Bruce Thurlow

Scarborough native, well-known educator, psychologist, and longtime superintendent of schools for Cape Elizabeth, Bruce H. Thurlow died Feb. 15 at his home in Pine Point.

Friends and family described Thurlow as an exceptionally kind and warmhearted family man who worked hard all his life and achieved success in the field of education and psychology.

Thurlow, 84, grew up in Pine Point and was from a long line of fishermen and lobstermen. He graduated from Scarborough High School in 1956, where he was a standout basketball and baseball athlete, according to his family. Thurlow made his living lobstering and clamming during and after high school. He was encouraged by legendary Scarborough teacher Marguerite Lary to become a teacher and was the first of his generation to attend college.

Thurlow enrolled in Gorham State Teachers’ College, now University of Southern Maine, in 1956. While a junior at Gorham, he married his high school sweetheart Marguerite “Peggy” D’Amico. The couple had three sons; Michael, recently retired Scarborough fire chief, John, South Portland educator and retired school leader in Scarborough, and Jeffrey Thurlow, a surgeon in Newburyport.

Thurlow began teaching at Jack Junior High School in Portland. He is remembered fondly as an outstanding teacher and was encouraged by mentors to attend graduate school, family members said. He moved his young family to the University of Maine at Orono where he chose to study counseling and psychology earning a doctorate in psychology and became licensed to practice.

During the 1970s he was a guidance counselor at Cape Elizabeth High School while also counseling private clients in an office in the basement of his Scarborough home. Dr. Thurlow was tapped by the Cape Elizabeth school board to become interim superintendent during its search for a new leader. In the end, the board hired Thurlow who stayed in the post for 20 years, retiring from public education in 1986. He was then sought out to serve interim superintendencies in three other districts. Thurlow practiced psychology full-time in the 1990s. He also opened a tutorial center and founded a private school for children with different learning needs.

Thurlow and his wife were enthusiastic dancers for over 30 years. They opened a dance studio alongside their private school in Scarborough before retiring a second time.

Thurlow was very involved in his community having served as a trustee of the Scarborough Public Library, serving on the boards of Project G.R.A.C.E, Friends of the Scarborough Marsh, and the Scarborough Historical Society. It was there he devoted time giving schoolchildren tours of the museum and telling stories of Scarborough’s past.

Thurlow was an author of many historical articles about the estuary and about lobstering and clamming, both for the Maine State Library and the Scarborough Historical Society. He also published articles in the book “Scarborough at 350: Linking the Past to the Present,” which commemorated Scarborough’s 350th anniversary in 2008. He recently completed the manuscript for his personal memoire and a photographic history titled “Recollections of Pine Point” which will be published later this year.