Flags hang through a hallway at Wescott Junior High, colored with words that describe a teacher and coach the staff and students loved, and recently lost – funny, caring, thoughtful, kind, a good man.

A language arts teacher and coach of several sports in Westbrook for nearly 20 years, Tom Foley left school early one day last month because of a sore throat. It was the first time he could remember doing that, according to his brother, Michael Foley. When he went to the hospital for a second checkup, he never came out.

Foley, 51, died Feb. 6 from brain damage that set in when his airway became obstructed by swelling.

The sudden death of the popular teacher, whose funeral was Friday, has devastated the students and staff. As part of their grieving process, they have been sharing their own stories about Foley.

“There’s nobody that ever had him and doesn’t remember him,” said Liz Page, a social studies teacher who worked closely with Foley for about 15 years. “And everyone always has a story.”

According to Page, Foley “loved to get a laugh.”

Assistant Principal Jim O’Leary remembers one picture day when Foley brought in Groucho Marx glasses for every teacher in the school to wear.

“He would do that kind of thing all the time,” O’Leary said.

On sweltering days near the end of the school year, Page said, he would take a trip to Severino’s Variety and buy every Popsicle in the store for his students.

“He never bought one or two of anything. He always bought 80,” Page said.

And on cold days, as students spent the morning reading to themselves, Foley would make toast for everyone in the class.

Page remembers a field trip to Portland last year. After completing all the planned activities, the teachers were at loss for what to do with the spare time they had before getting back on the bus. At the spur of the moment, Foley decided to take all the kids to a local radio station, where they went on tours and met the deejays, who let them go on air.

“It was a better part of the field trip than what we had planned,” Page said.

But Foley was more than a fun teacher. He really got to know his students and got involved in their lives.

Jenn Dyer, 29, was in one of Foley’s first classes at Wescott Junior High. Socially, she said, it was a very tough year for her. When she decided she wanted to talk about problems she was having with her friends, she didn’t turn to her parents. She turned to Foley.

He sat all the girls down to talk to each other, and “we just figured it out,” she said.

At a time in young people’s lives when many aren’t feeling so good about themselves, Dyer said, “he made you feel important.”

Page said he treated all his students as individuals and graded them based on the level of achievement each one was capable of.

“He had a knack for picking out the kid who needed a different piece off attention,” Page said. If he could tell someone was having a bad day, he would challenge a student to sink a piece of chalk in his coffee cup with the promise that he would drink the whole thing.

Hearing the stories about how Foley both inspired his students and made them laugh were comforting to his family members – including three children, Jon-Michael, 21, Kelly, 20, and Shamus, 17, sisters Mary Margaret Regan and Katherine Wark, all of Portland, and brothers Michael Foley and John-Philip Foley – who gathered in Portland Friday for his funeral.

“We think of him as a good brother and a good guy,” said Michael Foley. But after his brother’s funeral, he realized, “he was up there changing lives and changing them for the better.”

Michael Foley said he’s gotten used to being called “Mr. Foley’s brother.” Both he and John-Philip have been stopped by people who knew Tom Foley because of the resemblance among all three of them. John-Philip was recognized at Faneuil Hall in Boston and Michael was at a Bennigan’s restaurant in Tampa, Fla.

“You’re Tom Foley’s brother,” people who they had never met told them, following up with their own story about the teacher. The incidences speak equally to the physical similarities among the brothers as they do to the far reach of Foley’s network of former students and friends.

Even the day Foley went into the hospital, he ran into a former student who was working there as a security guard. They exchanged numbers and made plans that day to work on the former student’s shot put, but Foley never made it.

Although Foley never returned to school and there’s a new nameplate beside the door to his old classroom, he still has a presence inside. There’s a poster of Bates College, his alma mater, and a map of Ireland – the country of his ancestors and a place he visited several times.

Hung at the back of the room is his mother’s obituary, used as a teaching tool with notes showing how it’s structured. Framed on the sill of the chalkboard is his own seventh-grade report card with less than exceptional grades.

“He was very willing to share his own personal experience as a student,” said Principal Brian Mazjanis.

According to O’Leary, he was trying to send the message that school wasn’t about the day-to-day or the week-to-week experience, but rather, “it’s that long journey.”

Page said she’s still getting used to Foley’s absence. She slips sometimes and refers to something the students are learning in Mr. Foley’s class.

“It’s really hard,” she said. “We all have our little moments.”

According to Michael Foley, though those who knew his brother are grieving now, ultimately, they are the fortunate ones.

“I feel bad for the folks who are going to miss out on him in the future,” he said.

Tom Foley, who died last week, is remembered as a funny, caring man by staff and teachers at Wescott Junior High School, where he taught language arts for nearly 20 years.Students decorated flags and hung them in the hallway at Wescott Junior High School in memory of language arts teacher Tom Foley, who died last week.