Tough Mudder tears into Sunset Ridge Golf Links - By Tracy Scheckel

Many folks, myself included, can’t help but ask, “Why would anyone subject themselves to the rigors of a Tough Mudder?” I asked just that of one of my friends who participated in the Northeast Tough Mudder held in Westbrook this past Saturday.
 

Matt Doughty, 39, a husband, a father of three, a Gray Town Councilor, and the Maine Gas Operations Manager for Unitil, is a pretty busy guy. When I asked him about doing the Tough Mudder held in Westbrook this past weekend, his response; “I’m doing it because of Ray, you do know the Ray Poulin story, right?” Then Matt proceeded to fill me in on an incredible journey that Poulin made from the brink of death to competing in the mudder. Doughty explained, “If Ray could overcome what he did to participate in the event, how could I not be inspired to join him?”

 

Ray is 40 years old, married with two children Hailey age 9 and Samantha 7; and he is the General Manager of the Best Buy in Topsham. In April of 2013, Ray developed sepsis, a serious blood infection. His liver and kidneys shut down requiring multiple surgeries and an induced coma. Doctors informed his family that he had a 10 percent chance of recovery when his liver began to hemorrhage and required a mass blood transfusion of 77 units of a combination of red blood cells, platelets, fresh frozen plasma and cryoprecipitate. To help with his medical costs, the Team Ray Fund was founded by Ray’s best friend, Shaun Morrison. As Ray explained, “It was the most difficult gift he has ever received.” 

After 32 days in the hospital, Ray beat the odds and went on to two weeks of rehabilitation therapy. His life and lifestyle were to change forever. Ray’s health ordeal taught him two very important things, the benefit of working and eating to stay fit, and the importance of donating blood.

Once all the medical bills were paid, Ray and his wife Nikki decided to pay it forward with the little remaining in the the Team Ray Fund, Ray and founded RaysUp dedicated to creating awareness about the importance of blood donation.

About four months before the event, Ray heard about the Tough Mudder. His brush with death the previous year, and his desire to be as healthy as possible for his family inspired him to train for the event. His friend Shaun decided to join the effort.

In addition to his training regimen of running, Ray spent a lot of time on the Tough Mudder Facebook page to learn about how other folks trained and achieved success when participating in the event.

After reading one of Ray’s Facebook posts about his medical ordeal and goal to complete the course, officials at Tough Mudder contacted Ray to learn more about his story. The folks at Tough Mudder decided to use Ray’s story to inspire others. Serendipitously, awareness of RaysUp increased, and according to Ray, it was his team who made the decision to compete in the name of RaysUp to further promote the organization.

Ray and his team had diverse physical abilities and all trained in different ways for the event. Ray had not even met three of the team members, who were recruited by Shaun, until a month before the event, when he met Matt Millard and Laura DeVaudreuil. He didn’t meet Jeff Matthews until a spaghetti dinner on the Friday night before the mudder. Ray explained, “Everyone brought different strengths and skills to the team, and we all did our own thing to train, but we all shared the same mantra; our mission from day one was to cross the finish line together as a team.” And that they did. On Saturday the group met about 8:30 a.m. to warm up and stretch. They began the course at 10 a.m. and finished together arm in arm at 2:30 p.m.

 

Regarding his team, Ray offered, “A big thank you to all of you for putting the team first and contributing to our goal of crossing the finish line together. I couldn’t have done it without the support and encouragement of the people around me,” he continued, “I’d also like to thank Sevee & Maher Engineers Inc, Innovations Salon & Spa , Cynthia Veroneau Portside Real Estate Group, and Gray Country Day Care & Learning Center Inc. for their financial contributions to buy our team shirts.”

Will there be another mudder in Ray’s future? Perhaps. He is also hoping to work with the Tough Mudder organization to facilitate blood drives at future events. To date, he has conducted one drive at the Maine Wildlife Park and collected 44 pints. Plans for the next drive in Westbrook are in the works. For more information visit RaysUp at http://www.raysup.org or www.facebook.com/raysup and Tough Mudder, at www.toughmudder.com.

Photos Courtesy of Ray Poulin

Team:

The RaysUp Team: Back Row L to R: John Conley, Shaun Morrison, Ben Cyr, Jeff Matthews, Eric Deschaines, Matt Doughty, Ray Poulin Front Row L to R: Amy Conley (John's wife), Gerry Brown, Laura DeVaudreuil, Matt Milliard

Pyramid:

Ray’s Pouiln’s favorite photo; Team RaysUp builds a human pyramid – but one of the 20 obstacles and challenges at the Northeast Tough Mudder held in Westbrook last weekend.

