April 14, 1993

Twenty Gorham High School students are learning what life is like with poor vision and arthritic hands. They get those lessons weekly while visiting elderly residents at Gorham House, a retirement community in the village. The encounters are part of a school course on aging. The students have access to virtually all of the residents, including those who are disabled. As part of the course, students simulate disabilities that come with old age. They sit in wheelchairs and have their fingers splinted to experience the effects of arthritis. They also wear glasses smeared with Vaseline to simulate poor eyesight.

Westbrook’s net city expenses have grown more slowly than the consumer price index since 1990, Peter Eckel, administrative assistant to Mayor Fred C. Wescott, told the City Council Monday. He didn’t make the point, but his comparison covers the years when Wescott has been mayor. He said the net city budget grew 9.5 percent while the price index for this area was going up to 15 percent. The net city budget is what has to be raised by the property tax for city, not school, services.

The Cumberland Country Training Resource Center is offering to pay the minimum wage for up to 35 hours a week and up to seven weeks for youth who work on Westbrook school projects, July 6-Aug. 20. The program is for disadvantaged youth in the community ages 14-21. The School Committee is to consider whether to apply for the jobs, and how many to ask for, when it meets tonight.

Rene J. Daniel, a former educator in the Westbrook school system, has opened a new store called P.E.C.S., at 99B Larrabee Road in Westbrook. The business specializes in providing educational materials for teachers, parents and students. The store’s field representative is Leanne Eaton, who taught in the Westbrook system 28 years.

With state and local approval, construction on a new Gorham middle school could start within two years. The Gorham Town Council last week unanimously agreed that the school system should ask the state Board of Education for permission and partial funding for a new school to replace the Charles C. Shaw School. The procedure for applying for state approval includes state site inspections, public hearings and finally a voter referendum.

Kim Fasulo and children Josh and Katie were honored April 4 with a surprise housewarming at their new Mallison Street home in Gorham. The party had to be rescheduled twice. The first date was snowed out and the second canceled because the Shaw Junior High School Odyssey of the Mind team competition at Orono that Josh took part in. It finally was a complete surprise on “Third Try Sunday.”

This old school was built in 1850 on Main St. near the site of the Old High School which has recently been converted into the Presumpscot Commons Elderly Housing. This school served as a grammar school for 23 years and as a high school for 13 years before being moved to East Valentine St. in 1886 to make way for a new high school on Main St. 

This building continued as a high school until the new high school opened again in 1887 and once again became a grammar school serving as such into the late 1960s. The building is now an apartment house.