Playing croquet with someone older than your parents isn’t likely to make your average 25-year-old’s short list of “What To Do On A Summer Evening On The Maine Coast.” Then again, Annie Tselikis, the Island Institute’s Deer Isle-Stonington Economic Development and Technology Fellow, is no average 25-year-old. She’s packed a lifetime of experiences into a quarter-century: childhood summers on Long Island; language and cultural studies in Capetown, South Africa, while earning her undergraduate degree at Connecticut College; a semester at Portland’s Salt Institute for Documentary Studies and a recent stint as a deckhand for the Casco Bay Lines.
“Hanging out” with Sylvia Tate, whose family has been on Deer Isle for generations, and playing croquet on her front lawn, feel as natural as bantering with some of the older fishermen at fisheries management meetings or editing film with high-school students. This type of cross-generational interaction — common on Maine’s islands, yet rare in most other American communities — is just one reason why Annie treasures her time here. She is fiercely committed to helping Stonington attract year-round residents and businesses that can increase its economic sustainability.
One of her biggest projects has been that of converting paper files that had been living in boxes and file cabinets in the town office into a town website that is easily accessible and chock-full of helpful information for those interested in relocating or opening a business. “We hope that the website will help bring businesses and people to Stonington, she says. “The combination of a viable downtown and a working waterfront is so unique.”
She has also created slideshows for the Opera House’s website promoting its two big summer performances, and updated the “Deer Isle Trivia Show” that airs before every movie shown there. It now includes ads for local businesses, trivia questions, announcements and photos of the community. Annie’s involvement with the Opera House has had a profound effect on her sense of “fitting in” within Stonington’s year-round community of roughly 1,200 people, which is significantly larger than that of most Maine islands. “I feel like I’m part of the Opera House family — it’s an incredible organization.”
Annie will continue as an Island Fellow for another year, and will keep working on technology-related assignments for the town and the Opera House. One project that’s close to her heart is working with teens at the Imagination Project, a digital studio in town that’s free and open to people of all ages who want to learn the technology of movie-making and sound recording. She and Linda Nelson, Director of the Opera House, team-taught a film class for high school students with art teacher Katy Helman to help them understand how special their island world is and how many reasons there are to come back after they leave to pursue higher education. One short film, “Tire Tracks” was shown at the 2007 Maine International Film Festival in July, and another, “Island Prom,” took first prize at the Maine Teen Film Festival. She’ll continue exploring the expansion of high-speed Internet and cell-phone service to the island; using her web-design talents to promote a “Buy Local” marketing strategy; and learning more about fisheries management by attending meetings at the Penobscot East Resource Center. When she’s ready for some serious fun, she’ll walk down Main Street to Sylvia’s mansard-roofed house overlooking the harbor. Croquet, anyone?
Nancy Carter is vice president for knowledge management at the Island Institute.