I would say this is elitism at it’s ugliest and an exercise in looking down one’s nose at the interests of others.

What do you think of when you think of Maine? These days I guess it really depends upon which part of the state you want to look at. Maine has become a huge divided state with the southern part of the state becoming a suburb of Boston, along with all its fine values. The northern part is struggling to keep a grip on its own identity, one still focused on a life much different than many urbanites know of. They tend to mind their own business while those with “different” values, feel the need to force their ideals onto the natives.

A couple weeks ago, I innocently relayed a story to readers about the efforts of parents and students from Noble High School in southern Maine, struggling to raise enough money to send 200 music students on a trip to New York City. The trip would cost $100,000.

Fund raising was sparse and so Master Maine Guide Rick Varney offered a Maine Black Bear hunt as a raffle in order to raise the money. Maine is steeped in hunting tradition and the annual Maine black bear hunt is a much sought after experience by hunters and outdoorsmen from far and near.

It seems that the idea of having such a raffle has ruffled the feathers of three parents in the area.

[Lisa]Lund, Melanie Ciccotelli, and Isa Thomas went to a School Administrative District 60 meeting Thursday night to protest the board’s endorsement of a raffle for a trip to northwestern Maine to hunt black bears.

According to these three, such a raffle has no place in a school setting.

“It’s legal, and I understand that,” Ciccotelli said. “But this has no place in a school environment … it’s sending a bad message.”

And what is the “bad message” that is being sent? There is nothing bad about the generosities of people to offer ways to raising money that are creative and very much in keeping with the heritage and culture of the area. Hunting is very much a part of Maine’s culture.

Lund’s daughter recently was accepted into a Student Ambassador’s Program that gives her the opportunity to travel to China for the summer. The cost of the trip is $7,000 a child, and Lund has helped her daughter with multiple fundraising events to raise money.

She’s raised money by having bake sales, collecting bottles, sending letters to local business, putting on a comedy show, hosting a dance, having 50/50 raffles, and putting on a silent auction.

She said any of those fundraising events could substitute for students selling tickets for a bear hunt that she said was a “moral step backwards.”

Do I sense some sour grapes here or is this just nothing more than elitism and outright snobbery on their part? I think I have the answer to that.

“It’s a hot topic,” Ciccotelli said of bear hunting, adding that York County voted for a ban on bear hunting that failed statewide.

It was reported that the music students’ trip to New York would be to attend a music festival and that it would be for “cultural enrichment.”

“That’s an oxymoron,” Ciccotelli said, explaining that funding the trip with money to hunt a black bear was “inappropriate.”

I bet the three were first in line to vote against bear hunting in Maine back in 2004 and now they are looking to find a way of getting back. They even notified their friends at PETA in hopes they would get involved. But I find it amusing to say the least that Ciccotelli thinks it wrong that money raised from a bear hunt could go toward “cultural enrichment” of the students traveling to New York.

For the life of me, I don’t know why these three would choose to live in Maine. Obviously to them their idea of “cultural enrichment” is found in New York City. Buses leave every day.

So who is lacking in culture and diversity? These three who are anti-bear hunting (probably anti-hunting altogether) or the student who one day may pick up a slide trombone and play a little toot, toot, toot to a Sousa march and then the next day pick up a .308 and head out on a bear hunt?

Culture in the dictionary is defined as: “The totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought characteristic of a community or population.” But according to Ciccotelli one can only gain “cultural enrichment” by having a bake sale, washing cars and then going to New York City. In this case totality must be defined as only what one is willing to allow in their elite lifestyle.

This is much of what will ultimately be the death of a once diverse, tolerant society. People like this believe that forcing others to think the way they do, to define social behavior to fit their mold and culture just as they want it to be, is the right way. They are so caught up in their own self-righteousness and narcissistic lifestyles, they brush off the chance to experience the real American cultural and be a balanced, rational person.

Raising money to send kids on a music outing to New York City is as American as bake sales, car washes and bottle drives. It just so happens this fund raiser doesn’t fit into the definition of culture for three intolerant people.

Tom Remington

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