Festival to host local acoustic student musicians

Several Freeport and Yarmouth students will be among the 32 middle and high school music students who will come together for an intensive three-day acoustic music festival. Now in its fourth year, Maine Acoustic Festival is presented by 317 Main Community Music Center in Yarmouth and North Yarmouth Academy.

The event will culminate in a Student Showcase on Sunday, April 3 at Hannaford Hall at the University of Southern Maine in Portland.

The students were selected by audition to participate in the festival of workshops, rehearsals, and performances. From Freeport are Dylan Wu, Fiona Ahearne, Perrin Davidson, Camilla Rosenfeld and Claire Maurer. The Yarmouth students participating are Emma Scott, Claire Scott, Johnny Cody, Nico Whitlock, Suzanna Butterfield and Brie Hathcock.

The festival was created to give students the opportunity to take their playing to a higher level and to celebrate the music that helped shape Maine’s culture. The students have all distinguished themselves in the traditional acoustic music styles of bluegrass, Franco American, Irish, as singer-songwriters, and in American harmony.

The public is invited to support the Maine Acoustic Festival in “three ways over three days.” On Friday, April 1 at 8 p.m. at Yarmouth Faculty Concert will be held in Higgins Hall at North Yarmouth Academy. Saturday, April 2 at 6 p.m., a Yarmouth Student and Faculty Open Jam will take place at Gather Restaurant in Yarmouth. The grand finale will be Sunday, April 3, from 4-5:30 p.m. in Portland at a Student Showcase in Hannaford Hall on the University of Southern Maine campus at 66 Bedford St. Tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for students/seniors.

Baxter students’ robot off to a great start

Baxter Academy for Technology and Science’s two-year-old robotics team, the Outliers, won the highest engineering award at the Granite State district event in Windham, New Hampshire March 6 during First Robotics’ opening weekend of competition in New England.

Jacob Morrison, a junior from Freeport, is a drive-team human player for the Portland public charter school.

The team robot, named Christine after Stephen King’s fictional car, was proclaimed “a scoring powerhouse.” The team now ranks ninth in New England.

The Outliers will be on the floor again at Maine’s Pine Tree district event April 7 and 8 in Lewiston.

Judges awarded the team the Rockwell Automation’s Innovation in Control Award for the Outliers’ development of a continuously variable transmission, a complex transmissions technology that is believed to have never been successfully used in First Robotics competitions before. Judges also cited the team’s use of an Inertial Measuring Unit for angular position control, as well as the use of a Raspberry Pi for video processing.

A high scorer at the event, the team tied for best Offensive Power Rating for its ability to contribute points in three-team alliance play.

Baxter engineering teacher and team mentor, Jonathan Amory, said the team had an outstanding performance in the qualifying and final events.

“The robot was one of the most adept on the field for scoring and breaching defenses,” Amory said. “It proves that Maine teams can do well against the larger and better funded teams from New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.”

Cumberland/ North Yarmouth Lions host first Speak Out

Three students from Greely High School made five-minute individual presentations that covered a variety of subjects at the inaugural Cumberland/North Yarmouth Lions Club Speak Out held March 14. They were judged on delivery of speech; construction and content, and how they responded to the two follow up questions. Taking first place was Isabella Perry, who will present her winning presentation, along with other local winners, at the Lions’ Regional competition. Second place was awarded to Jared Bard, and third place was awarded to David Reed.

The competition was open to any full-time Greely High School student. The competition gives students the opportunity to think about important current issues, to organize their thoughts and ideas and to effectively present their ideas publicly.

Deadline approaching for scholarship applications

The Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine is accepting applications for annual scholarships and awards through April 8. Winners will be presented at the annual meeting Sunday, June 5, at the Woodlands Club in Falmouth. Six Holocaust Exhibit Scholarships will be awarded in 2016 and featured in an exhibit at the Michael Klahr Center, located at the University of Maine in Augusta. HHRC is offering two $500 and four $250 scholarships to students in conjunction with its upcoming exhibit, “Those People …Well They’re Not People at All: Children’s Art, Music and Literature of the Holocaust,” on display April 22 to July 1 at the Klahr Center.

Winning submissions will be included in the HHRC’s spring exhibit. The application process is open to middle, high school and University of Maine System students.

Holocaust Exhibit Scholarships will be awarded to the individuals who write an essay or create an original video, visual art, performance-based theater, music or dance, or any other creative response in answer to the following question: Why is it important that the remembrance, history, and lessons of the Holocaust be passed to a new generation?

Dean’s lists

University of Maine at Farmington

Cumberland Center: Tricia Grover, Constantine Pollak, Hannah Somes

Falmouth: Julie Guerra, Owen Prescott, Kayla Walsh

Freeport: Samuel Bennett

North Yarmouth: Ellie Bradeen

Yarmouth: Jordan Glassock, Meagan Haley, Lydia MacDonald, Kate Myers, Taylor Sisk, Abigail Smith

Fairfield University

Katya Nash, of Falmouth, majoring in psychology and French.

The following students were welcomed to the State House March 17 to serve as honorary pages: Nicholas Paulu, Oliver Peloquin, Lincoln Truesdale, Calin McGonagle, Kelcie McGonagle and Michael McGonagle of Yarmouth, and Devin Gifford of Cumberland. Shown with the students is Sen. Cathy Breen.