ALFRED — In the closing days of 2016, a contracted snowplow driver for the town of Parsonsfield quit and walked away, leaving  portions of the town without snow plow coverage during a particularly stormy period.

As often happens in small communities, folks pitched in to help. 

“So many people helped us,” said Parsonsfield Selectwoman Tiffany Brendt at the time. She described how locals, those from neighboring towns and the state Department of Transportation  ”and a bunch of others” stepped up to help plow, sand and trim the snowbanks in the rural community of 1,898 residents with 90 miles of roads — 53 miles of which are dirt.  

One of those who helped was York County Sheriff’s Deputy Darren Cyr, who has been Parsonsfield’s contracted deputy for the last several years.

“He was riding shotgun, showing the plow drivers the roads,” said Brendt at the time.

She and the other two selectmen, Ed Bower and Don Murphy, were on hand at York County Jail on Friday, when Sheriff Bill King conducted a quarterly recognition ceremony for folks in rural patrol, corrections and civilians who pitched in to help others. Cyr was recognized as Deputy of the Quarter for stepping up.

“You’ve taken community policing to the next level,” Brendt told Cyr at the ceremony.

Also recognized Friday were Bill Rodgers and Taylor Dion, two of the three men who heard a commotion on Little Ossipee Lake earlier this year and saw someone in the water. They, along with Brandon Jackson, who was unable to attend, made their way across the ice to open water, where another man was trying to rescue a young woman who had fallen off his snowmobile into the icy water. The three men tossed a rope to the man, who then tossed it to the girl in the water. She was pulled out, and the men rushed her to an ice fishing shack while waiting for rescue personnel to arrive.

Whitney Cass didn’t have much to say about her ordeal on Friday, except that she is grateful to the men who rescued her.

Also receiving kudos was retired Limerick school teacher Leo Todd, who long ago taught Cass, along with others, to kick off their footwear and get rid of any heavy clothing that would hamper their recovery in the water.

York County Jail Captain Dan Bean got a grateful thanks from Patrick Mazzillo, who was shopping at a Waterboro supermarket in January when he learned his car, with his dogs inside, was on fire in the parking lot. Bean was recognized because was in the parking lot too, spied the fire and put it out. Dogs Dyna and Bruno were on hand Friday for the ceremony too.

York County Jail Corrections officer  Matthew Rocchio was named Corrections Officer of the Quarter for finding contraband — thought to be heroin — while working in the jail’s intake area, where inmates are initially brought in to the jail after an arrest.

There were a number of deputies and corrections staff recognized for their contributions, including Capt. Tim Kortes, Officer Jason Drouin and Corporal Michael Raleigh for their role in training others along with deputies Corey Sweatt and Heath Mains. Receiving special recognition were York County Jail Lieut. Buddy Abbott for contributing 109 hours and Officer Michael Heath for contributing 49 hours.

Also recognized were corrections officers Roger Lanoie, Sonny Lyles and Robert Corcoran, Deputy Tom Searway, civil deputy supervisor Mike Grovo and civil deputy John Willey.

Deputy Jason Solomon was recognized for his role in solving a Limerick home invasion where two juveniles were allegedly assaulted and in a separate incident, using naloxone to treat a wanted subject in the throes of an overdose who was hiding under a crib.

Rural patrol Sgt. David Chauvette was singled out for his compassion in how he handled a missing person case in Newfield, where a man had gone out into the woods but did not return. Eventually, the man’s remains were found a month later. As well, his adeptness at moving from one difficult situation to another was noted — from investigating an alleged home invasion in Arundel to going to the scene of a homicide in Acton the same day and then in the days that followed, back to Arundel to investigate the earlier incident.  In that Arundel case, King said Chauvette obtained a confession from the callers that they had apparently fabricated the home invasion story.

Citizen Shawn Hayes was recognized for pitching in and directing traffic at a crash scene.

Sharon Blanchard of the York County District Attorney’s Office was recognized for researching 100 cases so evidence in storage at the jail could be given back to their owners.

— Senior Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 324-4444 (local call in Sanford) or 282-1535, ext. 327 or twells@journaltribune.com.