Dick Spear is all smiles in the Nobleboro town office on Tuesday, Jan. 27. Although Spear cited his health as a reason for resigning from the Nobleboro Select Board after 23 years, he said there is no immediate cause for concern. (Sherwood Olin photo)
He appreciates the thoughts and kind words he’s received in the last week or so, but Richard “Dick” Spear would like everyone to know there little cause for immediate concern.
Spear, who cited health concerns as a reason for resigning from the Nobleboro Select Board this month after 23 years in office, said his health was only one of a number of factors that all collectively suggested it was time to step down. Spear said he is not in crisis, although he acknowledged he is dealing with the kind of challenges typical of a 70-year-old man who has worked on a farm all his life.
More than anything, he said, now is a good time to go. The town is in good shape, having recently completed a reevaluation and the hiring of a new assessor and a code enforcement officer. Currently the town has no major projects on the horizon and board chair John Chadwick has been on the board for seven years and has served as chair for one.
Spear had a year remaining on his current term necessitating a special election to fill his seat. The board, Chadwick and Richard Powell, accepted his resignation “with great remorse” Jan. 4.
“Yes, I’ll miss it somewhat,” he said. “I won’t miss every Wednesday night, missing supper, coming down here to a meeting, then going home to have a late supper and stuff. It was just time.”
With Powell deciding not to seek reelection this year, Spear expressed some regret about leaving Chadwick alone as the most experienced member of the board, but said he is confident Chadwick will continue to do a great job and Spear is only a phone call away.
At the select board’s request, he remains the station agent for the Nobleboro-Jefferson Transfer Station. The duties include occasional check-ins at the transfer station and preparing for the board’s annual meeting, he said.
Spear grew up in North Nobleboro and attended Medomak Valley High School where he excelled in sports. He loved playing baseball and soccer, but his forte was basketball. The 6-foot, 3-inch farm boy thrived under the basket, battling for rebounds against much larger players.
“They called me ‘Tractor,’” he said with evident relish. “I could push people around. I averaged, what, 15-16 points a game my senior year and 15-20 rebounds.”
Starting right out of high school, Spear became a basketball referee and officiated games for the next 25 years until “the court got too long,” he said.
“I enjoyed it,” he said. “It was one of those where you can’t please everybody, but that didn’t bother me. I figured half the people are going to agree with you.”
At the University of Maine he tried out for the Black Bears freshman team. Spear said the coaches figured his height required a move to a different position.
“They want me playing guard, because they got 6-foot, 10 (inch) guys to play inside,” he said. “They wouldn’t let me show how I could take care of those big guys inside.”
Spear still follows Medomak Valley sports with a keen interest, especially basketball. Although he prefers to watch college basketball as a viewer, like many Maine basketball fans he is closely following the career of Newport native Cooper Flagg , who is now playing for the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA.
Dick Spear credited his father, Herbert Spear, for setting an example of community service. Herbert Spear never held political office himself, but he was active in the community and he served Nobleboro as a town meeting moderator for more than 20 years.
Dick Spear’s older brother, Robert “Bob” Spear, contributed 27 years to the town, including 11 years on the school committee and another 16 on the select board. Bob Spear finished with a more than 10 years in Augusta as a state representative and later, the commissioner of the Maine Department of Agriculture under Govs. Angus King and John Baldacci.
“I feel an obligation as a taxpayer, to put my time in,” Dick Spear said. “I just enjoyed doing it. It’s not personal gain or anything like that. You get yelled at more than anything.”
Herbert Spear believed in bringing people together for the good of the entire town, Dick Spear said, and his approach in office has reflected his father’s influence. While Spear is personally politically conservative, he said he had no trouble setting his personal views aside to do the town’s business.
“As far being selectman, my quote is ‘I liked being selectman,’” he said. “I don’t have to be Republican. I don’t have to be Democrat. I do what’s best for the town. That’s the way it is with me. I don’t like politics, but we do what’s best for the town, and we’ve done okay here.”
Dick Spear was a studying electrical engineering at the University of Maine Orono when his father died suddenly from a heart attack in 1975. Dick Spear cut his college experience short and returned home to Nobleboro and joined the family business, operating Spear Farms. Farm life has been good for him, Spear said, and the family business is in good shape these days even if he taking a less active role.
Spear’s first municipal office involved serving 11 years on the Nobleboro School Committee from 1980-1991. During his tenure, Spear chaired the building committee that oversaw the development and construction of a major addition to the Nobleboro Central School.
Spear said the project was a two-year-long process that involved near daily visits to the job site during construction. The project added numerous classrooms, a gymnasium/cafeteria, the library and arts spaces, a pitched roof, a new well, and other appointments and supporting equipment at a cost of just over $2.8 million.
During construction, Spear said he had pretty much memorized the state funding formulas for education, as he was insistent Nobleboro make every effort to qualify for as much state funding as possible.
“You had to work with them,” he said. “We’ve got this program, we need space for it, and they’d give you the money, but they wouldn’t give you the money to build another room, anticipating that you were going to have a program.”
Building project complete, Spear left the school committee with a sense of accomplishment. Spear said he had some vague thought about running for the select board at some point in the future, but the thought crystallized when he ran into former Selectman Bill Campbell outside the Nobleboro Village Store one day in 2002.
“Dale (Wright) and Bill Campbell and stuff, they ran it for years in between Bob and I,” Dick Spear said. “And then Bill Campbell, standing out in front of Village Store down there, he goes, ‘I got something to run by you. ‘You’re going to run for selectman this year.’ I said ‘I am?’”
For the majority of Spear’s tenure in office, his goal was to keep taxes as low as possible. It has only been in the last couple years that taxes have crept up and most of those increases are directly due to post-COVID related expenses, Spear said.
Spear said he hopes people will continue to take an interest in town affairs. Although he agreed a lack of a healthy turnout at town meetings can be frustrating, he chooses to look at the positive.
“The only thing it says is that we’re doing a good job,” he said. “The way I look at it is if they’re not there complaining and wanting to cut things and do stuff, then we’re doing a good job. I mean, if there’s problems with the school budget being high or whatever, there’ll be 100 people at a meeting. If everything’s going fine, there’ll be 40 at the meeting.”
Looking back over his municipal career, Spear said the construction of the new school facility was probably the single the largest project he was involved in.
“I remember when we opened up the new school, I stood up in front of the all the kids,” he said. “They stopped and wanted to me say something. I said, ‘As you’re growing up, and you move away, and someone says, where are you from, don’t say Damariscotta or Waldoboro. Say Nobleboro and be proud of it.’ That’s what I said. ‘Don’t say you’re from somewhere else. You’re from Nobleboro.’”
(Do you have a suggestion for a “Characters of the County” subject? Email info@lcnme.com with the subject line “Characters of the County” with the name and contact information of your nominee.)