Popsicles with the Principal a big hit at Windham Primary School - By Michelle Libby

Primary school students were invited to the school last Thursday for popsicles with Principal Kyle Rhoads on the new playground behind the school. This made the seventh year the event has taken place to give the children a way to get familiar with the school and some of the teachers.

“When I joined primary, I wanted to have a way to introduce myself to families in a less formal way than just the school year starting. Having fun on the playgrounds and sharing popsicles seemed like a good fit!” Rhoads said.

There’s no official tally on how many students attended the outing, but Rhoads said that “It is the most popsicles that we went through in recent memories.”

This year the students were able to use the new part of the playground and see the playground construction workers actually working on the second phase of the playground as the students played on the completed part. Rhoads also mentioned that it was neat to see former students of WPS coming and being part of the event. 

Photos by Jennifer Manning

Windham student travels abroad with People to People program - By Elizabeth Richards

After two years of fundraising, Isabella Rosborough’s dream became reality this summer as she spent an exciting three weeks traveling in Europe as part of the People to People Ambassador Program.

While Rosborough’s group from the Southern Maine area had only 11 students, they travelled with a group of six students from Bangor, and in New York, they met up with another four from Staten Island. When they arrived in Rome, they were joined by a large group of students from New Jersey, as well as one German student, to form the group of 39 students and five adult leaders.

The group began their explorations in Rome, where they visited the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and took a tour of the city. 

After Rome, their travels took them to the small mountain town of Assisi. “Assisi was probably one of the most beautiful places out of everywhere we went,” said Rosborough. “It was just a quaint little town.” Here, they saw how olives were grown, and also visited a monastery and had the opportunity to speak with a Friar. 

Every People to People trip includes a “full-on” experience. For Rosborough’s group, this meant rappelling down a 100-foot castle wall, along with other group games. From the wall they could see for miles, including views of other castles in the area. Rosborough said that although some participants were fearful, she was not. “I enjoyed it a lot. I’m a thrill seeker for things like that,” she said.

After their full-on, the group met the families they would be staying with. Students were either by themselves in a home stay family, or with one other student, for three nights and two days. Rosborough stayed in a family of four with two daughters. The parents spoke broken English, she said, but the older daughter Agatha spoke English clearly, and served as their translator for the stay. In addition to her home stay family, there were two neighbor kids that spent the whole time with her as well.

While with the family, Rosborough went to a lake, explored the town she was staying in including shops selling artwork, pottery and jewelry. The family also took her to Perugia, which is “the Italian chocolate capital” she said. And much like teenagers do in America, she and the teens she was visiting ordered takeout pizza one evening, watched a movie, and played WII.     

Rosborough said that one of the biggest things she learned was that no matter where you go, things are still the same. While she realized there may be bigger differences in other countries, in Europe there were many similarities to home. The family dynamics were very similar to those in America, and there were lots of tourists everywhere they went. 

She did notice a lot of small differences throughout her travels however. Some of the more notable differences, she said, were that kids go to school one year longer before going to university, and also they cannot drive until they are 18 years old. The universities are also much more specialized, focusing only on one trade, she said. 

Other cities visited included Venice, Florence, Pisa, Paris and London. One of her favorites, said Rosborough, was Florence. In Florence, there weren’t many cars, but lots of moped and tourist buses. The streets were lined with artists, each with a different type of art, but all really detailed and amazing, according to Rosborough. She purchased two pieces of art in Florence, including a painting of Ponte Vecchio, the only bridge in Florence not bombed during WWII. While there, the group had the opportunity to visit the bridge.

Other highlights of the trip included a glass blowing demonstration in Venice, walking around the Vatican city, visiting the Sistene Chapel, the Statue of David, the Louvre, the Effiel Tower and Normandy. The trip to Normandy was very sad, Rosborough said, and there was a special ceremony there, where people thanked the students and their ancestors for helping them during the war.

In London, the group of students met with a former member of British Parliament, went up the London Eye, saw Big Ben and the changing of the guard, and went to see the musical Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. London was full of statues, said Rosborough. In one square, there were four huge lion statues guarding the square, and a different statue in each corner. Because they couldn’t decide what to put in one corner permanently, the statue there changes every 18 months, and a vote will occur to choose the permanent statue. When Rosborough’s group visited, she said, the statue there was a giant blue rooster.

