A Gorham High School teacher, Bill Bennett, 39, died on Sunday, June 26, in his Gorham home after a long battle with cancer.

Bennett’s battle with cancer began more than a year ago. Terry Bennett praised Gorham High School Principal John Drisko and the whole community for an outpouring of care. “The community has been very supportive,” she said.

Bennett was a math teacher at Gorham High School for the past five years. He was also a coach for the high school football and math teams. His wife said he missed time from school in January because of the illness but returned to work. She said he continued teaching through the end of the school year, a week before he died.

John Drisko, principal of Gorham High School, said Bennett had an “unbelieveable compassion” for the kids and was presented a quilt by staff and students in recognition of his dedication. “He would never give up on a student,” Drisko said.

Christine Lord, mother of Adam Lord, who was one of Bennett’s students, said Thursday her son was on a humanitarian trip to Nicaragua and wouldn’t have heard the news of Bennett’s death. “He’s going to be really sad,” she said.

She said Bennett, as a teacher and coach, had inspired her son, the 2005 class salutatorian who was on Bennett’s math team. “He really looked up to Mr. Bennett,” Lord’s mother said.

As a mentor to Adam Lord, Bennett received an invitation to participate in a ceremony in Augusta in February honoring Lord and fellow senior Mary Johnston. The two Gorham students were honored for being among the state’s top 50 students in MEA scores.

He attended the ceremony for Lord and Johnston, walking with a cane. “He made a huge effort to get there. He worked hard to be there for them. I was touched by that,” Christine Lord said.

“He wanted to see the kids from Gorham get their awards,” Bennett’s wife said.

Terry Bennett described her husband as a natural teacher. “He loved to watch them grow and learn,” she said.

One of Gorham’s football players, Tyson Nason, said Bennett coached defense and worked with the running backs. Nason, who also graduated this year, said Bennett was inspirational.

“He always kept the players focused,” Nason said.

Nason said Bennett’s children would often attend summer football camps with him. “He was a really good guy, down to earth, and his family came first,” Nason said.

Bennett enjoyed watching his daughter dance and his sons participating in sports. “He was always playing with them,” his wife said about their children.

An outdoorsman, he took his family sailing, swimming and fishing at Peaks Island. In the winter, Bennett enjoyed snowmobiling and took family and friends ice fishing. He did the cooking at family barbecues.

Bennett was born in Rumford on Sept. 18, 1965, and graduated from Rumford High School in 1984. He played sports in high school, and his wife said he was a junior olympian as a kid. “Whatever he tried, he was good at,” she said.

Bennett attended St. Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., where he majored in math. He began working with at-risk youths at Webster House while a student at St. Anselm and continued working there for several years after graduation. He met his wife, a social worker, while they were both working at the Webster House, and they married on Aug. 11, 1990. They then were house parents for a Spurwink Home in Dover, N.H., until they returned to Maine where Bennett began working at Youth Alternatives in Portland.

Bennett began his teaching career at Bonny Eagle Middle School in 1994. There, he started an alternative education program for middle school students.

Before teaching at Gorham High School, Bennett taught math at Lyman Moore Middle School in Portland for five years. Among his accomplishments at Lyman Moore, he took his math team to the state championship, where they earned a berth at the national finals in Washington, D.C.

Bennett also coached baseball, basketball and soccer as a volunteer for the Gorham Recreation Department. His wife said he loved coaching and she thought football was his favorite sport.

The Bennetts have lived in Gorham for six and a half years.

A funeral Mass for Bennett will be held at 10 a.m. Friday, July 1, at St. Anne’s Church, 299 Main St., Gorham. A reception from noon to 4 p.m. at the Little Falls Community Center will follow burial at the White Rock Cemetery.

Bennett is survived by his wife, Terry; and a daughter Katie, 12, and two sons, Joe, 10, and Matt, 8; his parents, Eugene and Margaret Bennett of Peaks Island; his brother, Jim, of York; his brother, Joe, of Raymond; his sister, Maria Malone of Asheville, N.C.; and many nieces and nephews. Friends visited with his family on Thursday evening at the Dolby Funeral Chapel, 434 River Road, Windham.

Bill Bennett