Friends and colleagues remember Jerry Goss as a dedicated, respectful and kind leader who was a tireless advocate for causes he cared about.
Sen. Susan Collins’ office announced Thursday night Goss, a longtime Brewer city councilor and the city’s former high school principal, had died suddenly, though no details about his death were provided.
Goss graduated from Brewer High School in 1965 and attended the University of Maine before becoming a teacher at Joseph A. Leonard Jr. High in Old Town. He later became the assistant principal there before taking a job as the principal of Brewer High School, where he served for 15 years before retiring in 2002 at the age of 55.
Goss was the Brewer High School principal when the district’s Superintendent Gregg Palmer joined the school department as a teacher. During that time, Palmer said Goss strived to be accessible and approachable to students and spent time in the hallways, cafeteria and classrooms.
“He wanted students to feel like they could trust him and reach out to him if they were in trouble rather than be intimidated or scared of him,” Palmer said.
Just before he retired, Goss hired a new school nurse for the high school with the goal of expanding health care for students years before Bangor launched in-school health clinics for students, Palmer said.
Goss also hired a school substance use councilor for students during his time as principal, which was “very new and different for the time,” Palmer said. This exemplified his perspective that schools should care for “the whole child” rather than only provide an education.
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“He recognized kids were struggling and he wanted to make sure they were receiving the support they needed, no matter what was going on,” Palmer said. “We’ve lost someone who cared more about helping people rather than advancing their own interests. He was Brewer through and through.”
Goss remained active in education following his retirement as a member of the Brewer High School District Trustees and chaired the group responsible for building the Brewer Community School.
Just last week, Goss and other Brewer city councilors walked on the new turf laid on the refurbished Heddericg Field, which is home to the high school’s baseball and field hockey teams but for years had been too wet to play on.
Goss advocated for the field to be remodeled into a multi-use sports complex with artificial turf and natural grass surfaces as well as courts for tennis, pickleball and volleyball, Palmer said.
“He walked all over it and imagined the games we’ll play on it,” Palmer said. “He wanted to throw out the first pitch at the first Brewer High School baseball game on the new field.”
Goss also loved high school basketball and served as the co-chair of the Eastern Maine BCD Basketball Tournament.
He was serving as deputy mayor of the Bangor city council, a body he was first elected to in 2009, at the time of his death.
Ben Sprague, who now sits on the Bangor School Committee, served on the Bangor City Council during Goss’ tenure as a Brewer city councilor. They were also both mayors of their respective cities from 2013 to 2014 and again in 2018.
Sprague said he saw Goss as a mentor who “took me under his wing” and shared his wisdom throughout their professional relationship.
“He was kind hearted and respectful to everyone he came into contact with, but he was funny too,” Sprague said. “He could send a zinger across the table and there was usually some good natured ribbing about Bangor versus Brewer in our meetings.”
When the two served as chairs, which comes with the honorary title of mayor, they collaborated often with the goal of improving issues affecting both cities, the most prominent of which was substance use disorder.
Goss worked to help people understand that substance use disorder is a disease and those suffering with it should be treated with compassion and understanding rather than judgment.
In 2015, the Bangor Region Chamber of Commerce jointly awarded Goss and Sprague the chamber’s Catherine Lebowitz Award for Public Services to recognize their teamwork in addressing rising substance use in the area.
When Goss knew Sprague would be attending a Brewer City Council meeting, Goss bought Ben & Jerry’s ice cream for everyone in the room “as a welcome to his colleagues from across the river,” Sprague said.
“Jerry came from a generation that just showed up, participated in things, and gave of themselves,” Sprague said. “In order to have healthy, vibrant communities, you need people to show up and give their time, energy and talents to various causes.”