LACONIA — After serving for 31 years in the city school system, the last 13 of them as Superintendent of Schools, Bob Champlin announced yesterday that he will step down at the close of the school year.
In a letter to Joe Cormier, who chairs the School Board, read when the board met last night, Champlin explained "as you know, I have had some significant struggles with a health issue. While I am confident I will get better (as I have many times before)," he continued, "I also know that the Laconia Schools need and deserve consistent leadership."
Later Champlin said that "nothing is more important to me than the well-being of our schools, our students, our teachers and our staff. It is a 24/7 job and I'm afraid I would make a mistake. This was a very tough decision." He said that he had no immediate plans other than "to get my health together." He explained that in the 18 years since he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis "I've battled it really well.  I've beat it before and I'll do it again."
A native of Rhode Island, Champlin captained the basketball team at Coventry High School, playing as a stretch forward against the likes of Marvin "Bad News" Barnes and Ernie DiGregorio, who later starred at Providence College. After a stint at Rhode Island Junior College, he graduated from Rhode Island College, majoring in both special and elementary education.
In 1980 he came to New Hampshire, where he began his career at the Spaulding Youth Center in Northfield, working with children with neurological and behavioral challenges and within a couple of years put his foot through the doorway of the Laconia schools as a crisis counselor for the eight schools of Laconia, Gilford and Gilmanton.
The story goes that when he arrived in the city to find Champlin Street in the South End, he knew he had come to the right place. Champlin began as a counselor at Woodland Heights Elementary School, then assistant principal and finally principal. "I've got some loyalty there," he said of Woodland Heights, where he met his wife and saw his youngest through school.
In 1999 Champlin became assistant superintendent and within two years superintendent. By then the schools had embarked on a program to renovate the three elementary schools as well as build a new middle school and high school. Ed Philpot, who served on the school board and helped frame the program, formed a lasting friendship with Champlin. "Bob came up through the district," he said. "He has an unfailing passion for this school district and has been its heart and soul."
Philpot described the building program, which is being capped with the completion and opening of the renovated and expanded Huopt Technical Center, new science laboratories and rebuilt athletic fields at the high school, as "the smallest part of it. He would have done it in a cardboard box if he'd had to. Bob was about delivering the core services," he explained. "How can we be the very best at educating kids. He is an indomitable spirit when it comes to kids."
Champlin was quick to attribute any success he achieved to "the shared leadership in our community. It's really been about the people," he said. In his letter he lauded the faculty and staff for "developing the potential for success in every student, every day, in every way" and observed "leadership is an exciting place place to be and my job has been made easier by the tremendous people who work in Laconia." The school board, city council, city manager, police and fire chiefs and other "community partners have helped make our schools so much more powerful and effective than I could ever have accomplished on my own."
Champlin said that "when I return to Providence and tell my old friends, the guys I played ball with, what I'm doing, they say 'excuse me you're doing what? Are you crazy?" In closing his letter he answered "I am so grateful to have had this opportunity. Being someone who tried to help children and families in our little city is a dream come true for me."

In a story that ran in the May 3 edition about the HERO Awards, Travis Cole's work with the Lakes Region Rotary Club and the Lakes Region Chamber of Commerce was inaccurately reported. He is the past president of both organizations. The information was also incorrect in a story that ran in the April 12 edition.

LACONIA — In what it is hoped will be a rebirth of interest in cross-country running at Laconia High School, both past and present members of LHS cross-country teams, men and women, are being invited to a Bridging the Years event at the Laconia Public Library on Friday, May 17, at 6:30 p.m.
Andy Mercer, Laconia High School cross-country coach, said that he is hoping that runners spanning several generations will show up for the event, which will feature the renaming of two awards that are presented each year to team members.
He said that the Most Valuable Player Award will be renamed the Larry Stinson Award in honor of Stinson, whom he called ''a superstar runner'' and was a star of the Laconia High School cross-country teams which took three consecutive Class M state titles from 1974 to 1976.
The award now called the Coaches Award will be renamed in honor of Tom Dowling, a long-time LHS cross-country coach who was a championship runner at Simonds High School in Warner in the 1960s. That award goes to the runner who meets the coaches criteria of dedication and improvement.
Mercer said that members of both the girls' and boys' teams will receive the newly-renamed awards.
Mercer said that a famous photo of Stinson, then a sophomore, crossing the finish line in a virtual dead heat with LHS freshman B.J. Fowler ran in Sports Illustrated in December 1974. Both finished with times of 13.10.36 with Fowler taking first.
But tragedy struck in December 1975 when Stinson was fatally wounded in a shooting.
A Kiwanis Club scholarship was established in his name, according to Russ Lagueux, now of Londonderry and a 1979 graduate of Laconia High School, who said that last fall, after witnessing the success of Laconia High School cross-country runner Samantha "Sami" Hicks, he became curious about whatever had happened to that award.
''When I found out that it was no longer awarded I got ahold of Tara Hickey (now Tara Cox) and talked to her about doing something to bring it back,'' says Lagueux, who says that he also talked with Laconia Public Library Librarian Randy Brough, who ran on the same cross-country teams with Stinson and Fowler that dominated Class L running, about putting together ad event for former runners.
''I was a good runner on a great team,'' says Lagueux, who recalls being recruited as a runner by Dowling, who taught English at Laconia High School.
''We used to run the mile in high school gym classes and when he saw my time he told me I should be running for his team. He really encouraged me and was a great coach,'' says Lagueux
He said that Dowling moved out-of-state after his Laconia years and died of a heart attack he suffered while running in the 1990s.
''We're hoping this event will bring some energy back to the idea of running cross-country in the Lakes Region,'' says Lagueux, who is hoping that it will result in the formation of a Boosters Club to help support the high school cross-county teams.
Mercer, who is a third grade teacher at Elm Street Elementary School, has been coaching cross-country for seven years at Laconia High School.
''There's a rich tradition in athletics in Laconia and people in the community are invested in seeing kids do well. There's a lot of competition for talent, especially girls, who have field hockey, volleyball, soccer and cheer-leading to chose from for fall sports. I'm hoping that the success which Sami Hicks has had and the promise shown by some young runners at the Laconia Middle School will get more kids interested in cross-country,'' says Mercer.
Mercer said that the event at the library will be catered by North Country Deli, which is owned by the Wernig family of Gilford, whose daughter Gretchen – now Gretchen Gandini – was a star cross-country runner at Gilford High School in the 1990s and is now executive director of the WOW Trail committee, which is building a rail trail through downtown Laconia.