the first Camp Susan Curtis information night, another one will be held Sept. 17 at 6:30 p.m. in the Dunn School library. The fifth-graders will be divided into two groups: Group A will go Oct. 16 and 17, and Group B on Oct. 18 and 19. Registration materials should be coming home with students this week.

The history of Camp Susan Curtis is an inspiration. From the website: www.susancurtisfoundation.org: “In 1970, when Kenneth Curtis was governor of Maine, he and his wife, Pauline, lost their oldest daughter, Susan, to cystic fibrosis. She was 11 years old. ‘When my daughter Susan died, as governor I was visible, and we had lots of memorial gifts sent to us. We got the idea that we could use our visibility – our tragedy – to make life better for other kids. Not to memorialize our daughter, but – to make her tragedy more meaningful. I was governor, but our (loss) wasn’t any different from a lot of other families who suffer every day of the year.’ Since then nearly 13,000 children have attended Camp Susan Curtis from every county in Maine. ‘One thing we found,’ Curtis adds, ‘is that kids at camp wanted to know who Susan Curtis was. So we put a picture of her in the dining area, and they saw she was a child, like they are. You know, there is nothing you can do to replace any human being in a family, but if you can help other people, well that’s good. And we probably have got one of the nicest summer camps in the whole state. It’s a tribute to the deserving kids of Maine and to the caring of the people.'”

Jump on the Bandwagon

A Parent Information Night for fifth-graders in SAD 15 who wish to play an instrument will be held on Sept. 20 at 7 p.m. at the Dunn School. Representatives will be available for parents who wish to purchase or rent instruments and/or learn about the band program.

Senior citizens

Fiddlehead Center for the Arts has openings in programs geared just for senior citizens including yoga, pottery and an arts sampler. Call 657-2244 for more information.

Middle schoolers

If your middle schooler is too old for daycare, but not ready to be unsupervised every day after school, check out the Fiddlehead Unlimited after-school program. A feature of the program is that arts enrichment is built into the program.

Water District meeting

There will be a Gray Water District trustees meeting on Monday, Sept. 17 at 7 p.m. at the office on Route 26. The public is invited to attend.

Jeanne’s Take: ‘The Forest and the Trees’

This issue marks the official ending of The Monument newspaper. News of Gray is reported with news from other towns in the Sebago Lake Region. At a journalism conference I attended in Boston a few years ago, the weekly regional was already the norm south of New Hampshire.

An editorial from the New York Times said, “I think audiences want to plug into a social experience, to look in on what the neighbors are up to. I think they want to plug into a civic experience to get a sense of what’s important for them to know about the world and their own country.”

I think he’s right on track.

Regionalization is here. The town of Gray has been working with other towns already – to see if it’s feasible to purchase equipment like graders, jointly, and share their use yearly. It remains to be seen whether Gray will be allowed to go it alone or be forced to join with another district soon.

Gray citizens have an opportunity to define our identity and explore our place in the bigger picture.

Readers should pick up the new Lakes Region Weekly and use it as a tool to learn more about our place in the regional context. Insularity is no longer viable.

According to George Thebarge, a planning consultant recently retained by the town of Gray, we’re on the verge of a development boom. The towns covered in the new Lakes Region Weekly are in various stages of their own development process. Will what happens there affect us here?

For example, take “our” traffic problem. Did you know that Egypt Road is slated to become an important commuter secondary road to take pressure off Route 302? That the Route 302 traffic in Windham is forcing increased commuter traffic on Route 115 to the turnpike? Traffic is not “our” problem, it’s a regional problem that extends beyond Gray’s borders.

Another issue that most Gray folks might have looked at as “local” is the bypass. At opening ceremonies for the bypass, now known as the Maine Wildlife Park Way, most of the big-wigs’ speeches focused on the need to get tourists from the southern coast to the Western Mountains. While Gray citizens seemed happy that traffic in the village was reduced, and moving faster up on Route 26, businesses and tourist regions north and west of Gray were also benefiting. The Maine tourism office will increasingly spend money to move tourists from the over-saturated coast to the Western Mountains. Many will travel through Gray and they already forecast that in 20 years traffic levels will rise to pre-bypass levels.

During the year and half that I’ve been chairperson of the Village Master Plan Committee, I’ve been amazed at how insulated Gray is. It feels like we’re always starting from scratch. Depending on the issue, the state sticks Gray often in the Lake Region and sometimes in the Western Mountain region. Most of us identify more as a suburb of Portland. Things in the region affect us greatly – did you know that next week Cumberland is unveiling new zoning and TIF districts on Route 100? They’re working hard to attract desirable businesses. How will that affect Gray?

Another opportunity to think regionally is tourism. Could a family from Boston or New York spend the weekend in Gray and have plenty to do? Did you laugh and say no? Well, if we had lodging in town, the answer would be yes: L.L. Bean, Shaker Village, Range Pond State Park, Pineland, Poland Spring Preservation Park, Sebago Lake State Park. Locally we have Libby Hill Forest for hiking/cross country skiing and mountain biking and the nationally recognized Cyr Auction House. Spring Meadows offers a wonderful golf course with Banquet Center. The Maine Wildlife Park brings more than 80,000 people a year into Gray alone. Other towns are getting the lion’s share of the lodging, restaurant and related retail businesses. Why are our neighbors profiting, but we aren’t?

Some things won’t change. I check the paper to find out when soccer registration is, and when the transfer station is having clean-up days. I scan the council agendas, and I look for the date when it’s time to renew tags for Thunder, my wonder dog. I voraciously read the “letters to the editor” every week. I have had my breath taken away reading about car accidents and cried at news of the passing of ordinary yet extraordinarily inspiring people like Mae Beck.

The big guys are here. Hannaford is in the works, Cabellas checked us out a few years ago before settling on Scarborough, and Target was recently looking at properties on Route 115. McDonald’s is re-investing in a new building in the village and Rite-Aid is too, moving to McConkey Road. Several large properties are available for development in and near the village.

Thinking regionally could offer more solutions for a building like Pennell Institute. Perhaps we could think regionally and see if there is a regional need that Pennell could fill. A business incubator or an arts incubator, for example, or shops and a farmer’s market – opening up new possibilities for grant money and bringing niche business to town.

As I’ve served on the Village Master Plan Advisory Committee and the Community Economic Development Committee it’s been interesting to hear the citizens’ many and varied opinions about which way Gray should grow. Taking a good look around us could help us agree on a direction.