WELLS

Ceremony marks reopening of renovated athletic fields

Additional Images

Wells High School kicked off its new Hydrofoils Engineering class with a visit from Portsmouth Naval Shipyard advisers who will partner with students over the next year. Pictured, back row from left, Portsmouth Naval Shipyard workers Trevor Thompson, Rick Cecchetti and Dave Hawk; U.S.S. Scranton crew member Steven Weston; Wells High School students Kyle Goodale and Ryan Marsh; teachers Jason Hludik and Chrys Demos and student Gavin Turnbull. In front, from left, are students Zack Pierce, Nate Ouellette, Erskine Lothrop, Dan Charpentier, Jake Wilson and David Jacobs. Photo by Reg Benett

Wells-Ogunquit Community School District officials and students and members of the community recently gathered at Wells Junior High School for a celebratory reopening ceremony of the Forbes Field Athletic Complex.

The athletic field, named after the late Vander and Marguerite Forbes in 1988, had been closed for more than a year for renovations, including new turf, an irrigation system, fencing and an eight-lane track.

“As we reopen the newly renovated field and track complex, it is an appropriate occasion to remind folks of the generosity of the Forbes family in providing the original facility to our students at Wells-Ogunquit,” said Superintendent Ellen Schneider.

The celebration included a ribbon-cutting ceremony, presided over by the Forbes’ grandsons Joe and Matt Forbes.

SANFORD

SIS Bank goes to bat for seriously ill children

SIS Bank recently donated $300 to the Grahamtastic Connection, a Sprinvale-based nonprofit that provides free laptops, tablets and Internet access to help seriously ill and hospitalized children stay connected with friends, family, teachers and classmates.

It was all part of the Mainers Home Run Hits campaign, in which SIS Bank has pledged to donate $100 to Grahamtastic Connection every time Sanford’s New England Collegiate Baseball League team hits a home run at Goodall Park.

SIS has been involved in the project for four years.

WISCASSET

Trust seeking volunteers to man Morris Farm Store

The Morris Farm Trust is seeking volunteers to help expand hours at the new Morris Farm Store to better serve the local community.

Volunteers are needed to serve three- to six-hour weekly shifts through December.

Interested individuals are asked to call 882-4080 or email info@morrisfarm.org.

WELLS

High school engineers to build working hydrofoil

The students of a newly formed hydrofoils engineering class at Wells High School began their fall studies by hosting Portsmouth Naval Shipyard personnel and a crew member of the USS Scranton, a Los Angeles-class submarine currently dry-docked for an engineering overhaul at the shipyard.

The objective and centerpiece of the yearlong class is for students to design and create, from scratch, a functioning, human-powered, 16-foot-long hydrofoil, a boat that is capable of achieving lift over water.

The class will draw on a combination of math, technology, engineering and science skills as students confer with specialists from the shipyard.

The class will be co-taught by educators Jason Hludik and Chrys Demos with weekly input from guest advisers, who include shipyard mechanical engineers Trevor Thompson and Dave Hawk, outreach program manager Rick Cecchetti and Machinist’s Mate Second Class Steven Weston of the USS Scranton. The advisers will be available via emails and weekly visits to the class.

Later this fall, the students and their teachers will tour the Kittery shipyard.

The hydrofoil project is expected to be completed for testing in Wells Harbor next spring.

Students also will create a power point presentation for district officials and students documenting the “start to finish” of the nine-month endeavor.

ELIOT

Another shipment of goods on way to school in Haiti

A 25,000-pound metal storage container filled with more than eight tons of donated goods from the community is being trucked to Florida, where it will be shipped to Cap-Haitien, Haiti.

The donations are part of an ongoing community campaign, which includes two Rotary clubs, that yearly benefits students enrolled at the Eben Ezer School in Milot, Haiti.

The container had been open on scheduled donation days since May and included donated tools, a 40 kw generator, 24-inch planer, water tank supplies, solar panels, guitars, shoes, beds and bikes.

Money for some of the larger- ticket times came from two $25,000 grants from the South Berwick-Eliot and York Rotary clubs, which each raised close to $10,000 in their communities to make the project possible.

A Ford Ranger pickup truck also was donated by a South Berwick Rotarian.

Hundreds of residents of South Berwick, Eliot, Kittery and surrounding towns contributed items for the shipment.

Residents of the Seacoast first became involved with the school in 2007, when it had just 35 students.

Since then, Rotarians, churches and individual families from the Seacoast have supported the school while it has grown to 300 children.

Teachers’ salaries and other operating expenses for the Eben Ezer School are funded by about 100 families who sponsor a student and by a dance held each March in Portsmouth.

The container is expected to reach Milot in late September or early October.

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