A powerful thunderstorm that left thousands without power in southern Maine July 18, also took the lives of a Standish woman and the best man in her recent wedding.

Krysta Bearor, 28, of Standish and Tony Clarke, 22, originally of Sebago, were at the house Krysta shared with her husband, Sean Bearor, and her two sons and two stepdaughters.

When the lightning struck, Bearor and Clarke were outside trying to retrieve a pair of glasses the family dog had taken from one of the children, according to Capt. Don Goulet of the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office.

Goulet said it appeared the lightning hit a tree stump before traveling to a wellhead, passing through Bearor and Clarke on the way.

“She loved her family,” said Bearor’s mother, Deborah Letourneau, of Vassalboro. “She was a fun-loving person, very easy-going. She loved life.”

Bearor grew up in Waterville and Vassalboro and had lived in southern Maine since her late teens. She married Sean Bearor July 4 at their house in Standish. Clarke was the best man in their wedding and a good friend of the couple, Letourneau said.

“She loved cooking for people and being with family and friends,” Letourneau said, adding that her daughter enjoyed fishing and swimming. Bearor had recently left her job to be a full-time mother to her four children.

“We’re all heart-broken,” Letourneau said. “She was very young.”

Clarke graduated from Lake Region High School in 2003. He worked for the last nine months as an explosives technician for North American Industrial Services of Gorham.

“Tony was always happy, loved baseball, loved snowboarding,” said Tanya Olsen, the girlfriend of Clarke’s boss, Dan Lyman, with whom he was close. “He was just an all around fun guy.”

In 2007 there were 45 lightning deaths in the United States, and only one of those was in Maine.

The lightning was part of powerful storms that left thousands of people out of power July 18. Central Maine Power estimated that at 4 p.m. that day, an estimated 9,800 homes and businesses were out of power, mostly in the Gorham and Standish areas.

Earlier in the afternoon more than 10,000 accounts were without service due to thunderstorms with high winds, lightning and hail.