PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — University of Maine at Presque Isle president Raymond J. Rice unveiled the renamed Wieden Hall Auditorium on Sept. 21 in honor of Ray and Sandy Gauvin at “The Heart of Aroostook” event.
Part of the event included stories about Aroostook County shared by authors Kathryn Olmstead and Ray Gauvin.
Olmstead described her discovery of the magnetism of Aroostook County while she wrote essays published in Echoes Magazine from 1988 until 2017.
“Echoes revealed an affection for Aroostook County, not just among the natives who’ve returned, but also those living in every one of the United States and a few parts of Canada and Europe,” Olmstead said.
The Heart of Aroostook: A Book Reading & Auditorium Naming Event was an evening celebration of the stories of Aroostook County and the importance of keeping talented young people in the Aroostook area. Olmstead pointed out that Aroostook is losing young people and has the third highest poverty level in Maine.
Olmstead said the farther away the natives of Aroostook County lived, the more intensely they felt about the place they left behind. She gave an example of how people from Aroostook County living in San Bernardino, California, would meet regularly.
Rice dedicated the name change of the auditorium from Wieden Hall to Gauvin Family Center for Cultural Arts with the plaque going onto the building. Construction work is being done on the roofing on one side over the winter, with the Center opening in the first week of January 2023. Rice said that a fundraiser to build off what Ray has contributed will begin after the Center opens.
Aroostook County Action Program director Jason Parent introduced Ray, who was his mentor and friend.
“The experience of writing was good, but also it was a very healing experience for me,” Gauvin said.
In 2008, Gauvin accidentally dropped a scraper blade and crushed his foot. After being laid up he was forced to face his demons from the war and worked with a psychologist at the Veterans Center in Caribou that would spark the idea for his memoir. In 2015, Gauvin began to formulate the ideas for his first memoir and work as an author.
“It was difficult [A Soldier’s Heart] being my first book, but thanks to my wife, who happened to be an English major in college, she was a great deal of help to me and Friesenpress was my publisher also helped out a great deal,” Gauvin said during the reception.
He recollected his memories from Vietnam through talking with his unit commander, who is 89 years old. Gauvin visited him twice to share stories about what they experienced in Vietnam. He hopes to become a spokesperson for PTSD for not only the military but for everyone who suffers from it.
“He had been encouraged by different people for a long time, but he didn’t want to talk about anything. I knew nothing about what he did in Vietnam,” his wife Sandy Gauvin said.
Ray Gauvin celebrated the launch of his new memoir called A Soldier’s Heart: The Three Wars of Vietnam published in September 2022. Before he read from the prologue, he told a story about his draft into Vietnam at 21 years old and what he witnessed as an X-Ray technician and medic during the war in Vietnam.
Gauvin was posted in Saigon as part of the Wound Data and Munitions Effectiveness Team, which was classified information at the time.
Back in Gauvin’s senior year of high school in 1965, he received a distinguished scholarship of $1,000, which is equal between $15,000 to $20,000 today, he said. Gauvin met the benefactors, with one being Mark Turner, a local businessman and philanthropist.
Ray and Sandy Gauvin founded the Aroostook Aspiration Initiative in 2011 to provide scholarships to graduating seniors from the Presque Isle High School.
“Mr. Turner looked right at me and said, ‘Ray, when you become a success I would like you to think about starting a scholarship fund someday.’ That’s how the seed started when I was about 18 years old,” Gauvin said. “I never thought that they would have that kind of an impact on me later on in my life.”
Rice said the planning for The Heart of Aroostook occurred over the spring and after he received an advanced copy of Gauvin’s book. Everything would come together at UMPI’s homecoming and the publication of “A Soldier’s Heart.”
Correction: A previous story contained an error. The Wieden Hall Auditorium was renamed in honor of Ray and Sandy Gauvin, not the entire hall.
PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — September 21, 2022 — The unveiling of the placard design for the Gauvin Family Center for Cultural Arts by University of Maine at Presque president Raymond J. Rice. (Paul Bagnall | The Star-Herald)
PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — September 21, 2022 — Jason Parent embraces his mentor and friend Ray Gauvin after introducing him to the stage at The Heart of Aroostook event. (Paul Bagnall | The Star-Herald)
