Think your world is complicated? Consider what 16-year-old David Bibeau had on his plate last week. Just after 2 a.m. Wednesday, Bibeau was awakened in his dorm room on the University of Southern Maine’s Gorham campus, where he was representing the country of Lebanon at the 12th annual Maine Model United Nations Conference. The Scarborough […]
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.
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Nemitz: A moving gesture that means the world
– SOUTH PORTLAND -Today is the first day of the rest of Anna Bulger’s life. Literally. “I feel pretty excited,” Anna said with a shy smile Saturday morning as she and her parents, Mary Chris and Paul Bulger, moved her clothes, books and other belongings into her new digs at 20 E St. Anna has […]
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Nemitz: Call it class struggle: How politics went too far
Some called it a political convention. But in reality, it was where worlds collided. Late Friday afternoon, as Maine’s Republican State Convention fanned out from the Portland Expo to county caucuses at nearby King Middle School, GOP loyalists from Knox County found themselves directed to Classroom 110 – the domain of eighth-grade social studies teacher […]
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Student, 57, fulfills dream — perfectly
– Robert Gagnon felt a little out of place last week. There he was in Augusta, one of seven “students of the year” from Maine’s community college system being feted at a luncheon for their outstanding achievements over the past two years. But one thing clearly set Gagnon apart. “I was the oldest,” Gagnon said. […]
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Bill Nemitz: Shoes come untied, and race is over
Moments before he stepped up to the lectern and pulled the plug on his bid for the Blaine House, John Richardson confided that he had a strange dream last week — and a psychologically loaded one at that: He’s sitting on the bench at a basketball game, desperate to get into the action. The clock […]
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Nemitz: ‘A class act’ whose passion took wing
We should all spend some time, however fleetingly, doing what George Sharpe did. George was a birder. He died just over a week ago, a mere three months short of his 100th birthday. And if you want to gauge the impact he had during his near century on earth, look no further than the migratory […]
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Bill Nemitz: Kill lobsters to save jobs? It’s a cruel world
Sometimes in politics, you just can’t win. One minute, Gov. John Baldacci appears on the verge of saving 130 jobs in remote Prospect Harbor by helping to broker the resurrection of the just-closed Stinson sardine cannery as a seafood processing plant. The next, Maine’s chief executive is a mass murderer. “Selling the Stinson cannery to […]
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Nemitz: Online anonymity shouldn’t grant license to libel
What would you do if you Googled your own name and, right under the link to your company Web site, found an anonymous blog alleging you smoke pot? Welcome to Mark Cenci’s world. “I’ve been in business for six years and I just don’t want to see my reputation damaged,” Cenci, who owns and operates […]
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Bill Nemitz: ‘Kids will be kids’ doesn’t sway judge
I have a question for Portland attorney Michael Waxman and the parents of a 16-year-old Yarmouth High School girl whose suspension from the lacrosse team has become, literally, a federal case: What in the name of jurisprudence are you people thinking? “I think it’s a really great lesson in citizenship,” Waxman said while waiting in […]
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Bill Nemitz: Men’s store suits Jimmy perfectly
The disabled man loves to dress up and socialize, and the business loves his enthusiasm as its official greeter.