As Marc Gousse watched the Westbrook High School graduation Sunday, he was in the audience as a principal – and a parent.

Gousse’s son, Joe Gousse, the senior class president, led his 151 classmates through the changing of the tassel Sunday, marking them Westbrook High School graduates. Marc Gousse couldn’t have been prouder – of his son and himself.

“I didn’t cry,” he said Tuesday.

When Gousse took a job as Westbrook High School principal in 2001, he knew it was a lot to ask of his wife, Jeannine, who had to leave her job, and their only child, who had to leave Lewiston Middle School in the middle of the year.

And, as the time approached for Joe to join him at the high school, he knew they would face more challenges.

But they talked early and openly about what it would be like for Joe to have his father as a principal, and established guidelines about leaving school issues at school. Gousse told his son he could go somewhere else if he wanted to.

“If you’re not happy, you have an out,” Gousse said he told Joe, but he decided to stay, and they’re both glad he did.

“Our relationship is better for it,” Gousse said.

Both agree that it was nice having each other around during the school day. For Marc Gousse, seeing his son’s smile put any problems he was dealing with as a principal into perspective. For Joe Gousse, being able to stop into his dad’s office between classes or watching his head pass by in the hall through the window on a classroom door was comforting. It also offered a few other conveniences.

“If I ever needed money for lunch, my dad was right there,” he said.

Though Gousse knew how special his son was, he worried that his accomplishments might be attributed to his own influence rather than Joe’s own hard work. That’s why Gousse gave up his access to all student grades, handing those duties over to the school’s registrar.

Joe said his friends would occasionally tease him when he did well in classes, saying his father had changed his grade, but it was always in good fun.

“I tried to carve out my own niche,” said Joe, who served as a class officer throughout high school and graduated as a member of the National Honor Society.

Something else that set him apart from his father was their dissimilar personalities.

“He’s certainly not a clone,” Gousse said of his son.

Though they bond over a love of baseball, Joe is a die-hard Red Sox fan, and his father has lined the shelves of his office with Yankees paraphernalia. But their differences run deeper than that.

Gousse is very organized and can easily get worked up, and his son has a more laid-back approach to life. But rather than clash, the two keep each other in check. Joe knows how to calm his father down, and Gousse gives his son the push he needs to stay on top of his work and make sure things get done.

“There’s a balance,” Gousse said.

As Joe prepares to study English at Stonehill College in Massachusetts, they both said it will be strange not to have the other around.

“I’ll miss him more than he’ll miss me,” Gousse said about life at Westbrook High School without his son. “He’s like a best friend.”

Father figure – Westbrook principal graduates sonFather figure – Westbrook principal graduates son

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