GRAY — Renee Conlogue passed the brick building on West Gray Road daily for all of her 20 years teaching at Bonnie Eagle Middle School, seeing retail tenants come and go, and around year 15, she started thinking.

She had spent a decade in Hawaii. Had always wanted to open a shop.

In year 19, she signed the lease.

With nearly 100 instruments, Aloha Maine is a celebration of ukuleles.

“We don’t all have to be virtuosos or musicians,” said Conlogue, 59. “It’s all really about the joy and the happiness that it brings, so it’s just so wonderful I can do something I’m passionate about. Not just about the ukulele, but really about Hawaii.”

She leased the space in the summer of 2017, “before I had taken my first business class, anything.”

Initially, the idea for the shop was all things Hawaii — food, attire, jewelry — and it was initially open nights, weekends and summers, around her teaching schedule.

The shop gradually became more ukulele-driven, and when Conlogue was not able to return to a teaching position last fall at another school due to the pandemic, it also became a full-time enterprise.

New Ventures Maine helped her secure a $5,000 grant to build inventory. She’s also worked with SCORE mentors.

“The biggest shift is that really I am the student now instead of being the teacher,” she said. “I’ve really just been able to immerse myself in learning how to be a businesswoman.”

Conlogue has played the ukulele for six or seven years. She said the pandemic helped her discover her niche — bringing other beginners to the instrument, and connecting them with teachers and groups with which to play.

Two musicians teach from her shop — one for adults, one for children. Kids as young as 5 have taken lessons.

“(There’s a) social aspect of being with people who are just so welcoming,” Conlogue said. “People who play the ukulele, I don’t know what it is, I think it’s the magic of the instrument itself. It’s just a happy instrument, and it’s not as intimidating. Once you’ve learned just a few chords, there are just so many different songs that you can play.”

The Gray-New Gloucester community is small and close. People coming through Aloha Maine’s doors have been an unexpected source of support, she said.

Conlogue’s college-age son, Royce, died by suicide a few months after she opened the shop.

“My son was very outgoing. He was the vice president of his class,” she said. “So many of my customers come in and volunteer time and check in on me, and their love and care and concern has really continued to help propel me forward. Just when you feel like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I can’t do this,’ one of my customers comes through the door for a big hug and some moral support, and reminds me again why I do this.”

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