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BRIDGTON WOMAN IN CRITICAL CONDITION AFTER CRASH Page C3

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ALTERNATIVE OPTIONSInside a class at Franklin SchoolBy Bonnie WashukSTAFF WRITER

AUBURN — In a recent careers class David Jacobs-Pratt was teaching at Franklin Alternative School, the day’s lesson was attitudes in the workplace.

Wearing a ponytail, a shirt and tie, and a ready smile, Jacobs-Pratt asked his stu-dents why it’s important to be aware of complaining on the job.

Because no one wants to work with someone who complains all day, students answered.

“Yes,” Jacobs-Pratt said.“If you’re unhappy, you just can’t walk

off the job,” the teacher said. “In work you’ve got to do, or you’re going to lose your job.”

He asked if it’s easier to find a job when you have a job or are unemployed.

“When you have a job,” his students an-swered.

Right, Jacobs-Pratt said. “That means you’re employable right there.”

Franklin Alternative School, which has 68 students in grades seven to 12, is among the oldest alternative education programs around. The credit recovery program takes students who didn’t make it in traditional school settings and gives them the individual support they need to feel safe and experience success.

Jacobs-Pratt, 59, says he understands his students, some of whom are home-less, come to school hungry or from tough backgrounds. “They are kids who have little trust when it comes to adults. At Franklin my kids can realize success.”

He was one of those kids.

When he was at Edward Little High School, “I hated school,” he said. He won-dered what world history or science had to do with him. He missed a lot of school, but did graduate.

Like some of his students, his family life was bad. “It was a dangerous house-hold,” Jacobs-Pratt said.

After high school, he joined the Navy, got a college education, a good job, and eventually returned to Auburn to teach.

In May, he was the state winner of the Smart/Maher VFW National Citizenship Education Teacher Award.

RUSS DILLINGHAM/SUN JOURNALFranklin Alternative School student Kyle Cyr listens to teacher David Jacobs-Pratt talk about job expectations during a recent class at the Auburn school.

PUTTING KIDS ‘BACK ON TRACK’

ANDREE KEHN/SUN JOURNALLizzie Chabot works on science in one of the classrooms at Star Academy on the second floor of the Lewiston Armory. The new alternative program is for students who struggled as eighth-graders. The goal is to give them hands-on learning and more support so they can join classmates at Lewiston High School next year, said Star Academy Dean Eric Anderson.

By Bonnie WashukSTAFF WRITER

LEWISTON — Last year as an eighth-grader at Lewiston Middle School, Lizzie Chabot struggled.

“I was failing almost all my classes,” she said.

Last year, teachers often spent a week on a concept, “then we moved on.” But some-

times she didn’t understand the concept.“I couldn’t study,” Chabot said. “Even

if I did, I didn’t understand what I was studying.”

Last year, she didn’t want to go to school.

“I skipped a lot,” she said. Things are different this year.Chabot isn’t skipping school and she’s

getting good grades, thanks to a new al-

ternative program called “Star Acade-my” at the Lewiston Armory next to the middle school.

In its first year, the small program has 44 students who may have passed the eighth grade, but didn’t do well.

Instead of letting them go to the big high school, the goal of Star Academy is to give

Antique jeans to be auctionedBy DaviD sharpASSOCIATED PRESS

PORTLAND — There are vintage jeans. And then there are the 123-year-old jeans up for sale in Maine.

The bona fide Levi Strauss & Co. blue jeans from the American Old West are still awaiting a new owner after technical glitches prevented the denim pants from being auctioned Saturday in Maine.

Daniel Buck Auctions & Appraisals said the jeans are pristine because they

were worn only a few times before the owner fell ill.

“They’re brand-new Levis. They just happen to be 123 years old,” said auction-eer Daniel Buck Soules, who worked for 11 year on public television’s “Antiques Roadshow.”

The jeans were purchased in 1893 by a store keeper in the Arizona Territory.

Solomon Warner established one of the first stores selling American goods in Tucson, and he survived being shot in an ambush by Apache Indians in 1870.

He was a big fella.The cotton jeans with button fly feature

a size 44 waist and 36-inch inseam.Unlike modern Levi’s, the jeans in those

days had only a single back pocket. There

Lewiston sees record number of ballotsBy amanDa CullenSTAFF WRITER

LEWISTON — City Hall has already re-ceived 6,387 absentee ballots for the 2016 election, which is a record for the city, ac-cording to City Clerk Kathy Montejo.

