Frank Hample in 2018. Hample, a longtime Somerville resident who volunteered his time and expertise at the town and county level throughout his life, died Aug. 18. (Photo courtesy Nikolas Hample)
Over the more than 44 years that Frank Hample lived in Somerville, the former selectman, planner, volunteer, and family man made a lasting mark on his town, on Lincoln County, and on the state of Maine. Those who knew Hample, though, say that he was never one to seek out accolades or recognition for his service.
Hample died peacefully on the morning of Aug. 18, leaving behind a community that has benefitted for decades from his attention to detail and commitment to service, and which will miss him dearly, according to his friends and those who worked alongside him.
“Frank did not have an ego at all,” said former Somerville school committee member and former Somerville Select Board Chair Chris Johnson. “He was just looking out for what was good for people.”
Since moving to Somerville in 1980, Hample served on a variety of town boards and committees. He began his service to the planning board immediately with his appointment in 1980 as an associate member.
Hample would assume the role of planning board chair in the late ‘80s. His service on the board continued, with breaks in which Hample served on other committees and boards, throughout his life. Most recently, Hample was serving a term as planning board alternate that was set to expire in 2025.
Hample also served on the Somerville Select Board as second selectman from about 1992 to 2006.
In the role, Hample was involved in projects from closing the former Somerville town dump and establishing Somerville’s involvement at the Tri-County Transfer Station in Union to moving town affairs from the school building to the Somerville town office on Sand Hill Road.
Hample also put his energy toward supporting local students and schools as a longtime member of the RSU 12 Board of Directors.
“He advocated for the education of students and adults,” said Russ Gates, fellow Somerville resident and current member of the board.
Hample was among the original members of the RSU 12 Board of Directors upon its formation in 2009, Gates said, and served on “numerous” committees, shaping decisions regarding everything from curriculum to adult educational programming.
In a letter to Somerville residents published in the town’s 2019 town report, RSU 12 Superintendent Howie Tuttle thanked Hample for being one of the district’s longest-serving directors.
Hample ended his service with the RSU 12 Board of Directors in 2020, but that did not conclude his service to local schools. He volunteered to serve on the board of Midcoast Adult and Community Education, a collaborative effort between RSU 12 and RSU 40 to expand local educational opportunities for adults, when the program formed in 2021.
The Somerville Select Board awarded Hample the Spirit of America Award in 2022 for his years of service to the school system.
Hample was also involved in local education in less formal avenues as both a parent and community member. Johnson recalled that Hample helped with a volunteer-led effort to replace the Somerville School’s roof; in a 2003 letter to the editor from then-Somerville School Principal Jeffrey Aronson, Hample is thanked for spending a Saturday morning helping shovel the roof after a period of heavy snow.
Hample was also remembered as a lifelong technology enthusiast and an early advocate for bringing accessible internet to Somerville. He served on multiple iterations of the town’s internet boards and committees, Johnson said.
The Somerville Municipal Broadband Committee – on which Hample served as recently as 2021 – is on the brink of realizing their long-shared goal. According to Johnson, the town’s new fiber network is expected to go live in October.
Hample’s influence at the county level included his work on the Lincoln County Regional Planning Commission, on which he was serving a term set to last through 2025 at the time of his death.
He also served on the former Lincoln County Development Advisory Committee from its formation in 1999 and later became one of six directors appointed in 2002 by the Lincoln County Commissioners to consider the formation of a Midcoast Economic Development District.
Hample also worked with the Lincoln County Planning Office throughout the early- to mid-1990s, was a member of the Lincoln County Economic Development Office’s Economic Development Advisory Committee, and served on the county’s Budget Advisory Committee from the mid-1990s to 2000s.
A lifelong outdoors enthusiast, Hample was also remembered for his dedication to preserving Maine’s natural beauty. He served on local environmental boards and associations including the Sheepscot River Watershed Council and Damariscotta Lake Watershed Association throughout his years in Somerville.
For much of his career, Hample’s full-time employment was with the state, where he first worked at the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development and later for the former Maine State Planning Office, which was eliminated in 2012.
As a state planner, Hample helped guide towns through development, including by assisting with the writing of comprehensive plans and grant applications. In this role, Hample served towns across the state and locally. Hample provided a final review of Waldoboro’s proposed comprehensive plan in 1997.
“It shows in his long-term involvement in municipal planning at the state planning office that he really was oriented toward making communities better for people,” Johnson said.
Hample’s work and knowledge from his day job often meant he was well suited to provide information and assistance to the municipal boards and committees he served on.
“He was always sending along emails, saying things like, ‘Of possible interest,’” Johnson said. “Whether it was a matter of policy, something the feds were doing, or a grant program… all kinds of things.”
Further evidence of Hample’s reputation as an enthusiastic municipal volunteer is his election, as a write-in candidate, to the RSU 12 Board of Directors at Somerville’s annual town meeting this June.
The commitment to community service and collaboration that characterized Hample’s municipal involvement was a constant since his early life.
Born in Queens, N.Y., Hample spent his childhood upstate in the Hudson Valley. An avid outdoorsman, he moved to Maine as a young man, in 1965, to attend the University of Maine at Orono. He remained in the state after graduating, at which time Hample began working for Volunteers in Service to America, or VISTA, an organization which was later integrated with Americorps.
At VISTA, Hample helped connect low-income people in Maine and, briefly, Milwaukee, Wis., with daily necessities and health care. His work with VISTA took Hample as far north as Caribou, then to Bangor.
While working in Bangor, Hample met his wife, Heidi Hample, to whom he had been married for 53 years at the time of his death.
To those who worked with Hample, his sense of humor and ability to bring levity even to tense moments was particularly memorable.
“Frank was such a great member of this community,” Somerville Town Clerk Samantha Peaslee said in an email to residents sharing the news of Hample’s death. “He served on multiple boards for the town as well as the school board and attended most meetings with a smile on his face.”
“He had a great sense of humor that disarmed situations. Frank did an awful lot of good in town, without being the person that steps in front of people,” Johnson said. “He helped gather people together.”
