8651-R2_MSA_March2024_Newsletter_Web

MSA Club News

evening with a Corn Hole Tournament. It was a well-attended event and fun was had by all! I would like to Thank Sue Rogers for all her hard work and dedication to put together this event-she knocked it out of the park! And, since the Portage Lakers love a good time, the Annual Pie Auction was a blast! We had a full house, beautiful items to auction, more laughs than we could count, and the band Guilty Pleasure rocked the house. A spe cial thanks to Beth Hummel for putting this event together and to Chris Carroll for MC’ing the event. Thank you to everyone that contrib uted. The winner of the 50/50 drawing walked away with over $1000 in his pocket!! Even though the Snow Gods have not been kind to us this season, the community and membership certainly has. Stop what you are doing and do a snow dance for a little spring riding! As always, ride right, ride safe, and ride sober! Greetings from the County, The February trail conditions are excellent and we have plenty of miles of great sledding for snowmobile enthusiasts to enjoy. The Limestone Snow Hawks Club grooms with a 2021 Prinoth Husky pulling a 2009, 18-09 Mogol Master drag. The club grooms 35 miles of trails which includes two major tourism spots in the County; the Runway Trail (100A) which runs down the runway a couple of miles and crosses in front of the ARCH Hangar and the Border Trail on ITS81. Both great photo opportunities in front of the ARCH Hangar or the granite country markers designating USA and Canada border. The Limestone Snow Hawks hold their monthly meetings at the clubhouse (18 Grand Falls Rd) on the first Thursday of each month at 6pm. We are usually open weekends for breakfast and lunch but its best to check our Facebook page (Limestone SnowHawks) to be sure, since it is run entirely by volunteers. We welcome you to attend a meeting, stop for a bite to eat, join our club and ride our trails. Safe and happy sledding, Jo-Ellen Kelley, Secretary MOLUNKUS VALLEY SNO-DRIFTERS Sherman, ME Good afternoon from MVSD! Hard to believe we are writing March news! No winter so far but with the little snow we have we have had awesome trails and little complaints. We held our Poker Run, Auction and Sup per in Feb. the winners were as follows: 1st~Emma Palleschi from Belgrade 2nd place was John J Cummings from Presque Isle~ 3rd Angel Gantiner from Benedicta ~worst hand James Gantiner who never stayed to sign the toilet seat and get his prize! 50/50 winner was Holly Albert from Conn. As usual everyone had a good day even if majority traveled it by vehicle. We want to thank all our area businesses who donated to make this event happen n to all members and supporters we can’t thank you enough! March will be here soon we can still get snow in March don’t hang up your hat yet! WE ALSO HAVE A BEAUTIFUL HOME MADE QUILT MADE BY OUR OWN TRUDY LONG you can check it out on our fb page and also can pay by the venmo tag on poter! Good luck .... Til next time Keep On Keeping ON! Deb Long, Club President BENEDICTA SNOW GANG Benedicta, ME Hi Gang, Well, it is February 23 rd , and we do not have enough snow to groom!!!!! Everything is “ride at your own risk” and has been, neither of our groomers have turned a wheel for almost three weeks. Not only do I feel bad for all you rid ers, but our local businesses are feeling the pinch also. This may be the shortest season that this old boy has ever seen!! Our membership has peaked at around 130, but it is not so bad for a low snow year. It is not too late to join/rejoin, maybe just to help Tammy Kenney Club Secretary LIMESTONE SNOHAWKS Limestone, ME

out with expenses. Sorry but my computer just went down, sending this off a saved draft. See you next month. Thanks to the Joyce family and all the derby sponsors!!!!! Jim MEDUXNEKEAG RAMBLERS Meduxnekeag, ME Well, another month gone by and not much snow, groomers are doing their best to keep trails smooth. Breakfasts every Sat are going well with lots of sledders and community members coming to support the club. Good times and friendships keep coming. Keep doing your snow dances. The gun raffle tick ets are moving good. Check our Facebook page for more information on that. Rentals are booking up fast for the summer especially, call 207-538-8048 for more information on rent als. Ride Right and stay safe, hope to see you on the trails Judy BIG VALLEY SNO CLUB Island Falls, ME Thank you to everyone for the support this year. Even though we didn’t have tons of snow, our February events were all well attended! The races were a success, the fishing derby had a large crowd and the spaghetti sup per was a success. Time to do the snow dance!

