OAKFIELD – Residents mourned the death early this week of veteran educator Beverly D. Clark, who taught school or was principal for 37 years at schools in Oakfield, Houlton and Dedham.

Clark, 74, died Tuesday after battling cancer.

“Every time I saw Mr. Clark, he had a smile on his face,” said Mike Cummings, a paramedic for the Houlton Ambulance Department, on Thursday. “He was the nicest guy you could ever meet.”

Clark started out teaching at the elementary level and worked his way up from there. He became principal of the former Lambert School in Houlton in 1967, and ended his career after serving as principal of Houlton Elementary School in 1988.

“Clark was one of the teachers who painted houses during summer vacation to earn extra money,” said Cummings, who attended school in Houlton. “He was always with another teacher, Mr. [Ralph] Prince.”

“Bev and I were very close friends,” Ralph Prince said Friday. “We grew up together, went to school together, we taught in Houlton together for 25 years. I was born 33 days ahead of him. … We used to joke that I came into the world first, checked it out, and then gave him the OK to join me.”

Clark served for 12 years as treasurer of the Maine Elementary Principals’ Association, a forerunner of the Maine Principals’ Association.

Bob Jackins, a Massachusetts resident, read Clark’s obituary in the online edition of the Bangor Daily News, and felt compelled to write.

“I never had Clark as a teacher,” Jackins wrote in a letter he faxed to the NEWS, “but I can remember him just as clearly as I remember registering for school on a magnificent, warm and sunny day in 1953.”

“What was remarkable was that it was so rare for a male to be teaching below the high school level at that time,” Jackins remembered. “Women predominated [in] the elementary and junior high school ranks in Houlton. A lot of people can remember their hometown teachers 40 or 50 years later. … I’m sure a lot of people remember Mr. Clark and have anecdotes to tell about him.

Prince said Friday, “He kept working at little things, right up to the end. He kept working through the pain. He was a wonderful person.”

Clark’s funeral was Friday at the Bowers Funeral Home in Houlton. Donations may be made to the Bev Clark Houlton Elementary School Fund, care of the Bowers Funeral Home, P.O. Box 579, Houlton.