THOMASTON — The Second Annual Thomaston Children’s Festival, a day of activities for children of all ages, will be held on the Thomaston Academy Lawn on Saturday, May 25, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. This year, the Children’s Festival will share the day with Thomaston’s new Farmers’ Market.

At the festival, there will be food available from Mike Mayo and friends, arts and crafts, a story tent, a pinewood derby racetrack, a fire engine, unicycles, storytelling and dance performances, live music, vendors, and a resource fair for families interested in learning about local organizations and individuals providing children’s programs and services. Kyle from Balloons of Maine will return and entertaining the crowd with balloon animals. This event is free to the public.

Festival participants this year who will be offering information and/or an activity include the Friends of the Thomaston Public Library, Thomaston Historical Society, Thomaston Recreation Department, Thomaston Fire Department, Cub Scouts Pack 215, OHS 8th graders, Kids and Families First-Judith Orme, Rockland Community Sailing, Rockland School of Ballet, Pipsqueaks, Midcoast Music Together, Coastal Children’s Museum, Time Travelers History Camp, Pope Memorial Humane Society of Knox County, Do Music, Storyteller Moon, Cub Scouts Pack 215, Carry ME Slings, Sunne Spot Studio, Paige Pendleton of Pig Wing Press, Billy’s Tavern, Stories by the Sea, and Dena’s Barefoot Book Nook.

The Chocolate Church hosted a CD release party for Matt Newberg over on May 10. Newberg teaches music and song-writing at the hyde School, among other things, and two of his students, Bailey Evans and Noah Horning, opened for him.by Will Gottleib
Coastal Journal staff

BATH — The Chocolate Church hosted a CD release party for Matt Newberg over the weekend. Newberg, for those of you who don’t know him, is a very up-and-coming singer-songwriter whose single “What You Want” has been featured on WCLZ’s “Music From 207” show, an hour of locally produced music that airs every Wednesday and Sunday at 7 p.m. And if you haven’t heard it yet, you should.

The show was small and intimate, a pleasant peek inside the Hyde School community, where Newberg teaches music and songwriting. The show opened with a set that featured two of Newberg’s students, Bailey Evans and Noah Horning, who played some original tunes of their own. I particularly liked “Golden Eyes,” which was written (I think) by Horning, and comes from an album Evans and Horning recorded “six months ago-ish.” I liked it for two reasons: One, because I caught the rapidly mumbled song title and was glad to have something to commit to print in this regard; and two, because it was a nice tune, a tightly written love song with a good hook and some engaging and unpretentious lyrics. It reminded me of my own high school days listening to Marshall Crenshaw at dances and assemblies and so forth. Evans covered the leads and fills like a pro, and managed to make the duo sound larger and more polished.

by Chris Chase
Coastal Journal staff 

BRUNSWICK — Brunswick’s students may see more education options in the form of a second charter school, but unlike in the case of Harpswell Coastal Academy (HCA), this time the cost could be negligible to the district. 

That is if John Stadler, the Brunswick entrepreneur and co-owner of the Tao restaurant, meets his goal of attracting enough international students to the proposed Brunswick Landing International School (BLIS). 

“It’s very early stage, so there’s not really much I can say that’s cast in concrete. It’s just a vision for what I think is possible,” said Stadler. 

That vision involves attracting up to 1,500 students to proposed facilities at Brunswick Landing, with half of those being tuition-paying international students. If Stadler’s plan comes to fruition, those international students would cover the costs of the state-subsidized students from Brunswick and mitigate the impact to the district. 

NEWCASTLE — Fourteen-year-old Noah Jones of Newcastle is fighting the fight of his short life. He was diagnosed in March with High Risk Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, and has been undergoing inpatient chemotherapy treatments at Maine Medical Center since then.

His family – mother Cathy, dad Tristram, brothers Sam (16), Ethan (12), and Eli (3), and sister Justine (29) – have been by his side since then. They’re hoping that Noah’s white blood cell count will increase enough to allow him to go home soon.

As difficult as it is now, Noah’s fight is just beginning. Given the seriousness of his illness, Noah is facing three years of chemotherapy: A grueling schedule of inpatient treatments, oral and weekly outpatient infusion sessions.

To help the Jones’ family with the monumental costs associated with Noah’s illness, Maine Coast Stove & Chimney of Wiscasset is raffling off a Vermont Castings Savannah series steel wood stove. A 55,000 btu, mid-sized wood stove, the Savannah is rated to heat an area up to 2,200 square feet, and retails for $1,669.