DENNISTOWN PLANTATION — When Sarah Coleman went on vacation one time, she asked her husband, Stephen, to water her plants while she was away.

She returned home to find he’d been thorough. In addition to watering her real plants, he’d soaked an arrangement of silk flowers on the table.

“He just wanted to be sure he didn’t miss any,” Sarah Coleman said Friday, laughing.

When her husband died Sept. 20, the family decided to forgo the flowers at the funeral.

Instead, they asked that people donate in his name to a scholarship fund for graduates of Forest Hills Consolidated School in Jackman.

It’s taken less than a month to raise about $80,000 in honor of Coleman, who was a forester, Maine Guide and pilot and was running for Somerset County Commissioner. He had two children, Thomas and Tennie, in addition to a daughter-in-law, Rachel. He and Sarah were married 33 years.

Eighty-one people from across northern Somerset County, Maine and the country have donated money to the scholarship fund, and checks continue to arrive, said Denise Plante, assistant superintendent and principal at Forest Hills.

The donations speak to his impact on the community, Plante said. “He’s so loved and relied upon.”

“I’m not surprised, but the amount of money that’s been coming in from certain people, to me it’s just amazing and it’s such a tribute to who he really was. He was an amazing fellow. He was a real man’s man. There’s nobody that will ever replace him, that’s for sure,” said Sarah Coleman.

The details are not yet set, but the scholarship will likely be given to a student entering the forestry field or seeking to become a pilot.

“Steve was never happier than when he was in his plane. His Cessna was just an extension of him,” Coleman said.

Stephen Coleman, 59, of Dennistown Plantation, drowned Sept. 20 on Wood Pond in Attean Township. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner has not yet released the circumstances of his death, but it was not a boating accident, and the death was not suspicious.

Coleman said her hunch is that he had a medical emergency and then fell overboard. “It doesn’t seem quite right that he could have just drowned,” she said, especially considering he was in eight feet of water.

He had fallen through ice in the past, dragged himself out and made a fire to get warm, she said.

“If anyone could survive out in the water or in the woods, it would be him.”

Fittingly, he died in the township of Attean, she said, which was inscribed on his truck’s license plate.

“He went doing what he loved best,” Coleman said. “You can’t feel badly that he didn’t accomplish what he wanted to. He accomplished more in his lifetime than 10 or 20 people would have.”

The Maine Warden Service dive team recovered Coleman’s body in 45 minutes, she said.

“For them to be able to find him within 45 minutes of getting in the water, I can’t thank them enough. I just didn’t want him to be one of those people that is never found,” she said.

“What a horrible job, when it comes down to it, to be diving for somebody’s loved one,” she said. “I don’t know that they ever get thanked enough for what they do.”

Her husband kept many things in his pockets, such as Leatherman tools, PalmPilots, rulers, pens, papers and flashlights, she said.

At his funeral, held in the hangar he’d built at their home, the family laid out his things on the hood of his pickup truck, stuck a spruce tree in his hard hat, and his friends flew their planes overhead as a tribute.

“There were so many people that made that day absolutely perfect for us,” she said. “I think we gave him a wonderful send-off. I would just like to thank everybody for that.”

She described her husband as a wonderful father.

“He taught them so much, right from survival skills to anything you needed to know in the woods, in life,” she said. “He wasn’t just their dad. He was their best friend.”

“For me, there will never be another one like him.”

Jackman resident Alan Duplessis said the scholarship “certainly is going to show the legacy that he left across the state and especially here in Jackman.” Duplessis was a friend of Coleman’s and is helping organize the fund.

People respected him because of his forthright nature and honesty, Duplessis said.

“If you asked Steve a question, on many occasions you knew you were not going to get the answer you wanted to hear. But you knew you were going to hear the truth of what needed to be done,” he said.

Jackman’s annual Night of Thanks at 6:30 p.m., Monday, Nov. 21, at the school will honor the area’s emergency responders. The night will end with a video of Stephen Coleman called Gift of Wings, found online at bit.ly/nFISKL.

Scholarship donations may be sent to Steve Coleman Memorial Scholarship Fund, c/o SAD 12, 606 Main St., Jackman, ME 04945.

Erin Rhoda — 612-2368

erhoda@centralmaine.com