United States Senator George Mitchell will be the featured Chats with Champions speaker at 10 a.m. on Thursday, July 13. The venue for the program is the library’s Porter Meeting Hall, 184 Main Street, Damariscotta. Please allow plenty of time for parking.

Senator Mitchell has spent much of his distinguished career in public service. After receiving an undergraduate degree from Bowdoin College and a law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center, Mitchell served as a trial attorney for the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice in Washington from 1960 to 1962.  He next served as executive assistant to Senator Edmund S. Muskie from 1962 to 1965, where he first gained interest in the political world. Mitchell next practiced law in Portland, Maine, from 1965 to 1977, and was assistant county attorney for Cumberland County, Maine, in 1971.

In 1974 Mitchell won the Democratic nomination for governor of Maine, defeating Joseph Brennan. He lost in the general election to independent candidate James B. Longley, but was appointed United States Attorney for Maine by President Jimmy Carter in 1977. Mitchell served in that capacity from 1977 to 1979 when he was appointed to the United States District Court for the District of Maine. Mitchell served as a federal judge until he was appointed to the United States Senate in May 1980 by then governor of Maine, Joseph Brennan, when Edmund Muskie resigned to become U.S. Secretary of State. He was elected to a full term in 1982.

Senator Mitchell went on to an illustrious career in the Senate spanning 15 years. He left the Senate in 1995 as Senate Majority Leader, a position he had held since January 1989. Senator Mitchell enjoyed bipartisan respect during his tenure. For six consecutive years he was voted “the most respected member” of the Senate by a bipartisan group of senior congressional aides.

In 1995, he served as a Special Advisor to President Clinton on Ireland, and from 1996 to 2000 he served as the Independent Chairman of the Northern Ireland Peace Talks.   Under his leadership, the Good Friday Agreement, a historic accord ending decades of conflict, was agreed to by the governments of Ireland and the United Kingdom and the political parties of Northern Ireland. For this service he received numerous awards and honors.

In 2000 and 2001, Senator Mitchell served as Chairman of an International Fact-Finding Committee on violence in the Middle East. He served as U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Peace from January 2009 to May 2011. Earlier, in 2006 and 2007, he led the investigation into the use of performance-enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball.  

Senator Mitchell will be signing his two most recent books, a memoir, “The Negotiator: Reflections on an American Life,” published in 2015, and “A Path To Peace,” published in 2016, following his presentation.  

Chats with Champions is a free community offering from your national award winning Skidompha Library and is sponsored by Sherman’s Maine Coast Book Shop. For more information call 563-5513.