That number is “the most absentee bal-lots we’ve ever had,” she said.

Almost 900 more ballots are expected to arrive between Sunday and Tuesday.

Montejo said they had 20 citizens volun-teer to help process the votes into four bal-lot-counting machines.

“We had about 10 Democrats, 10 Re-publicans helping,” she said. “We start-ed at 9 this morning and worked straight through, and finished around 3 p.m.”

Montejo said this is the first time they’ve ever been allowed to start pro-cessing votes early. The state of Maine changed the time constraints on early vote processing because of the large voter turnout expected, she said.

“We can’t get the results and totals from the machines until 8 p.m. Tuesday,” she said.

The remaining absentee ballots re-ceived Saturday through Tuesday will be counted Tuesday with the regular votes.

Any ballot received after 8 p.m. Tuesday will not count.

ABSENTEE VOTING

Reflections in broken glass: A woman’s Holocaust storyBy peter e. murraySTAFF WRITER

FALMOUTH — A tall man, meticulously dressed in a green tunic and highly polished boots, handsome, and with penetrating eyes, held Edith Herz in his gaze. She knew at that moment, her fate was in his hands.

Josef Mengele pointed to the right. Against all odds, the short, skinny and na-ked girl would, for the moment, be spared from the gas chamber.

Seventy-eight years ago on Nov. 10 — it was a Thursday, Edith Lucas Pagelson re-cently recalled — she stood in front of a mir-ror, combing her hair for school. Her father, on his return from synagogue, let her know

she would not be going.On what would become known as Kristall-

nacht — the Night of Broken Glass — the Nazis had destroyed 7,000 Jewish business-es and burned 1,350 synagogues. Thirty thousand Jews were sent to concentration camps in one night.

Today, at 90, and living at the OceanView retirement community, Pagelson still tells the story of their odyssey of terror and sur-vival. She does so, in part, by the sale of her book, “Against All Odds: A Miracle of Ho-locaust Survival.” Woven within is anoth-er story, one of devotion and love between mother and daughter. She believes it likely

SUBMITTED PHOTOEdith Lucas Pagelson, 90, is at home at OceanView in Falmouth. She was a 12-year-old in Worms, Germany, on Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass,” when Nazis destroyed Jewish neighborhoods and sent the residents to concentration camps.

Daniel Buck Auctions & Appraisals said the jeans are pristine because they were worn only a few times before the owner fell ill.

See JEANS Page C3

See FRANKLIN Page C6

See STAR Page C6

See BROKEN GLASS Page C5

SUN JOURNAL » SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2016 MaineC6

As a veteran and histo-ry teacher, he engaged his students in citizenship projects such as placing flags at graves on Memo-rial Day. That was noticed by the VFW, he said.

In class, he asked his stu-dents to explain what’s ex-pected of them at Franklin.

“Respect, accountabil-ity, responsibility,” stu-dent Devin Jeselskis said.

Nate Krasny, 16, of Ox-ford has been attend-ing Franklin for several months. “Oxford wasn’t working for me,” he said. “I was insufficient in cred-its really bad.”

He met with Franklin Principal Russ Barlow and talked about his future, whether Franklin would be a good fit. “I came here. I like it. It’s family,” Kras-ny said.

After his education he wants to pilot planes.

Kyle Cyr, 18, a senior, has been at Franklin for sev-eral years. He came from Lewiston High School.

He didn’t like the big school; he felt like a num-ber. “I was failing my classes,” he said.

Franklin was a game-

changer, Cyr said. “It showed you what school could be like. Here, every-one is loving toward each other. Everyone’s like

your friend.”After school he hopes to

work in music and film. Through Franklin he did an internship with a local

production studio.Cyr is on track to grad-

uate in June. Without Franklin, “I probably would have dropped out.”

Not every Franklin stu-dent graduates, but a lot do, Principal Barlow said.

He tracks his graduates.In 2012, 22 students

graduated. Three months later, 14 were working, one was in school, four unemployed and two he couldn’t find. In 2013, nine graduated. Three months later, seven were working and two were in school. “We had 100 per-cent in school or work-ing.”

