HOULTON – The halls of Houlton High School were quiet Wednesday morning after the death Tuesday of an eighth-grade pupil there.

Chris Hiscoe, 14, had just begun a physical education class shortly after 1:30 p.m. Tuesday when he suddenly collapsed while doing warm-up exercises.

“We were in there within seconds,” said Michael Chadwick, principal at the combination junior-senior high school. He said the school nurse was in the building at the time.

“It became obvious right away that it was beyond what we could do,” he said.

The Houlton ambulance was called, and the boy was rushed to Houlton Regional Hospital, where he died a short time later.

“I’ve taken kids to the emergency room for 28 years,” the veteran educator said somberly. “But they’ve always come back.”

School officials met with teachers after school Tuesday and activated the district’s crisis response plan.

On Wednesday, councilors from the Aroostook Mental Health Center and youth ministers from area churches were assisting councilors at the school who were available to talk with students who wanted to do so.

The school’s library also was opened up as a place for students to talk if they wanted. Across the hall from the library, a large paper banner was hung up on which pupils could write messages and express their feelings.

Chadwick said the banner would later be given to Chris’s parents, George and Diane Hiscoe, and the boy’s brothers and sisters.

As of Wednesday morning, school officials still did not know what caused the boy to suddenly collapse.

Hiscoe played soccer and had undergone a required physical before playing this fall, Chadwick said.

“Junior high soccer games and practices were much more extreme than what he was doing” in physical education class, Chadwick said, adding that school officials were not aware of any health problems Hiscoe might have had.

At lunch “he was joking, laughing and being an eighth-grade boy,” said the principal.

“He was a nice kid, a positive kid; laughing, smiling, bubbling,” Chadwick said.

The hallway in the school’s junior high wing was uncommonly quiet Wednesday.

The normal laughter and chatter that is the typical raucous chorus as pupils move from class to class was gone.

Instead, red-eyed girls stood in small groups talking quietly among themselves. Boys were just as quiet.

Chadwick said that overall, most students had come to school Wednesday.

“I think kids want to be here,” he said, “not sitting home alone.”

Teachers met early before classes on Wednesday to discuss how the day and week will proceed.

“Kids are going to be upset,” said Chadwick. “This is a day to be a little light around here.”

The incident also has been hard on teachers, he said, adding that staff members have been supporting one another even as they try to comfort the pupils.

Superintendent David Wiggin said that a writing prompt practice that had been scheduled for Friday morning has been rescheduled for Friday, Oct. 19.

SAD 29 schools will close early Friday to allow students and district staff to attend the boy’s funeral at 1 p.m. at the Wesleyan Church in Houlton.

The Wellington School in Monticello will close at 11 a.m. Houlton Elementary School, Southside School and the high school will be dismissed at 11:30 a.m., Wiggin said.