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Jim Morse, Portland’s incoming superintendent, is reintroduced Tuesday at Portland High School to Dottie LaRoche, a retired teacher who helped him graduate after he dropped out. She told him, “If you apply yourself, I’ll help you get into college,” he recalls.

PORTLAND — Dottie LaRoche doesn't remember Jim Morse.

She's 82, after all, and Morse was among thousands of students she taught over 20 years at Portland High School.

But Morse, who will become Portland's superintendent in July, never forgot LaRoche.

"You were a big deal in my life," Morse told LaRoche on Tuesday, when the two were reunited during a morning reception arranged by Portland High's staff.

"And look where you are – superintendent of schools," LaRoche said, returning the acclaim.

Morse wasn't surprised or disappointed that LaRoche didn't remember him. He was, for the most part, an unremarkable student who dropped out of Portland High for most of his junior year.

Still, Morse credits LaRoche with helping him to graduate in 1973 and get accepted at the University of Maine, which led to a 33-year career in education and a doctorate in educational leadership.

"She's one of the most important people in my life, after my mother and my wife," said Morse, 54, who has been superintendent of School Administrative District 47, the Messalonskee School District, since 1997.

Thirty-six years ago, Morse was a senior at Portland High. His mom was raising five kids on her own. He was barely getting by in school, a slim, long-haired kid wearing paisley pants who was more interested in his girlfriend than his future.

LaRoche was his English teacher. She taught intermediate students, "the forgotten kids," she said. Some of her students struggled but worked hard. Others were bright but unmotivated. She spotted potential in Morse that he couldn't see in himself.

"She decided I was one of the bright kids who was unmotivated," Morse recalled. "She told me, 'You're really a lot smarter than you let people know. If you apply yourself, I'll help you get into college.' "

LaRoche became a teacher relatively late in life, and her own struggle to get an education lit a passion in her to help others go to college. Her husband died in a car crash when she was 27, leaving her with a 6-month-old son to raise.

She started attending what is now the University of Southern Maine when she was 30, she said, working days at a dental lab and later for the telephone company. She took one or two night courses a semester and graduated 10 years later.

She started teaching at Portland High around 1966. The city's public schools were nearing their peak enrollment of 14,000 students – reached in 1970 – compared with about 6,900 today.

She taught five crowded classes each day, and still managed to take a personal interest in many of her students.

"I don't remember much of it, to be honest, but they were all great kids," LaRoche said.

Morse said LaRoche prodded him to audition for the senior class play, "No More Homework," and he won the lead role.

She also encouraged him to apply to Onwards, a noncredit program at UMaine that helps students who struggled in high school make the transition to college-level courses.

"She created that bridge for me," Morse said. "College wasn't even a consideration for me at that time, especially after my mom got laid off from her job at the American Can Co."

LaRoche, who lives in Windham, retired from Portland High in 1986. She taught English at St. Joseph's College for many years thereafter. She was a beloved instructor there as well; several of her college students call her regularly, said Sandy Guerra, who has taught English at Portland High since 1971.

"Dottie truly cares about her students," Guerra said. "She doesn't judge. She sees them in a way they haven't seen themselves before. She believes that if they work hard, they can do it."

During Tuesday's brief reception, Morse thanked LaRoche for helping him and all of her students through the years. Her face lit up when he gave her a large, colorful bouquet of flowers.

"That's for 35 years of not saying...