SALEM TOWNSHIP – As a student, Richard Parker wrote about his dreams of serving his country, his middle school guidance counselor Mike Ellis said Friday.

“He was a very energetic, fun-loving young man who was thinking of going into the military even then,” Ellis said.

Ellis, now a teacher at Mt. Abram High School, and Gary Perlson, the high school’s career coordinator, said Parker wanted to serve.

“He died doing what he wanted to do,” Perlson said.

Parker graduated from Mt. Abram Regional High School in 1999 and from there went directly into the National Guard.

Perlson said he helped Parker pursue his dream.

Parker graduated with Perlson’s daughter Morgan, and Perlson recalls driving the two of them to kindergarten together.

Perlson said the small community is like a family, and even though, “There are people much closer to him than I am, it still feels like I lost a member of the family.”

Perlson described Parker as “just a typical rural Maine kid” who liked adventure and the outdoors.

One particularly humorous memory of Parker that Perlson recalls is that he and his brother were the only trick-or-treaters he ever had walk all the way down to his house Halloween night.

“I lived 30 years there, and Richard was the only trick-or-treater I had ever come to my house,” Perlson said. Not expecting trick-or-treaters, Perlson gave the boy money and hoped that he would come back the following years, but he never made the long trek again.

Living in a small community, everyone knew Parker, and most are still in shock, Perlson said.

Plans are being made to hold his funeral at the high school because it is the center of the community and can hold the many mourners expected to attend, Perlson said.