Having trouble keeping track of the “two Charlies” lately? Former Secretary of State Matt Dunlap offers a not-so-seasonal metaphor. “One makes the snowballs,” Dunlap said this week, “and the other one throws them.” We’re talking, of course, about Charlie Webster, the bombastic chairman of the Maine Republican Party who sees voter fraud hanging like a […]
Bill Nemitz
Bill Nemitz has worked as a journalist in Maine since 1977, when he became a reporter for the Morning Sentinel in Waterville after graduating from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
He moved to Portland in 1983, working first as a reporter for the Evening Express and later as a city editor and assistant managing editor/sports for the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram. He began writing his column in 1995. While focusing on Maine people and issues, his work has taken him three times to Iraq and twice to Afghanistan, where he was embedded with members of the Maine Army National Guard and the Army Reserve; to Belfast, Northern Ireland, for the 1998 referendum on the Good Friday Peace Accord; to Manhattan for the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks; to the Gulf Coast for the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; and to Haiti following the 2010 earthquake. Nemitz is a past president of the Maine Press Association and for many years taught journalism part-time at St. Joseph's College of Maine in Standish. He also served for eight years, including three as chairman, on the board of trustees for the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies in Portland. In 2004, the Maine Press Association named Nemitz Maine Journalist of the Year for his reporting on the Maine Army National Guard’s 133rd Engineer Battalion in Iraq. In 2007, he received the Distinguished Service Award from the New England Newspaper Association. In 2015, Nemitz was inducted into the Maine Press Association Hall of Fame. Nemitz lives in Buxton with his wife, Andrea. They have five children and four grandchildren.
Posted inNews
Bill Nemitz: Being held accountable isn’t what Paul Violette’s used to
Five years ago this summer, back when he and his top managers were in hot water over a $295 bottle of Chateau Mouton Rothschild they’d downed at a pricey Portland restaurant, I asked then-Executive Director Paul Violette how the high-end vino jibed with the Maine Turnpike Authority’s policy on wining and dining. “That was altogether […]
advertisement
Posted inNews
Bill Nemitz: What we have here, is a failure to communicate
Trying to make sense of the on-again, off-again real estate deal between the state and Maine State Prison Warden Patricia Barnhart? I refer you to The Captain, that snarling, steely-eyed prison-camp warden in the 1967 movie classic “Cool Hand Luke.” After angrily knocking a ne’er-do-well Paul Newman headlong into a ditch for running off at […]
Posted inNews
Bill Nemitz: Historian brings a patriot back from oblivion
Put yourself in Joseph Coffin Boyd’s place. You’re six feet under. Have been, in fact, for 189 years. You’ve got no headstone, no historic plaque, nothing whatsoever to commemorate the fact that you once served not only as Maine’s first state treasurer, but also as the guy responsible for paying Maine’s loyal soldiers during the […]
Posted inNews
Bill Nemitz: Even courts quarreling over custody of young boy
The world can be an awfully confusing place when you’re a kid. Take Brennan, for example. He’s 7 years old, lives in southern Maine and, well, we’ll just leave it at that because the poor little guy never asked for the legal limelight into which he’s been propelled. Maine’s court system, all the way up […]
Posted inNews
Bill Nemitz: In Wintle arrest, the gun makes all the difference
Nothing refocuses the spotlight on gun legislation like a legislator with a gun. It likely will be months before the full story emerges to explain what drove state Rep. Fred Wintle, R-Garland, to pull a loaded .22-caliber handgun on a complete stranger Saturday morning in a Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot in Waterville. But this much […]
Posted inNews
Bill Nemitz: MPBN’s loyal listeners urged to make the call
Coming soon to a frequency near you … Announcer: We interrupt our regular programming to bring you this special appeal from the Maine Public Broadcasting Network. We now go to Barry Baritone and Dora Dulcet, who are standing by at the State House in Augusta … Barry: Good morning, everyone. We’re here in the State […]
Posted inNews
Mitchell bows out as Mideast envoy
The highly respected Maine leader, businessman and diplomat says the effect of regional turmoil on the peace process factored into his decision.
Posted inNews
Bill Nemitz: Bottom line is Mainers like Clean Elections
AUGUSTA — It was not, as public demonstrations go, a State House show stopper: a dozen or so hardy Mainers, most shivering in a stiff northerly wind, huddled around a podium pleading their cause to an audience of, well, one. But make no mistake about it — Maine Citizens for Clean Elections are ready to […]
Posted inNews
Bill Nemitz: For Maine soldiers, the mission overrides any urge to gloat
AUGUSTA – There were no hoo-rahs, no fist bumps, no Humvee horns tooting Monday morning at Camp Keyes, headquarters for the Maine Army National Guard. In fact, the only outward indication that Osama bin Laden is finally history was a long ribbon of yellow caution tape preventing anyone from parking near the building — one […]