Maine Minute: Bicentennial Commission looks to the past and plans for the future

March 15th marks Maine's 200th birthday.

We are celebrating all week by bringing you different stories about prominent people, places and things across the state.

Here's Emily Tadlock with our Maine Minute.

A Maine fact in one minute.

Some of them you may know -- some of them you may not.

Either way, it's all about our great state and how, over the past 200 years, it's been shaped into what it is today.

David Cheever is the Vice Chairman of the Maine Bicentennial Commission and a former state archivist, and this man knows his Maine history.

"One of the things that has been the hallmark of Maine and Maine life has been innovation and ingenuity, trying to figure out how to get by with less or how to use something better to make your job easier."

Maine people who have vision...

"They see something and they go, 'We want to save this. We want to save it not just for us, we want to save it for those that come after us.'"

That's what this bicentennial celebration is about for the commission.

The future of our state.

"Who's tomorrow's visionary? They're still out there. They are in the schools today. They are in business today. Which is what we've been working on for quite a while, to turn the bicentennial into something that people will remember and something we hope will drive them forward into thinking of Maine in a new way."