The Deer Isle teenager who drowned while swimming in a Sedgwick pond two weeks ago was a down-to-earth person and valued friend who will be missed on the island.
Shawn Clapper, 18, was swimming with friends at Walker Pond on July 5 with another person, and they had difficulty getting back to shore, according to the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office.
After bystanders called for help, a sheriff’s deputy and a member of the town’s fire department swam out to help Clapper, but he sank below the surface about 150 feet from shore and they were unable to find him.
The other swimmer made it back to shore safely, and Clapper was later found deceased. Water conditions and inexperience with swimming were likely factors, according to the sheriff’s office, which does not consider the death suspicious.
Clapper graduated from Deer Isle-Stonington High School just weeks before and had recently started working at a garage in Blue Hill, according to a fundraiser for his family.
Clapper was kind, caring and loved by many people, said his classmate Stella Gray, who had known him since kindergarten. Nineteen seniors graduated from the island school this June.
“He brought life and laughter into every room he walked into,” she said. “He was someone you could talk to about literally anything and was a down to earth human.”
Clapper also had an “amazing” work ethic and put 100 percent into whatever he did, according to Gray.
Before graduation, the school shared his senior project on social media. Clapper took on the “ambitious challenge” of rebuilding a vintage truck, and told his review panel about the ins and outs of the restoration project: “what needed replacing, what could be rehabbed, and the skills it takes to bring an old vehicle back to life.”
Dozens gathered at the high school for a candlelit vigil to remember him on July 8, sharing condolences and support for more than an hour, according to the Island Ad-vantages newspaper.
“As a community, as family, as friends, we’re at a loss,” local pastor Dwight Staples said at the vigil, the newspaper reported.
The school district said in a press release that it organized grief support counseling and crisis response personnel for the school community and was committed to standing with the family and community. Efforts to reach Clapper’s family were unsuccessful.
The community has created a meal train for his family and a fundraiser for his funeral costs.