In 2014, 13 of his gradu-ates, or 88 percent, were working or in school. In 2015, three months after graduation his eight grad-uates were all working or in school. “We’re doing something right,” Barlow said.

Last year “was a rough year,” he said. Of the sev-en who graduated in June, five out of seven are work-ing or in school.

“When people ask ‘What do you do all day?’” Bar-low answers that his fac-ulty works to produce “re-sponsible, informed citi-zens who are taxpayers. We care.”

FRANKLINContinued from Page C1

RUSS DILLINGHAM/SUN JOURNALDylan Thurlow, a student at Franklin Alternative School in Auburn, listens to teacher David Jacobs-Pratt during a recent class at the Auburn school.

them more support and a different kind of hands-on learning. This year, they’ll learn both eighth- and ninth-grade subjects.

The goal is that next year, they’ll be caught up and still graduate on time.

Chabot has done so well this year she’s been chosen as one of the pro-g r a m ’ s a m b a s s a d o r s . She gives tours and ex-plains how Star Academy works.

“Once I got here, I real-ized it was the most amaz-ing school I’ve ever been in,” Chabot said. “The teachers are super nice. They make sure you’re understanding every-thing. You’re working at your own pace. We get time to understand what we’re learning. It makes me want to come back here and learn.”

Nathan Ouellette is an-other Star Academy stu-dent ambassador.

“The last two years in the middle school I didn’t do very well,” he said. “I was being lazy. I wasn’t getting the work done.”

Teachers told him he had potential, was smart, but he was too social, too much of a people person.

“I talked too much,” Ouellette said with a grin.

At Star Academy he said he’s more motivated.

“I want to get all the work done,” he said. “It’s more hands-on. Last year, I was just hanging on aca-demically. Here, I’m get-ting all A’s.”

Chabot and Ouellette, with Star Academy Dean Eric Anderson following behind, gave a tour of the new program. It’s housed on the second floor of the armory in what was un-used space. There are four classrooms and four sub-jects: English, math, sci-ence and history.

C l a s s e s a r e s m a l l , about 13 students. Stu-dents work at individu-al work stations on inter-active computers and of-ten together on projects. The rooms look more like work sites than classes. Lessons are reinforced

to ensure students un-derstand the concepts be-fore moving on, Anderson said.

In the science class-room, it’s as interactive as it can get. Students of-ten test theories with hands-on experiments, then go over the results on their computer.

One student was work-ing on a circuit board, learning about electricity. Ouellette was delving into gravity and forces.

“You put the sensors here, and let the car go and see how fast the car goes,” he said as he showed how he docu-ments the speed as a toy car raced down a ramp. “It shows you the speed per second.”

Star Academy Dean Er-ic Anderson said what’s helping students is the hands-on learning and the students own goalsetting,

both short and long term.By helping students fill

in gaps of content knowl-edge they may be miss-ing and giving them the confidence to advocate for themselves, they will be able to successfully re-join classmates next year at Lewiston High School, Anderson said.

The program, which can support up to 80 students, is being paid for with an $800,000 federal grant that covers two years of in-struction.

The program can be sus-tained when the grant runs out, said Lewiston Middle School Principal Jake Langlois, since there are fewer students at the high school.

So far, the program is going well, Langlois said.

“It’s not a retention pro-gram,” he said. “It’s to get students re-engaged and get them back on track.”

STARContinued from Page C1

ANDREE KEHN/SUN JOURNALEric Anderson, dean of the Star Academy in Lewiston, stands in front of the Armory building where the program is located. The program has four classrooms in what were vacant rooms in the Armory’s second floor.

“Once I got here, I realized it was the most amazing school I’ve ever been in ... The teachers are super nice. They make sure you’re understanding everything. You’re working at your own pace. We get time to understand what we’re learning. It makes me want to come back here and learn.”

Lizzie Chabot, Star Academy student

He tracks his graduates. In 2012, 22 students graduated. Three months later, 14 were working, one was in school, four unemployed and two he couldn’t find. In 2013, nine graduated. Three months later, seven were working and two were in school.

Bucksport still redefining itselfTwo years after mill closure, residents unsure of property’s futureBy Bill TroTTerBANGOR DAILY NEWS

BUCKSPORT — This for-mer mill town, perched on the edge of the tidal Penob-scot River, has a new wine bar and is in the process of getting a new downtown arts center, gas station and convenience store, and a wastewater treatment plant.

