One of the best players — male or female — in Maine high school basketball and University of Maine history now has a spot among the rest of the state’s best basketball minds and talents.
Cindy Blodgett, the former Lawrence High School star from Clinton, who went on to even more stardom at UMaine, was inducted into the Maine Basketball Hall of Fame on Sunday, along with the rest of the hall’s Class of 2018.
The hall, housed inside Cross Insurance Center in Bangor, welcomed 16 new members, along with six other “Legends of the Game.”
Inducted alongside Blodgett in this year’s class were a pair of coaches with Farmington ties. Jim Bessey, an Oakland native, graduated from University of Maine at Farmington before a coaching career that took him to Mt. Blue and Madison. He is currently an assistant coach at his college alma mater under 2015 inductee Dick Meader.
Jeff Hart, a Farmington native, has coached at Camden Hills (formerly Camden-Rockport) for more than 30 years, winning six state championships in the process.
The rest of the inductees are: Paul Belanger, Dean Erickson, Bill Obermeyer, Peter Hamlin, Sandi Carver, LeRoy Patterson, Joe Russo, Brenda Beckwith, Barbara Krause, Delmont “Del” Merrill, Keith Ogden, Rick Woods and Bill McAvoy.
Former Winthrop High School coach Arthur “Artie” Warren was among the half-dozen Legends of the Game also honored Sunday. The rest of the group included Dwight Hunter, Bill Fletcher, Jim Beaudry, Elwood “Bimbo” Pinkham and Thaxter Trafton.
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