Greg Johnson, executive director of The Summit Project, addresses Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School students and guests Feb. 7 about the organization’s mission to help Gold Star families in Maine honor their fallen loved ones. Superintendent Heather Manchester and school Principal Paul Bickford listen. Nicole Carter/Advertiser Democrat

PARIS — Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School students learned powerful lessons about service, sacrifice and patriotism during an assembly Feb. 7 featuring The Summit Project.

Principal Paul Bickford introduced Greg Johnson, executive director of the Maine-based organization with a mission to memorialize Maine’s fallen service members by using tribute stones that are carried on excursions around the world by volunteers and family members.

“Twelve years ago, when we first conceptualized The Summit Project, we made a promise to all Gold Star families in Maine that their fallen loved ones would never be forgotten,” Johnson said.

To date, 85 honor stones have been completed and are traveling on memorial journeys as the organization continues to expand its reach.

Each stone is chosen by the service member’s family in deeply meaningful ways.

Oxford Hills high school teacher Jessica Roy, the wife of Navy Chief Petty Officer Robert Roy, spoke about her experiences with and support from The Summit Project.

Army PFC Terry Beane’s honor stone is one of 20 displayed Feb. 7 at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School in Paris and loaned by The Summit Project. Beane graduated from Edward Little High School in Auburn in 2012. He died in 2019 in Las Vegas, Nev. while on active duty, leaving his wife and two children. The Summit Project works with Maine Gold Star families to commemorate and honor their fallen heroes. Nicole Carter/Advertiser Democrat

He died in 2013 in automobile accident in Florida where he was stationed.

“The Summit Project literally makes you put one foot in front of the other,” she said. “With the goal in sight – the summit of the mountain … and when you get to the top, you can literally let everything out. It is such a release of grief, and you find out you are fully capable of putting one foot in front of the other and overcome a massive loss.”

According to The Summit Project website, his family retrieved a stone in the spring of 2015 from the fire pit at the family camp in Lincoln where he loved to sit and share stories with family and friends. It “is the last place the family was together before Robert’s death.”

Dennis Shipman selected a stone from a Maine river where his son, Marine Corps Sgt. Joshua Shipman, fly-fished as a child. He has carried it on many hikes over the past three years, including the 100-Mile Wilderness section of the Appalachian Trail that ends at the summit of Mount Katahdin.

The Shipmans are featured with other volunteer hikers in The Summit Project’s documentary film “A Journey to Remember.”

Students and local Gold Star families were treated to a private showing of the film.

Memorial stones, courtesy of The Summit Project, are displayed Feb. 7 at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School in Paris. They are a tribute to fallen Maine service members and are carried on excursions around the world by volunteers and family members. Nicole Carter/Advertiser Democrat

Following the assembly, 20 stones, including Roy’s, were unveiled in an honor case as part of a traveling display in the main corridor at the school.