The economic activity these businesses and proj-ects are generating in town might not attract as much notice if not for the absence of the once-dominant em-ployer in town: the afore-mentioned paper mill.

Verso Paper, the final owner of the riverfront pa-per manufacturing facility, shut the mill down nearly two years ago, laying off 570 people and bringing Buck-sport’s 84 years of paper-making to an end.

Since then, not a day goes by for most residents with-out them wondering at least two things: What’s going to become of the 250-acre mill property, and what does it mean for the future of Buck-sport?

Susan Lessard, Buck-sport’s town manager, had an answer to that second question on Friday, when she and other town officials met with U.S. Sen. Angus King at the town office.

“Bucksport is doing well,” she said. “It feels like people have emerged from the shadows (of the mill’s closure) to do all sorts of creative things.”

King met with Lessard

and other town officials on Friday to find out about the status of the mill de-molition project and to get briefed on what prospects there are for redeveloping the site for commercial and industrial use. He was told that the demolition is ahead of schedule, with a project-ed completion in March 2017, and that there have been a few inquiries from entities about building at the mill site once the build-ings are gone.

Maine Maritime Acad-emy, whichhas expressed an interest in establishing a commercial marine train-ing facility at the mill site was the only one identified during the conversation.

Lessard said that, given the existing infrastructure development at the site, the town is not looking to sig-nificantly change the type of use for the property. Not only is it adjacent to a deep-water port and have rail, natural gas, broadband ac-cess, three-phase power and an existing power plant on site, she said, but the area’s workforce is well-suited for supporting industrial activ-ity.

“We’re not looking for a call center,” the town man-ager said, referring to one type of commercial activity that has popped up in other Maine communities. “We’re looking for an industrial commercial center.”

The site’s location at the head of Penobscot Bay, where the ocean blends in with the Penobscot River, makes it an ideal place for commercial marine activ-ity of some sort, town offi-cials told King.

A Maine Maritime train-ing facility would be “such an anchor,” Lessard said, by bringing 2,500 to Buck-sport each year and would complement existing ma-rine trades such as Bel-fast-based Front Street Shipyard, which is build-ing multihull boats at the town’s industrial park.

King said after meeting with town officials, and be-fore going on a private tour of the mill site, that the fed-

eral government — which in August sent a cadre of of-ficials from various agen-cies to Maine to look into ways to help Maine’s forest products industry — has several economic develop-ment programs available. What kind of assistance the feds can provide, he said, depends on how the mill site is redeveloped.

King said that taking a multifaceted development approach rather than find-ing a single, large-scale em-ployer is a much more pru-dent and realistic approach in the modern world of glob-al economics. Finding mul-tiple companies to move in is more feasible and will re-duce the economic impact to Bucksport and the region should any one of them fail, he said.

“I think that is better stra-tegically, and I think it is more achievable, and they can achieve it over time,” King said.

As for the rest of the town, the closure of the mill is forcing local resi-dents to address the town’s need to diversify, but it also has helped expedite the process. Main Street Bucksport and Communi-

ty Heart & Soul are two re-cently created, community-led efforts aimed at down-town economic develop-ment and in establishing a collective vision for Buck-sport’s future.

Brooke Minner, head of Main Street Bucksport and co-owner of Ocean’s Edge Realty, said home sales in Bucksport were pretty non-existent in 2013 and 2014, right before the mill closed. But in the 23 months since, she said, they have been getting more inquiries from people who see Bucksport more as a coastal Maine vil-lage than a mill town.

“Their perception was (Bucksport) was not their kind of place,” Minner said of recent prospective home buyers, “but now that is changing.”

Lessard said that, what-ever the future of the mill site may hold, residents are not waiting around to start redefining what kind of place Bucksport is.

“That mill was a huge part of this community’s history,” she said. “It’s not here anymore, and it is not productive to look back-wards. We have the ability to be a diverse community.”

ASHLEY L. CONTI/BANGOR DAILY NEWSBackhoes work to tear down the former Verso Paper mill on Friday in Bucksport.

Since then, not a day goes by for most residents without them wondering at least two things: What’s going to become of the 250-acre mill property, and what does it mean for the future of Bucksport?