Rosborough said her favorite parts of the trip were rappelling and the home stay. While she doesn’t have plans to formally share her experiences, she talks about it a lot wherever she goes, she said. “It’s definitely worth the money,” she added. She funded her trip by selling peppermint bark, using money she had saved, holding a clock raffle, and she also had some family members who contributed to the trip. 

Alison Rosborough, Isabella’s mother, said “It was amazing – and a lot of work. She worked really hard to get there,” she added. While on the trip, “She did things that you wouldn’t be exposed to if you were doing it as a family,” said Alison. The trip moved beyond sightseeing and allowed them to meet people and become a part of the culture. The only drawback, Alison said, is that Isabella can’t wait to go on the next one. “It took us two years to raise the money – so I’m thinking it will be another two years before she goes again,” she said. 

Isabella agreed – she is eager to go on more trips like the one she took this summer. “I want to do more European countries, and I really want to do Japan. I’ve always wanted to go to Japan,” she said.

Photos are Isabella with Emma, her homestay sister, and the other one is with the all the kids - the girls she stayed with and the two neighbors - from left to right Emma, Linda, Nicola, Agatha and Isabella.

O'Shea Builders teams up with HGTV for remodel - By Michelle Libby

Warren O’Shea is passionate about building and quality of work. His honest demeanor and attitude shines through and when HGTV found out about his work on the website www.houzz.com, a photo-based sharing website to find contractors, they asked him to bid on a project for its new show “Vacation House for Free.” 

O’Shea, no stranger to television, agreed to meet with the producers and because of his knowledge of TV production, he got the job. He has been on two episodes of On Your Side and as a professional contractor, both for Channel 13 and he worked on the Restaurant Impossible for the Food Network renovating Uncle Andy’s in South Portland.  

“I’m a big advocate for consumer rights. You don’t need a license to be a contractor, but you need one to sell bait. That’s wrong,” O’Shea said. 

“I’ve been in construction for eight years,” the Cape Cod native said. He’s done a variety of jobs like commercial fishing and restaurant manager before settling on construction. Now he mostly does renovations of existing homes. 

The “Vacation House for Free” is a show where the premise is if you fix up your home, you can rent it for 16 weeks and then pay for the construction and some of the mortgage, allowing you to live there for free. The theme of the episode is maximizing space.

The home O’Shea Builders is working on is on the water in Oakland. He had three interviews before knowing that he had the job. He said he spent at least two weeks designing the layout of the bathroom to make sure there were two doors to meet code. “Creative design solved many problems,” he said. “I have a bit of a track record for media, but it’s not like I expected (to get the job).” 

The renovations were designed with the client and although O’Shea did not go to design school, his hands on experience has helped him learn how to create plans that work for both the client and the state codes. He calls it “design on the fly” and he does this by getting to know the clients and how they like their homes. 

“My show is the most involved, most logistically complicated because it’s so difficult to get to for the trucks,” he said. The whole rebuild will take six weeks wrapping up around September 16. The host of the show is Matt Blashaw, who also hosts “Yard Crashers.” 

Working with HGTV can be challenging because everything has to be approved in New York and he’s working with designers who have inspirational photos, but aren’t as concerned with which materials make a certain look. 

O’Shea said there is a film man on site every day and they do a lot of time lapse photography.

“I live in a construction site. Everywhere I look I say, ‘I have to do this or order that’,” O’Shea said. He is spending the week in Oakland and returns home on the weekends. “I’m working a 12 hour day plus, easily,” he said. 

The Windham resident doesn’t usually travel to Oakland to work, liking to stay in the Windham, Portland, Falmouth, Cape Elizabeth and Scarborough areas. 

O’Shea builders is not handyman work. He does high-end work with tile, paint, electrical and roof work. If he can’t do it, he has electricians and plumbers who will handle the job. He employs four year round and occasionally subs out work. 

O’Shea’s specialty is kitchens and bathrooms, he said. He likes to do custom tile and showers. The company’s motto is “We’ve got this.” No matter the project, big or small…“We’ve got this.”

“It’s all about attitude. O’Shea Builders does free estimates.

The show aired its first episode last Sunday night. New episodes will air every Sunday night at 10 p.m. on HGTV. There are 12 episodes scheduled. O’Shea anticipates his show will air in December.

For more information about the show, visit www.hgtv.com.