Deadlines for club news is the 25 th of the month prior to the publications. Please submit articles to editor@mesnow.com

NORTHERN REGION

ST. FRANCIS SNO-ANGELS St. Francis, ME

This month’s newsletter isn’t about the material things of a club, although these mate rial things are important and they allow us to do what we need to do to keep the trails and the snowmobile club active and growing. But even more important than the material things are the things we cannot touch. We can call that drive or spirit, if you will ,and each and every one of our volunteers at our club exem plifies this in one way or another, Whether it’s our Erwin who shows up every weekend, Friday and Saturday to open the lodge and keep all our snowmobilers warm, happy and fed, Craig and Jeff for getting out there in the middle of the nights to groom our trails, work on the equipment, and make your snowmobile trip enjoyable, to all of our kitchen volunteers, you , each and every one of you ,make our club what it is .You are each and every one of you irreplaceable. This month’s article though is dedicated to our new trailmaster, Victor Panno. What many of you may not realize is that Vic after recent years of health issues, in May of this year underwent an amputation of his leg. Most people would have let this event determine their path for the rest of their life and would have “taken it easy.” This certainly wasn’t the case with Vic, He volunteered to be our trailmaster this year and even though he was working his way through several fittings for his forever leg, undertook the winterization of our groomer. He is the man many of you meet on the trail or at the lodge, always with a wave and a smile and he hasn’t let his cir cumstances stop him from doing a wonderful, conscientious job on our trails. Many sledders say we have some of the best trails, ITS 92 and ITS 92 A, and this is in no small part due to Victor’s leadership at the helm. He organizes the grooming schedule, works with Jeff and Craig and sometimes Rodney to fix whatever ails the groomer, laying in the cold snow with frozen fingers and goes out at all hours of the day and night to keep our trails pristine. Vic, you truly exemplify this quote: “My spirit is my Ability, Perseverance and Courage that no disability can steal away.” Your Spirit is an inspiration to us all!!! Ride safe and say Thank You to the groom ers if you happen to meet them. Many of them do not get paid a red cent to do a job they are proud to do. Respectfully yours, Kim M Ouellette Secretary St. Francis Sno-Angels Winter is cruising by! The Portage Lakers have been busy host ing fun events the last couple of months. In February, we celebrated our 45th year of being incorporated as a snowmobile club. We celebrated in true Portage fashion, with an Open House at the new Groomer Building. We started the day with a Fishing Derby on Portage Lake. The winners were all girls! Nicole Poulin was the 1st place winner with a nice salmon, along with a few other “junk” fish. Gwendolyn Eastman and Charly Lilley were the second & third place winners. They all seemed to have a great time out on the ice. For breakfast, donuts (from Lil J’s Kitchen), muffins (from Dean’s Motor Lodge), and cof fee (from Coffin’s Store) were all donated and enjoyed by the folks that stopped by. Lunch consisted of Hot Dogs, Chicken Stew, Chili and all the fixings were donated by Club members. 50/50 tickets were sold, there were several giveaways drawn, sliding for the kids, and many other activities throughout the day. Chad The Hypnotist entertained us early in the evening with more laughs that we could count. Thank you to all the participants that joined in and let us get our laugh on!! We ended the PORTAGE LAKAERS sc Portage Lake, ME

selves with our “cut out” of Tanya Tucker on Trail #105 south (known far & wide as Tanya Tucker Corner) and send it to our Facebook page. Or they may take a photo of themselves with the cut out of character Rip Wheeler, the ranch foreman from the hit television series “Yellowstone” on the back (east) wall of the clubhouse, facing Trail #105. The clubhouse is located at 94 Town Hall Rd. in Chapman. Tanya is located 14 miles from the clubhouse and only accessible by sled. You may send in photos of both! You may include your first name(s) and the town you reside in too, it’s up to you! Send photos/info to: https://.face book.com/ChapmanRidgeRunners. We held a potluck supper this past month and will host a luncheon for the MSA tour rid ers on March 16. We are looking forward to it. Hang in there and don’t forget to do more snow dances! Sue Maynard Secretary SMOKI-HAULERS Oakfield, ME Hello Everyone, The weather has been pretty tough this year as we all know, just the same Smoki-Haulers was open every weekend for the months of January and February. Providing the commu nity and sledders with food, family fun day/ night and hosting our first annual KAST Poker run with a decent turnout, hoping to be even bigger next year. Building our coffers for local charities and non-profits, opening our slid ing hill, skating pond, snow-shoe trails, and cross-country ski trails. Our trails are pretty much done for this year with weather in the 50’s and rain expected next week. However, the club still plans to have our monthly meetings the first Tuesday of every month at 6:00 p.m. We also plan to host events throughout the summer. You can check us out on Facebook at Smoki Haulers Snowmobile Club to get updated information on events. We plan to have at least one event every month through the summer, with our next big event being our Pie & Bake Sale and Easter Egg hunt on March 30 th . As our sledding season comes to an end up here for us, we could not have made this season possible without the support of our volunteers, community members and local business owners for their contributions, time, and effort into making this all happen. It was worth every second and we can’t wait to do it again next year! Smoki-Haulers thanks every one of you. So, until next time.

Please follow us on Facebook - Big Valley Sno Club! We will keep you posted on any events or changes.

CHAPMAN RIDGE RUNNERS sc Chapman, ME

Dear Snowmobilers, It has been a disappointing season, to say the least. But we are still riding and groom ing. We’ve run over every little snowflake on every trail several times! Quite a few clubs have closed some of their trails. Some clubs are worried about damage to their groomers. We had to cancel our tentative scavenger hunt due to lack of snow and the possible det riment to our trails from large crowds of rid ers. We instead came up with a little bit of a fun activity. Riders may take a photo of them

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