Currier, retired USCG vice commandant, dies

Retired U.S. Coast Guard Vice Commandant John Currier died Feb. 29 at age 68 in Michigan, according to former Westbrook Mayor Mike Sanphy.

A vice admiral, the highly decorated Currier grew up in Westbrook and was once a city police officer, Sanphy said.

In 2012, Currier assumed duties as the 28th vice commandant of the Coast Guard. He had been commissioned at Officers Candidate School in 1976 and was an aviator. His awards included the Distinguished Flying Cross and Meritorious Service Medal.

He was a University of Southern Maine alumnus.

Bareti Girls Rock award winner

Gracia Bareti, 17, of Westbrook is among five Maine winners being recognized with Girls Rock Awards for their community-oriented advocacy and activism.

The awards ceremony, sponsored by Hardy Girls Healthy Women, will be held from 5:30-7:30 p.m. on Friday, March 27, at Waynflete School, 360 Spring St., Portland.

Bareti is a senior at Westbrook High School. She is of Congolese and Rwandan descent and is a first generation U.S. citizen.

Bareti writes and speaks about her multicultural experience as a way to help other first generation children living in the U.S forge better relationships with their parents, Hardy Girls said in a press release. She wants them to know they have a right to exist in both the culture to which they are born and the American culture in which they’re being raised.

Bareti serves as a student representative on the Westbrook School Committee and is a Seeds of Peace supporter and former camper.

In 2019, she attended Dirigo Girls State and Girls Nation where she was awarded Outstanding Senator in Washington D.C. She was 1 of 140 delegates worldwide to attend the International Congress of Youth Voices in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

In late 2019, Bareti was a presenter at TEDxDirigo where she gave an inspiring talk that included her vision for “legislation that confronts an education system that is not representative of the people that utilize it, nor a world it exists within.”

Bareti hopes to major in international relations with a possible minor in environmental and sustainability studies.

Hardy Girls Healthy Women is a national research-based non-profit organization located in Maine.

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