TEMPLE – Bob Stevens has been a town leader for 18 years.

During that time, he did what he could to improve the town.

But now, he’s moving on.

Stevens, a retired history teacher, has decided not to run for selectman this year.

He was a teacher for 36 years at Farmington High School and Mount Blue High School after the merger of schools and schoolchildren from different towns.

Stevens was also a school athletic director. He retired from teaching in 1988. He also worked part-time as a hospital security guard for 10 years.

After their children grew up, Stevens and his wife, Jeanette, also a retired school teacher, moved from Farmington to Temple in 1978.

The couple, dubbed “Mr. & Mrs. Temple” by a friend, have been married 55 years. Even after all those years, Bob Stevens said with a laugh, his wife still reminds him that he spelled her name with two n’s on their marriage certificate.

One of the biggest changes as a selectman was getting a computer to make the selectmen’s work easier.

“That was a big one,” he said.

Former Selectman Ron Mitchell knew how to use a computer, he said, and showed the other two board members how to work one.

All three selectmen pitched in half their annual stipend to buy a computer and printer for the town.

Today that same money would have bought two or three, Stevens said.

“Oh my,” Stevens said, it made things quicker.

“We had to do everything by hand,” he said.

When school was out for the summer, he said, it would take a week to balance the books.

“Now it takes about three hours,” he said.

His wife also worked as town clerk in Temple for 10 years and still fills in on occasion.

Being a selectman is sort of a repetitive thing.

“Year after year you try to fix things up,” he said.

Among the accomplishments during his tenure, selectmen had a climate-controlled room built in the basement of the town office to preserve old records.

It’s fireproof and there is a dehumidifier down there, he said.

But now he knows it’s time to move on.

“I’m not getting any younger,” Stevens said. “I think it’s time for younger ideas and a more energetic person to take over. I’ve honestly had a very good time.”

dperry@sunjournal.com

Copy the Story Link