SKOWHEGAN — Stan McGray loved the fair life. He also loved his community.

For 37 years, McGray and his French fry stand were fixtures at fairs and festivals across Maine.

Even while dealing with health problems this year, McGray was still making the summertime circuit.

“Oh yeah. I’d like to be in there right now,” he said of his stand, while seated in a mobility scooter at The Taste of Waterville in August. “I love the fair life. I love the people. I wouldn’t swap it for any job. All the vendors that travel the fairs are all friends. If someone needs something, we’re all there for them.”

McGray, a lifelong Skowhegan resident, died Wednesday, Christmas Day, after dealing with several health problems in the last year, his family said. He was 80.

It was his hometown fair — the Skowhegan State Fair, which claims to be the longest running agricultural fair in the country — where McGray was known the most.

Stan’s French Fries, as his stand is called, had prime real estate next to the grandstand at the fairgrounds. His french fries were once declared the fair’s official fries.

Stan McGray was featured on the front page of the Morning Sentinel Aug. 16, 2017 in a story marking his 30th year in business. McGray, of Skowhegan, died Wednesday at the age of 80. Morning Sentinel archives via Newspapers.com

“You wouldn’t believe it, how much he loved Skowhegan,” Toni Godin, his girlfriend of 33 years, said in an interview via telephone Monday. “And the community, they’ve been good to us, and we’ve been good to them.”

McGray said the secret to his success in slinging spuds was buying fresh potatoes in small batches from local farms.

“I don’t buy potatoes just off the warehouse truck,” he told the Morning Sentinel in a 2017 story marking his 30th year in business. “I go to the farm and get one bag of potatoes and come back and we cook ’em and if they’re good, I call him right back on the phone and say ‘Save ’em, I’m coming back down.’”

Born Nov. 25, 1944, Stanley John McGray grew up in Skowhegan and dropped out of school in the eighth grade.

As an adult, he owned a taxi business and then gas stations in Skowhegan before getting into the French fry business in 1987, according to Godin, who grew up near McGray on Beauford Street.

“I saw the fun they had and the money they made,” McGray said of carnies he knew in a 2004 Morning Sentinel story, “and so I thought I’d like life traveling and not staying in one place all the time.”

Dubbed “Skowhegan’s spud stud,” Stan McGray told the Morning Sentinel in this Aug. 18, 2004 story that his business had recovered from a fire at the Skowhegan State Fair in 1999. McGray died Wednesday at the age of 80. Morning Sentinel archives via Newspapers.com

After traveling to fairs in the summer, McGray was also an entrepreneur in the winter, plowing snow and selling shrimp, Godin said.

A decade after McGray started the business, he lost it all when a fire on March 30, 1999, destroyed the grandstand and other buildings at the Skowhegan fairgrounds. The fire was determined to be arson, and the man who set it, Charles D. Miles, was determined not criminally responsible later that year, according to Morning Sentinel archives.

Five years after the fire, McGray, then back in business, recalled that police called him at home to let him know what was happening, according to the 2004 Morning Sentinel story. He said he went to the fairgrounds and watched the flames destroy the grandstand, other fair buildings and his two trailers, pickup truck and camper.

A few months after the fire, McGray said it was his love for the business and a loan from Skowhegan Savings Bank that led him to start over, according to a 1999 Morning Sentinel story.

Decades in business made McGray well known across Maine. A Facebook post on his business’ page announcing his death Wednesday had gained more than 1,100 reactions, 500 shares and 450 comments as of Monday.

Those who knew McGray said it was more than just the french fries that made him respected around town.

Stan McGray sits in a director’s chair bearing his name Aug. 15, 2017, outside his popular booth under the grandstand at the Skowhegan State Fairgrounds. McGray, who died Dec. 25, operated his Stan’s French Fries stand at the Skowhegan State Fair for more than 30 years.

“He’s done a lot of good things for a lot of people, and nobody knows it,” said Walter Hight, a local auto dealer, who was friends with McGray for about 50 years. “He’s done it in kind of a quiet way.”

Don Skillings said he met McGray in 1997 when McGray became one of his first clients at his State Farm Insurance agency in Skowhegan. For 15 years the two had coffee every day, Skillings said, and McGray would share colorful stories from his varied past and his insights on people.

“He’d often say to me, ‘Don, I’m not educated like you,’” Skillings said in a phone call Monday. “I would always go back to him and say, ‘Stan, your education is so much broader than any higher education that I have. And what you have to offer is so much greater.’ We would often have that debate. He never thought of himself as an overly intelligent person, but he truly was. He just didn’t see himself that way.”

Louann Barnes, a friend of McGray’s for 35 years, called him “a big teddy bear.”

“He was a man that would do anything for anybody,” Barnes said via phone call Monday.

McGray had no children. But he treated his girlfriend’s grandson, Joey Godin, as his own son, family members said.

“He did everything for me,” Joey Godin said Monday via telephone. “He was probably the best person I knew.”

McGray is survived by a sister, Rosemarie Crockett, and several nephews and other extended family, according to Toni Godin, his girlfriend. His brother, Charles McGray, died in 2023.

McGray had a cockapoo named Max and enjoyed watching fights of Brandon “The Cannon” Berry, a boxer from West Forks, according to Kaylee Godin, wife of Joey Godin.

McGray was largely healthy up until a fall in February in Florida, which then led to other health issues, Toni Godin said.

After a stint in the hospital this spring, McGray was determined to attend the wedding of Joey, his grandson, and Kaylee Godin in June.

“He got out the day before,” Toni Godin said. “And he said, ‘I’m going to my grandson’s wedding, whether you like it or not.’”

The couple is now expecting a child in May and plan for his middle name to be Stanley, Kaylee Godin said.

“He was very proud of that, too, that he got to know that that was his middle name,” Kaylee Godin said.

Stan McGray said he was back in business a few months after a March 1999 fire at the Skowhegan State Fair destroyed his French fry trailer and other equipment, according to this Aug. 14, 1999, story in the Morning Sentinel. Morning Sentinel archives via Newspapers.com

Those who knew McGray gathered for his 80th birthday party — a surprise party — in November at the Poulin-Turner Union Hall.

“He was very emotional,” said Barnes, who organized the party, of McGray. “I think he knew something was coming. He was so happy to see everybody there. It was great — tears of joy. It was amazing.”

Stan’s French Fries will live on, Toni Godin said. With the help of several family members, including her grandson, son-in-law and daughter, she plans to continue the business.

“Stan made me promise to go on,” she said.