THETFORD — A longtime Thetford resident who was a trap shooting champion was killed on Thursday morning after being struck by a vehicle while walking near his home on Latham Road.

Dennis DeVaux, who grew up in Norwich and graduated from Dartmouth College in 1978, was pronounced dead at the scene, Thetford Police Department said in a news release on Friday. He was 65 years old.

The vehicle was driven by a 17-year-old female who stopped to render assistance and remained at the scene to meet with first responders, police said. Neither the driver nor her juvenile passenger were injured.

Residents of the neighborhood, where DeVaux lived by himself in a house on Eastview Drive, said Latham Road, which runs largely parallel to Interstate 91 and links state Route 113 with U.S. Route 5, was icy on Thursday morning, and the driver is believed to have lost control of the vehicle.

The identity of the driver and passenger “are not being released at this stage of the still active investigation,” police said.

DeVaux grew up in Norwich, where his parents, Bill and Lillian DeVaux, owned DeVaux Gun Shop on Goodrich Four Corners Road. They were accomplished trap shooters, and Bill coached the Dartmouth trap shooting team.

Handsome and tall (6-foot-4) with a lanky athlete’s frame, DeVaux had been trap shooting since he was 13 years old and in 2002 hit 150 clay disks out of 150 shots with his custom-made Italian 12-gauge shotgun to win the 103rd Grand American World Trapshooting Championship in Ohio.

A Vermont delegate of the Amateur Trapshooting Association, DeVaux drew tributes hours after his death Thursday on a members forum on TrapShooters.com, with a hard-to-miss common sentiment.

“A great gentleman and wonderful representative to our sport,” posted one member. “A gentleman and a true ambassador to the sport,” wrote another member. “He was a true gentleman,” said a third. “A great gentleman and wonderful representative to our sport,” followed a fourth member.

Those descriptions of DeVaux sounded familiar to Barry Clarke, a chef and caterer who lives on Latham Road near the site of the crash. He said he met DeVaux on walks several mornings a week.

“He was a mild-mannered and just a truly lovely guy,” said Clarke. He and DeVaux often crossed paths when walking in the morning, where they would compare observations on bird watching.

Neighbors for over 30 years, Clarke said they never much socialized until the pandemic forced DeVaux to avoid his gym routine and instead walk outdoors for exercise.

“It was a real treat to get to know him,” Clarke said.

Clarke said DeVaux had recently retired as an executive from newspaper printer Upper Valley Press in North Haverhill, which in 2014 he helped to become 100% employee owned.

Contact John Lippman at jlippman@vnews.com.

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