LYME — For Allan Newton, teaching was not only a way to earn a living. It was a way of life.

For more than 25 years before retiring in 1994 to Lyme — the town where he grew up and where his parents ran the popular Camp Pinnacle from 1946 to 1981 — Newton served as a teacher, high school principal and assistant superintendent in Warwick, N.Y.

Even outside of the school environment, Newton welcomed the opportunity to teach.

“Allan was the consummate educator, not only in school but everywhere in his life,” said Robert Doran-Brockway, a student in the Warwick Central Valley School District and a close friend, who grew up down the street from the Newton family than included Allan, his wife, Barbara, and daughters, Lynne and Alyane. “He knew how to do so much and he was always teaching people and showing people how to do things.”

Newton, who died at age 90 at the Jack Byrne Center on Sept. 4, had a wide breadth of skills from woodworking to tenor singing, and was generous with his time and talent, often in a quiet way.

“Nice guy just doesn’t capture Allan,” said Newton’s friend Mark Nelson, of Hanover. “This man was a prince. He was very soft spoken so he didn’t trumpet himself at all. He was not a loud guy but was gregarious.”

Newton was born in Albany, N.Y., in 1934 to Jerald and Alice Newton. He grew up in the Lebanon and Lyme area where he developed a love of the outdoors and hunting from his father and a talent for singing from his mother, a mandolin player who also sang soprano.

Newton’s parents operated Camp Pinnacle on 23 acres in Lyme from 1946 to 1981. He was a camper and later a counselor at the camp, which was first started in 1916 by Alvin Thayer.

Dick Sanders was a Pinnacle camper about the same age as Newton and learned quickly that Newton pushed himself, even at a young age, on backpacking trips.

“He always carried a bigger, heavier pack and I thought it was because his father was camp director,” Sanders said. “He went farther or paddled (a canoe) harder. In later years, I learned that was how Allan always had been. He took on more than he needed to because that was just the way he was.”

Sanders said Newton always “gave it all” and perhaps even more so in retirement as he plunged into community service, including serving as an EMT with the Lyme FAST squad, a Rotarian, a Selectboard member, a member of Lyme Historians and a volunteer ski instructor, along with lending a hand to whomever could use a little help. “A tinkerer” who could fix most anything, was how several friends described Newton.

“He had a diversity of talents and excelled at most of them,” said his wife, Barbara. “Camp Pinnacle was a big influence on him. He learned a lot of skills there.”

Nelson attended Camp Pinnacle as a teen when Newton was a counselor in the 1970s. Though during his time there he did not interact much with Newton, who was involved with younger campers, Nelson said the environment was supportive of all campers and the staff “fantastic.”

“I took in the Camp Pinnacle vibe, which I admired enormously,” Nelson said. “It was a place, and I think this is where Jerry and Allan were key, with a caring group of folks who expressed interest in everybody there. It was absolutely understood people were going to be kind to one another.”

Nelson believes Newton inherited that philosophy and interest in education from his father and it informed his leadership as a high school principal.

“It ensured that whatever school community he was a part of would be a kind and respectful community,” Nelson said.

In 1953, Newton graduated from the Northfield Mt. Hermon School in Massachusetts where he ran cross country and competed in ski jumping. Wilhem Lange, of Montpelier, was a classmate of Newton’s and they were on the cross country team together.

“He was a good, solid citizen and very conscientious,” Lange recalled.

After Mt. Hermon, Newton went on to earn degrees in education from Springfield College and Columbia Teachers College in New York City, where he met Barbara. The couple was married for 65 years.

His teaching career began with high school biology, before he became high school principal in Warwick.

Monty Beers, who now lives in South Carolina, was a colleague of Newton’s in Warwick when Newton was principal and later assistant superintendent.

“He was a very fair and compassionate individual,” Beers said, remembering how Newton had to mediate discipline issues. “He would listen carefully to both sides and would make a ruling that not everyone liked. I would say the hallmark of Allan was that he made hard decisions, but fair decisions and stuck by them. I always respected him for that.”

As both a student under Newton and a close friend of the family, Doran-Brockway said he saw all sides of Newton, not just his school principal side. He remembers Newton with a screwdriver, knife or flashlight handy and ready to use if needed to help someone.

“He could tie knots, start a fire. He was a tinkerer. He could do so much and loved to teach others,” Doran-Brockway said.

Newton was also a talented woodworker who frequently made items such as bowls and cutting boards for friends.

Lyme resident Bill Murphy, a Hanover High School teacher who also coaches the school’s Quiz Bowl teams, said Newton offered his woodworking talents to build Quiz Bowl boards after the student who designed them could not do it. The boards are more like a frame with electronics that light up when a team member buzzes in to a question.

“I turned to Allan because in his shop he could do the work that was needed to put it together,” Murphy said.

When the Lyme Historians bought the Lyme History Museum on the common they needed to fix it up and maintain it and Newton, as usual, was there to help.

“He often was someone who could pitch in and do some fixing,” said Murphy, who served alongside Newton as a docent at the Museum on occasional Saturday mornings. “He had his hands in a lot.”

Newton also was a member of the informal Bach Study Group of Lyme, an informal group of singers and instrumentalists who rehearsed a work of Bach over several months.

Mark Nelson, who has had a lengthy career in music, has directed the group for several years. He recalled when Newton was able to put him in touch with the daughter of a former Camp Pinnacle counselor who had died, leaving a complete hardcover collection of the music of Bach. His daughter was looking to donate it and Newton contacted Nelson who gladly accepted the collection.

“For me, it was a very generous thing to do and I appreciated it,” Nelson said, adding that his friend didn’t expect praise or recognition. “Allan did not stand on ceremony. He just thought it was a good thing to do and he did it.”

When Maureen Byrne’s husband died several years ago, Newton, a close friend of the Byrnes, became her “go-to person” for help around her house.

“Allan checked in on me or I could call him if something came up,” said Byrne, who lives in Lyme.

Dragging bags of heavy compost to her garden, installing grab bars and non-slip decals in her bathtub and putting together an electric lawnmower were just a few of the things Byrne said that Newton did for her. She recalled when he rose to drive her to a medical procedure scheduled for 6 a.m., even loaning Byrne his alarm clock so she was certain to be awake.

“And we always had tea and a cookie before he went to work,” Byrne said. “I don’t think anyone knew all that he did except for me and Barbara.”

Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.