Free Republic

RICHMOND -- For nearly 40 years, Donna Loring was a Democrat. Thursday, she became a Republican. Loring, a Richmond selectwoman and former legislative representative for the Penobscot Nation, said she's disappointed with Democratic leadership and believes Republican Sen. S. Peter Mills should be the next governor of Maine. "We need solid party leadership to get this state out of the quagmire it's in," she said after filing paperwork at the Richmond Town Office to change her affiliation. Loring spent eight years in the Legislature representing the Penobscot Nation. She ran as a Democrat for the state Senate in 2004 but...

LIMESTONE - Brian Hamel, the former president and CEO of the Loring Development Authority, left the LDA last March to run for the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican against Democrat Mike Michaud. He lost that race, and on Wednesday there seemed to be a question about whether he was returning to run the LDA."That's the subject of an executive session [after Wednesday's LDA board meeting]," LDA trustee Chairman Philip St. Peter said when asked about Hamel's future.Later Wednesday, Hamel said, "I am on an unpaid nine-month leave of absence which ends Nov. 30. I took the extra time...

Michael Butzgy writes "WILLIAM LORING is today known but by a scant few, yet in 1886, ten thousand people attended his burial in Florida. He was an attorney and a member of Florida's first state legislature. He helped open the West for millions of settlers. He was the youngest colonel in the history of the U.S. Army. He commanded the Departments of Oregon, the Rio Grande, and New Mexico." His Confederate assignments included: brigadier general, CSA (May 20, 186 1); commanding Army of the Northwest July 20-August 3, 1861 and October 1861February 9, 1862); commanding brigade, Army of the Northwest...