(Editor’s note: Looking Back is a weekly column including news items reported 10 years ago in The Current, which celebrated its 10th anniversary in September 2011.)

Issue of Oct. 3, 2002

As Kirk Wolfinger sat at home watching “Everybody Loves Raymond” and “The West Wing” clean up on awards night a couple weeks ago, he knew he already had what all those primetime stars wanted: an Emmy Award.

“I see all these people getting their awards, and I’m like ‘I’ve got one of them,’” said Wolfinger, a Cape Elizabeth resident.

Wolfinger won an Emmy in the news and documentary category at an award ceremony held a

week before the primetime Emmy Awards show. He won the award for “Bioterror,” a documentary he made on the threat of bioterrorism for the NOVA series. It aired last November on Maine Public Broadcasting.

The tall, gold-plated statue of a winged-woman holding an atom now sits on Wolfinger’s shelf in his office in South Portland. Wolfinger and his wife, Lisa, own Lone Wolf Pictures in South Portland. They both direct documentary films.

It’s not the first award Wolfinger has won in 20 years of directing documentaries. He won a Peabody in 1994. An International Documentary Award sits next to the Emmy Award on his shelf.

Dave Parks and Bruce Lincoln bought 3,100 acres in Scarborough for about $1.2 million.

“We probably got the best bargain in the world,” said Lincoln.

The two men spent 20 years buying the Scarborough Marsh for the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, from the 1960s to around 1980. They left one of the greatest natural treasures in the state as their legacy.

For the first time last week, both men were honored for their work. The Friends of Scarborough Marsh gave the two men an award at their annual meeting.

The computer age is here to stay and the Scarborough Public Library is auctioning off its old card catalog cabinets. The proceeds will go back into the library’s budget. There are five cabinets available and some are in better shape than others, said Library Director Nancy Crowell.

Maine Medical Center announced plans to construct a $17 million ambulatory surgical center and 300-car parking garage in Scarborough by 2004.

The building would be 50,000 to 60,000 square feet and join three existing Maine Med buildings on the hospital’s Scarborough campus. It will most likely be located behind the old Kmart building.

Vincent Conti, Maine Med’s chief executive officer and president, said the ambulatory surgical center would probably be the last building the hospital constructed on its 30 acres in Scarborough, unless the hospital purchases more land near the campus, which it has no plans to do.

The ambulatory surgical center would move from the Portland campus to the Scarborough campus to make more room for inpatient services at the Portland campus. Conti didn’t know how many new jobs would come to Scarborough because of the move.

It happens every year. About this time, members of one very large family with a storied history descend on Scarborough for the weekend. These people belong to the John Libby Family Association, which celebrates their connection to one common ancestor – John Libby, who first arrived in Scarborough in 1637.

The Libby family holds a reunion the fourth weekend of each September and this year the family was celebrating the 400th anniversary of John Libby’s birth in 1602. In two years time, the family will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Libby Family Association, which incorporated in 1904. The family association is one of the country’s first genealogical societies and has 850 members.

Frustrated at being shut out of the planning process, Cape town councilors expect to have a workshop and a public hearing on the school renovation project before sending it to a town-wide referendum in May.

The plan, now estimated to cost $10 million for renovations to the high school and additions to Pond Cove School, remains under review by the school building committee and must be approved by that body and the School Board before going to the council in December.

“It’s a huge amount of money, number one,” said Town Council Chair Jack Roberts. “And number two, the council never appointed this building committee. If they had wanted to involve the council early on, they should have.”

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Fall is the time when proud gardeners start bringing in the summer’s bounty, including vegetables and fruits to can or make into jellies and jams. Alot of people these days prefer to freeze rather than going through the laborious job of canning. But to those who still can or once canned they say the effort is well worth it.

Ruth Cline of Cape Elizabeth has been canning and making pickles, relishes and jams since she was first married at the age of 22. Cline is famous among her family and friends for her canned goods and often gives away jars of preserves to people for Christmas or to sell at church fairs.