FARMINGTON – A longtime Farmington high school teacher and canning factory employer was remembered Monday by family and friends for his incredible example in living.

Richard Beal Gould, 92, not only was a model for his children but for others as well, his oldest daughter, Susan Gould Clark, said the family is hearing. His 55 years of teaching physics and chemistry at Farmington and Mt. Blue high schools, as well as his coaching the Farmington High School ski team and his church work gave him the opportunity to connect and touch a lot of people in this area, she added.

Gould died Sunday after an active life, giving up tennis about a year ago, said Charles and Amanda Murray, who played doubles with him for several years.

“He was unique, very strong and a quiet individual,” Charles Murray, one of his former students.

Murray also worked one summer for Gould at the family corn and bean shop, Franklin Farms Products Co., formerly on the Intervale where McDonald’s and Irving Mainway now sit. Gould ran the shop with his parents and then alone after his father’s death in 1960. In 1966 when the shop closed, the plant packed 1.33 million cans of string beans in 31 days. In the next 20 days, 1.5 million cans of corn were packed, according to information supplied by the family. The plant employed 75 to 100 people for a couple summer months.

“He was so amazing as a person, and as an employer he was just as considerate and very calm. He was a very bright man who served on the town’s budget committee for years after his retirement. He was a fine, fine citizen,” Murray added.

Running the shop after his father’s death, Gould spent summer months and the first few weeks of school there, said Stan Keirstead, former principal of Farmington and Mt. Blue high schools. “He was the only teacher I knew excused from teaching for two to three weeks every fall” because there were employees depending on the work and farmers who brought their crops there, he said.

“He was also the only teacher I’d ever seen who called his students Miss so-and-so or Mr. so-and-so. I’d never seen that before,” he added. “He was a good teacher and was just so organized. He did a thorough job on anything he did.”

Gould began teaching in 1938 at Farmington High School and then at Mt. Blue High School ,where he retired in June 1993. He served as head of the science department for 25 years.

He was credited with enlisting support and building the first cross country trail around Titcomb Mountain and the first jump there. He coached the high school ski team to be state champions in 1955 and 1957, said Clyde Ross, a member of the team.

Gould was inducted in to the Maine Ski Hall of Fame in 2006.

“He was a remarkable man,” he said, “attentive to the needs of the young skiers.” He said the team didn’t have a lot of equipment or money so Gould would take them to meets.

“Some people set a standard for others to emulate,” Ross said, “he set that standard for me whether it was social graces, Masonic work, education or work ethic. He was a gentleman.”