Kent Ward started work at the Bangor Daily News as the Rockland bureau chief in 1962. That’s where the Limestone native wrote an exclusive story about a man who escaped from the Maine State Prison in Warren and held an elderly couple hostage in their home.
The escapee, a baker in the prison, didn’t harm the couple and ended up passing along baking tips — such as how to get jelly rolls out of the pan without them sticking — to the woman whom he held at gunpoint.
Ward, now 80, still laughs recalling how the prisoner later hitchhiked away from the couple’s Warren home only to be picked up by a police officer in plainclothes. Ward snapped a picture of the arrest.
“I never wanted to do anything else,” he said of working for a newspaper.
Ward, who returned to Limestone to live, is retiring his column after having written for newspapers in one form or another for 58 years. He has written a weekly column for 45 years. His excellent writing, wit and ability to capture Maine life will be missed.
Ward became the assistant state editor at the BDN in 1967 and covered the Maine Legislature while also writing political columns. He covered three national political conventions: a riotous one in Chicago in 1968, and the Democratic and Republican conventions in Miami Beach in 1972.
In the mid-1970s he became Maine editor, overseeing reporters and correspondents. He later became assistant managing editor and finished his full-time career in 1991 as associate managing editor.
The last column from the “Maine Old Dawg” appears here today. Thank you to a longtime hardworking employee.
I will miss this man, whom I never met, but felt like I have known since I developed a penchant for reading Editorial. (College age..60 now.) I’m gonna miss ya, Kent. I know of no writer in todays times who can hold a candle to your true, droll Maine presentation of Maines’ happenings. No matter the topic, be it political, whimisical, sports updating or more frequently, your ability to honestly assess Maine folks and who we truly are, you done better than good. My hat is off to you in total respect and admiration. You are truly one of the last of the best newspaper writers we have been blessed to
have in this neck of the woods. Enjoy your retirement, but of course you will, living up there in true Maine country! Differently than I do, in doffing my hat to you, you will likely keep your hat on, being in the County and all.
Elaine Goodwin
Eddington, Maine
Mr. Ward,
Thank you for your writing, proving Mr. Steinbeck wrong when he wrote:
“Lest another light go out.”