Feb. 23, 1994

Westbrook Junior High School officially became the Fred. C. Wescott Junior High School Wednesday when the School Committee voted 6-1 to change the name, honoring the late mayor, who died of lung cancer Dec. 29. The only vote against came from Martha Day, chairman, who said she didn’t think it was “the most appropriate way to honor Mayor Wescott.” She said that “students come together in one junior high school and then pass into one high school. Both of those schools have always borne the name of our city and that association, that sense of unity, to me is a strong one.”

Pauline Carter, Ward 2 member of the Westbrook School Committee, asked Superintendent Edward Connolly at Wednesday’s meeting to bring to the committee for its next meeting a report on the positions added in the School Department in the past couple of years. She asked that he include the dollar costs and a brief justification of each and a review of their necessity. The committee made 13 or 14 jobs permanent on May 12 and has added several others since then. Connolly is considering staff reductions as part of his next budget.

The Westbrook Police Department has 17 computers and needs some tutoring. The department wants Westbrook Adult Education to teach policemen more about how to use them. Police Capt. Paul McCarthy said the staff got only basic training from the company that sold the new police system. Paula St. Cyr, adult ed director, said she will provide the training.

Gorham’s new Firearms Study Committee met for the first time Wednesday. The committee was formed after Councilor Calvin Hamblen received several complaints from Gorham residents concerning hunters near housing developments. The committee is looking to set up specific zones where hunting would be prohibited. “The area of concern,” Hamblen said, is from Fort Hill Road to Route 22.”

Marion Welch, a junior at Bennington College, is spending January and February in New Orleans in a college program of work for academic credit. He is a tour guide at the Gallier House Museum in the French Quarter and is writing stories for small newspapers. Son of Mahlon and Meadow Welch, Narragansett Street, Marion is majoring in literature and scuplture. His sister Mary is a junior at Gorham High School.

Feb. 25, 2004

When Maine’s new anti-smoking law went into effect Jan. 1, banning smoking in virtually every public space, proponents touted it as a law that would create healthier work environments. But some owners of local clubs and bars say the ban has created an unhealthy atmosphere for their businesses. Trish Kowalski, owner of the Mill Side Tavern on Cumberland Street in Westbrook, said she has lost about 30 percent of her business and blames the new law. “We’ve never been this slow,” she said. Pete Profenno, owner of Profenno’s on Main Street, finds himself in the same situation. He’s been in business for 42 years. “I think I’m down about 40 percent. It’s coming to the point where I’m going to have to cut my hours back.”

The public is invited to a dedication ceremony Sunday, Feb. 29, at the new Gorham Middle School, off Weeks Road. Serving grades 6 though 8, the school opened in October, although construction has continued over the past four months. The middle school, designed for 900 students, is expected to serve the community for a half-century. It’s the first new Gorham school since 1981.

Westbrook police shot and killed a rabid fox Wednesday near the heart of the city after it twice attacked a man, who knifed the crazed animal in an attempt to protect a kitten. Armand “Zeak” Labrecque, of 20 Madison St., saw that a red fox had treed one of his 9-month-old kittens in his yard. Grabbing a bowie knife, he went to shoo the fox away, but instead it charged “full force.” He kicked it but it bounced back and attacked again. That’s when he knifed the fox twice before it ran off down a bank into a gully behind Labrecque’s home. Labrecque has lived in the home 25 years and had never seen a fox.

The Rev. James Smith will be installed as pastor of the First Baptist Church, 733 Main St., Westbrook, in a special service Feb. 29. The Westbrook High School Bell Choir will provide music. Smith started serving as pastor the First Baptist Church in November after serving for the past three years as the executive director of the Care Net Pregnancy Resource Centers, a crisis pregnancy center ministry in Manassas, Virginia. He is a Michigan native who lives in Westbrook with his wife, Lisa, and daughter, Meghann.