Southport Central School Teaching Principal Marcelle Durost will leave at the end of the school year. Beginning next fall, she has taken a job as the interim principal at the Horace Mitchell School in Kittery. Durost, who students call Mrs. D, has been at Southport Central since September 2012.

She will greatly miss the school and the community, but is looking forward to taking the position in Kittery for the upcoming academic year. “This position found me, I didn't find it. I was intrigued. They searched for a principal and found a potential candidate, but it wasn't the right fit. So they decided to look for an interim for the year. I'm going in until they can find a full-time replacement.”

She will commute to Kittery from her home in Wiscasset during the school year. It will take about an hour and a half each way, but she said she won't mind the commute. “A drive gets me set for the day, and when I'm driving home, I'm thinking about the day,” she said. She and her husband moved to Wiscasset from the Bucksport area, where she was principal to 500 students split between two schools. Durost hails from the Ellsworth area.

She admits the ride down the highway will not compare with her commute from Wiscasset to Southport. “I love driving into Boothbay and driving onto the island. It's just beautiful, here,” she said. But she will miss the school and the community more than the drive. “The support for this school from the community is amazing. And the staff. The kids are so lucky with what we have here for them. It's been an amazing place to work,” she said.

When asked what she was proudest of during her tenure, she said, “The people I work with and how they work together. The teamwork, the putting students first. That's what we're all about. It's what we do, to the core. ”

She cited the example of Matt Thibault, Southport Central's maintenance man, bus driver and custodian. “He does it all,” she said. Thibault built a lectern in half a day for a school event when the loan of another school's lectern fell through. In April, Thibault suggested students build birdhouses for Mother's Day with the scrap lumber he had in his shop. Durost said she told him she thought it might be difficult, but when she took the idea to her teachers, they said, “Sure!” The school has a buddy system, wherein an older student is assigned to a younger student for the school year. “Buddies worked together to finish the younger student’s birdhouse first, before their own.” Durost said the finished houses were a great success when they were presented at the Mother's Day breakfast.

She looks forward to visiting her daughter and her two young grandchildren in Louisville, Kentucky this summer. But she won't be relaxing much, as she'll travel to Kittery to familiarize herself with the school. “Principals work a lot during the summer. You've got a foot in each year. You're trying to finish up one year while doing next year's schedules and ordering,” she said. This transition summer, Durost will have one foot in Southport and the other in Kittery.

A new principal for Southport Central has already been named. Southport resident Lisa Clarke, currently principal at Edgecomb Eddy School, will take the teaching principal reins next fall. Durost is happy about the choice. “I'm so excited that Lisa is going to be here. They're in really good hands,” she said.