Dressed in the impeccable white uniform of a U.S. Navy commander, Capt. K. James Tackett was clearly “at home” in his quarters aboard the USS Fahrion.

But the son of a career Navy man once called Steuben home and is a graduate of the Sumner High School Class of 1966. Tackett took a stroll around his old alma mater Friday and discovered a reality common to any high school reunion: Some things are different and some things never change.

“Sumner’s a lot bigger than when I was there,” he said. “And there’s a lot more students. But one of my teachers that I had is still there — and he looked pretty much the same.”

Tackett asked U.S. Navy headquarters if he could make an unscheduled stop at Bar Harbor after completing a three-month recruiting tour in cities and towns along the Great Lakes waterways.

“I just wanted to come back to see some of my friends that I haven’t seen in quite a while,” he said. “It’s also a good place for the crew to wind down a little bit and start thinking about the military things that we need to reacquaint ourselves with. It’s a beautiful part of the country and I wanted my crew to see it.”

Whatever happened to Jim Tackett?

After leaving Sumner, he went on to graduate from the University of South Carolina’s Reserve Officers Training Corps program. The commissioned officer served two tours of duty in Vietnam where he piloted a gunboat up the Mekong River under enemy fire.

Since the 1970s, he has served aboard ships in the Atlantic and Pacific fleets and was stationed in the Persian Gulf when the American Embassy fell during the Islamic Revolution in Iran.

Earning the Meritorious Service Medal and the Navy Commendation Medal, Tackett went on to obtain a master’s degree in management. He married and became the father of two children. Since 1986, he had reported to the Surface Warfare Programs and Budget Division in the Pentagon.

“It was an interesting tour of duty, but I’m not the guy who was buying the $600 hammers, in case anybody asks,” he said.

Tackett arrived in Maine when his father, William, was transferred to duty at the Winter Harbor Naval Station. The family made their home in Steuben, but his father shipped out to South Carolina while Tackett was in his junior year at Sumner. He stayed with friends in Milbridge until his graduation a year later.

During his brief visit to the high school, the Navy commander made no effort to conceal his sentimental recollections.

“When I think of my teen-age years, I think of Maine,” Tackett said. “My best friends still live here.”