By Terry Karkos,Staff Writer

ALBANY TOWNSHIP – Bethel Police Chief and Stoneham Rescue Chief Alan J. Carr said his family takes center stage when he’s not working.

Carr, 58, and his wife of 19 years, Julia, 42, have twin 5-year-olds, Jacob and Alana. Lounging on a living room couch Friday afternoon in the house he built in 1995 with his father-in-law, Carr said he devotes his time away from work to the family.

The children attend kindergarten classes at a Christian school in Paris, and Julia teaches special education at Oxford Hills Middle School.

The family lives on six acres in a 45- by 72-foot ranch-style home.

From 1997 to 2002, Carr was a competitive and champion powerlifter. In 2001, he won a gold medal in his 180-pound weight class in the national competition of the American Powerlifting Federation. That earned him a trip to the world championship in South Africa, but family pull was stronger.

“I had to decline, because my wife just had the twins at that time. But, before my career ends, I would like to set another record at an older age,” he said.

Carr, who retired in 2002 from 25 years as a Maine State Police trooper, was hired by Bethel two years later.

After moving to Albany Township from Windham in 1995, he and his wife, an emergency medical technician, joined Stoneham’s volunteer rescue service that year “to become involved with the community,” he said.

A Republican, he is also currently campaigning for Oxford County sheriff in November.

Born in Bath and raised and educated in Portland, he moved to Windham after six years in the Navy. He joined the state police in 1977 because his friend was one, and, Carr said, he “liked the excitement, the adrenaline rush, and to help people.”

Religion has also shaped his life, he said.

Both Carr and Julia are members of the Windham Assembly of God, a Pentecostal church where they met and four months later married.

“The good Lord has helped me out of some tight situations. I firmly believe that if it wasn’t for the Lord, I’d be dead today,” he said.

In June 1982, a Massachusetts man kidnapped his own son and fled to Maine. Carr spotted and stopped the car, then chased the son and suspect into woods and caught the man. During the struggle to handcuff the suspect, the man “took my weapon out of my holster, cocked it, stuck it to my chest, and said he was going to kill me.”

But, after tense minutes “that seemed like hours,” Carr regained control, he said.

Shortly after, Maine created the state police canine force to protect troopers from such situations, he said. Carr eventually worked with a dog for eight years.

The family’s three large dogs, Houston, a 13-year-old German shepherd, Misty, one of Houston’s pups, and Jerry, a rambunctious 6-month-old black Labrador retriever, are an offshoot of that work.