RUMFORD — Andrea Bowen plans to spend more time in Maine Mud. Not the wet soil that covers the earth in March, but the dark chocolate sauce that she creates and sells.

Bowen, a Connecticut native, will retire from her job as guidance counselor at Rumford Elementary School in June after having served in the district for 21 years. She plans to devote more time to her business, but she will greatly miss the students and staff she has worked with for so many years, she said.

“I’ve enjoyed the process of working with the kids. It’s been a really good job for me, and very challenging. Thank goodness for the support of the teachers and Principal Anne Chamberlin,” she said.

Rather than talk with youngsters one-on-one, Bowen has developed a program over the years that teaches children to set goals, lower stress, take responsibility for their feelings, and learn how to work with other children.

Although she occasionally counsels children on a short-term basis, the vast majority of her time is spent in the classroom with children doing group work.

“We focus on achievement, how to hold down a job, and knowing that everyone will not always agree,” she said. “The program is preventive in nature.”

Her cluttered office is not where she meets with youngsters. Instead, it’s a place where she stores items for use in the classroom.

“I credit a lot of my success with the teaching staff and Anne. It’s been a fabulous professional culture here,” she said.

Besides expanding her Maine Mud business, which uses a dark chocolate sauce recipe Bowen got from her mother, into more wholesale and corporate gift markets, she plans to further develop her adventure-based program that she has used so successfully at Rumford Elementary School. She also plans to consult on classroom matters, and substitute occasionally.

She plans to further market a CD she developed on “Living with Chronic Pain,” which she created during a bout with early spinal challenges.

Coming to Maine many years ago seemed to be the right place. As a college student, she worked with girls at Camp Arcadia in the Casco area.

“I always felt the most comfortable in Maine,” she said.

She earned a forestry degree from the University of New Hampshire, a master’s degree in counseling from Norwich University in Vermont, and is certified as a K-12 guidance counselor. She was a private counselor for eight years in Connecticut.

Before becoming the guidance counselor at Rumford Elementary, she served as an educational technician at the now closed Peru Elementary School.

Leaving will be tough in June, she said, because she’ll miss the camaraderie of the staff, and the children.

“I’m going to miss seeing the light bulb go off in a child’s head and the thumb’s up in the hallway showing that they are solving their own problems,” she said.

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