By Terry Karkos,Staff Writer
From hockey mom to hobbyist, Norine Clarke cares about her community.

DIXFIELD – Surrounded by hobby material awaiting imaginative minds, Norine Clarke of Dixfield waited on customers Friday inside Log Cabin Crafts.

She and husband, Ralph, own and operate the Main Street store, which boasts an inventory of 33,000 items.

Norine Clarke, who has been a mainstay in the River Valley area, is known for her craft skills and community involvement.

An avid reader of fiction and mysteries, she’s been a hockey mom who helped organize an area youth hockey league, an English teacher and longtime substitute instructor, a seamstress, hobbies instructor and an economic development leader.

Six years ago, she was the first recipient of Dixfield’s Distinguished Citizen Award.

Currently, she heads Dixfield’s Economic Development Committee, is a 30-year member of the Finance Committee, and a member of the River Valley Growth Council and River Valley Area Chamber of Commerce.

Born Norine Hunt in 1939 in what was then known as the Ridlonville section of Mexico, she was an only child. Her parents owned and operated Hunt Auto Sales near where Morrison Motors is now.

Her grandfather was the caretaker of the building in which the family lived in the Packard Block neighborhood; her grandmother managed it.

That grandmother taught her the skills she uses today to teach others how to sew, knit, embroider and crochet at her business.

“I was always surrounded by hobbies since I was a child, from birth to 12 years old,” Clarke said.

“My grandmother used to take care of me on weekends, and she thought she would try to amuse me, so she would teach me how to knit and crochet, hemstitch and embroider. Oh, we did everything, whatever the going fad was,” she said.

One fad was knitting socks, sweaters and scarves for America’s World War II troops.

“It was the Depression, and you had to make a lot of the things you wore,” Clarke said of her grandmother’s skills.

Growing up and being schooled in Mexico, she never met Ralph, who lived across the Androscoggin River in Rumford, until she went to the University of Maine at Orono.

“At that time, there was a big rivalry between Rumford and Mexico, and you didn’t do too much socializing, except for the fights after the football games,” Clarke said, laughing.

In college, Clarke majored in math and minored in English.

After graduating, she taught high school English for about a year, then substituted for 10 years at Mexico and Dirigo high schools.

“I taught everything from French to industrial arts, and math at the middle school in Rumford,” she said.

In 1981, she met a friend, Penelope Stowell, who convinced her they should start a business together, selling crafts in a little vacant log cabin located less than a mile from where she now works.

Three years later, Stowell left the business. Clarke moved it in 1985 to its present location. Interestingly, that building, a former stable and drugstore, used to be a garage at which her father worked.

The Clarkes have two sons, Neil and Brian, and a daughter, Melanie, with whom Norine collects mystery series. Melanie of Auburn is a Rite-Aid manager in Brunswick; Neil, a pharmacist in New Hampshire; and Brian, a hockey coach in Hartford, Conn.

Norine Clarke said she never played hockey, but her husband was a coach in the Rumford Area Youth Hockey Association, which they helped found and run. Norine was its bookkeeper.

One year, she and her husband logged 10,000 miles each on a pair of station wagons they owned, carting area hockey players to games across the state.

“I enjoy being involved in community activities and home activities,” she said, but what little spare time she has, is devoted to reading and visiting their two grandsons, who both play hockey.