Current Issue Photo Galleries Contact Us Subscribe Links  

04-07-2008 05:57:09

Dr. Drever heads committee to find answers to teenage crime by Lucille Noble Greer

The first house on the left as you turn from Mechanic Street onto Stanley Drive 
in Norridgewock belongs to Peter and Julianne Drever. We first met the lovely  
and talented Julianne when she dropped into the Historical Society Museum about four years ago, but Peter G. Drever, Jr. is the person we want to write about today.  
     Born in Boston, Peter attended Boston Latin School , the oldest public school in continuous existence in as it was founded in 1635 by the Town of Boston -only 15 years after the Mayflower landed. His college years were spent at Upsala  
College in New Jersey , founded by the Swedish-American Augustana Synod and  
immigrant Swedes establishing the Lutheran Orthodoxy in the country. 
     Unfortunately, the school closed due to financial problems in 1995 after being in existence for 98 years. After receiving his education in these prestigious schools, Peter attended Augusta Seminary in Rock Island, Illinois , then did post graduate work in mental health and received his doctorate at Andover Newton Theological School.
     Dr. Drever then served in pastorates in Massachusettes, Connecticut and as a certified chaplain for colleges and in hospitals in those states and Michigan . He was trained as an interim chaplain and served in trouble spots in those states as well as in New Sweden, Maine , after he officially retired in July of 2003.
     As a boy he had caddied for Rose Kennedy in Hyannisport and became an  
admirer of that determined matriarch and mother of nine. He met Julie while serving 
as chaplain at Bethesda Lutheran Hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota , where she was pursuing a carrier as a nurse. They married in 1963, just a week after the tragic death of Rose’s second son, President John Kennedy. After retirement, the Drevers looked for about two years around central Maine , a state he had loved since childhood vacations spent here. They found their spot in Norridgewock at
23 Stanley Avenue.
     Soon a need for his talents appeared when he, along with about 300 other people, attended the community-wide meeting to discuss the reasons for the teen  
aged crime which seems to be growing in the area covered by SAD #54. As a result, he now chairs the ABC ( Assets Building Committee) hoping to find some answers.  They are using start-up funding from the 50-year-old Search Institute, an independent nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide leadership, knowledge, and resources to promote healthy children, youth, and communities. To accomplish this mission, the institute generates and communicates new knowledge, as it  brings together community, state, and national leaders. At the heart of the institute's work is the framework of 40 Developmental Assets, which are positive experiences as well as personal qualities that young people need to grow up healthy, caring, and responsible.
     The first step for the ABC Committee will be to find a new name from those to  
be suggested by students in grades 6, 8 and 11. These students will be asked to  
answer surveys stating their views on family, community, education and other  
values, identifying themselves only by sex and age. Interviews will later be held  
with the willing participants so they can expand on the reasons for their observations.
     As Peter states, “This will be a marriage between psychology and common  
sense.” In the future there may be training sessions with workshops to bring 
structure to the project, fund raising, as well as forming six committees Assets  
Building Committee to help get things going in the community.