For Immediate Release
May 9, 2003
Contact: Dan A. Gwadosky
207-626-8400

Sabbathday Lake Grange
to be honored for 100 years of incorporation

Secretary of State Dan A. Gwadosky today will honor the Sabbathday Lake Grange for achieving 100 years of incorporation. The presentation by Secretary Gwadosky will occur during a Grange meeting scheduled to start at 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 9, 2003, at the Sabbathday Lake Grange facility on Route 26 in New Gloucester. Members of the Danville Junction Grange and Excelcier Grange also will attend.

"This is an excellent opportunity to recognize a Maine organization for its longevity," said Secretary Gwadosky, who oversees the filing of incorporation documents for businesses and nonprofit organizations in Maine.

"It takes the efforts of many individuals to keep an organization going for 100 years," said Gwadosky. "That kind of record should be recognized."

The Division of Corporations in the Department of the Secretary of State maintains filings for more than 62,000 active businesses and nonprofit organizations in Maine. In all, nine organizations are marking 100 years of incorporation in Maine this year.

The Sabbathday Lake Grange began in November 1900 and was incorporated May 2, 1903. The group had 27 charter members, many of them farmers. Charles Shackford was the first Master. Saturday night dances with Harry True's Orchestra, weekly beano games and New Year's parties for the entire community are some of the group's past activities, according to group.

Today, the Sabbathday Lake Grange has 76 members. The oldest member of the group is 96, the youngest is 15. There are 21 50-year members. The Grange Master is Norma Meserve. The Grange's hall was painted just last summer and the group recently held its annual community service award ceremony for a local resident.

An organization celebrating its centennial incorporation in 2003 would have first incorporated in the same year the Wright Brothers made their historic flight, the United States and Panama signed the treaty to build the Panama Canal, and Henri Becquerel, Pierre Curie and Marie Curie won the Nobel Prize in Physics for research on radiation.