Kristin Doughty and Anthony Fournier were building a life together.

Anthony Fournier, 22, of Sabattus, was killed Sunday in a crash while operating a motorcycle in Gardiner. Photo courtesy of Judy Fournier

She grew up on the water in Winthrop, playing softball and soccer, spending winters competing with the high school’s alpine ski team.

He grew up in a tight-knit group of family and friends in Sabattus. His passion was motor sports; if it had a motor, he was interested.

She was the manager at Sun Tan City in Brunswick and he was a welder at Bath Iron Works looking forward to returning to work. Together they had a home in Litchfield and had adopted a puppy.

On Sunday, Doughty, 24 and Fournier, 22, were killed in a head-on crash on Water Street in Gardiner.

Police say the couple, on Fournier’s motorcycle, traveled west on Water Street around 9 p.m. when they veered into the path of oncoming traffic and collided with a Ford SUV driven by Patrick Shepard, who was heading east. Both died at the scene.

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Shepard was taken to MaineGeneral Medical Center in Augusta; a passenger in his vehicle was uninjured.

The crash remains under investigation, Gardiner Police Chief James Toman said.

“They both meant a great deal to us,” Dwight Doughty Jr., said Wednesday from his home in Winthrop. “They were both good kids who, as young adults, were getting their feet under them and moving forward.”

Kristin Doughty, 24, of Winthrop, was killed Sunday while riding as a passenger on a motorcycle that crashed in Gardiner. She is seen here holding Tuck, a Chocolate Lab. Photo submitted by Dwight Doughty Jr.

The Doughtys said their daughter grew up as a good student with an ongoing interest in sports. She learned to swim early and water-skiied. As she grew older, she took up softball, following in her mother’s footsteps, and alpine skiing, joining the team at Maranacook when Winthrop didn’t offer the sport at the middle school level.

“When she was focus on an event or activity, she was laser-focused,” her father Dwight Doughty Jr. said Wednesday. “She was dedicated and committed to anything she initiated, whether it was downhill skiing or softball or the work she did.”

Even as 12-year-old, Krissy Doughty started preparing for the upcoming softball season as early as January or February, dedicating time to work on her pitching with her father. It paid off; during her career, her parents watched as she pitched a no-hitter, and in her senior year at Winthrop High School, as the team came one game short of making it to the state finals.

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She earned an honorable mention in the Morning Sentinel/Kennebec Journal All-Star softball team.

“She certainly lived life large,” he said. “She grabbed it by the horns and enjoyed every minute.”

Anthony Fournier grew up in Sabattus, not far from Winthrop.

“There’s some stuff that’s personal that I’d rather not share,” Judy Fournier, Anthony’s mother, said Wednesday from her home. “He did lose his father nine years ago. So, you know, his upbringing has been a little different from most other kids.”

Anthony Fournier grew up in a close-knit group she referred to as the Camping Crew Family, friends the Fourniers went camping with and who remain as close as family to this day.

As an adult, Anthony Fourner, who graduated from Oak Hill High School, enjoyed outdoor activities including ice fishing and hunting with that same group.

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Fournier was a member of BIW Local S6 union, which announced Wednesday to its members via Facebook that the BIW flag would be flown at half staff on the north end of the shipyard Friday in Fournier’s honor.

Most recently, during the strike at BIW, he’d spent time with friends and family, going deep-sea fishing and white-water rafting.

“Sunday, when we heard the news, I probably had 50 people at my house,” she said. “Those kids are still close, and he’s gotten more friends along the years. They’ve always been there for each other.”

She said her son has always been interested in anything that has a motor.

“He’s been on dirt bikes since he was 5,” she said. “Motorcycles were not new to him. He’s been on them for 20 years.”

With Doughty, she said, her son was enjoying life to the fullest. They recently got a house together “and they were having their own little gatherings of friends and trying to start their life,” she said.

A GoFundMe account has been set up by Airika Beaulieu to offset the costs of Fournier’s and Doughty’s funerals.

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