After a snowy night in Contoocook one winter, 82-year-old Louis Corson dragged his snowblower out of the garage and fired it up.

Overnight, heavy snow had swept through, and towering banks surrounded Corson’s mailbox. Back and forth, he went to work pushing the machine into the bank and pulling it out, trying to clear enough space for his mail and newspaper to be delivered.

Shortly after he started, Corson heard a tractor pull up behind him, and a voice called out, “What the hell are you doing out here with that little snow blower?”

It was Richard Strickford, or “Dick” or “Stric” as his friends knew him, sitting on his “famous” Massey Ferguson tractor. Corson stepped back, and within minutes Strickford cleared the driveway of snow and provided a space to access the mailbox and newspaper tube.

After that, Strickford crossed the street and cleared another neighbor’s driveway, and then another.

“You can’t find anyone in this area or surrounding it that didn’t know Dick,” said Corson, 82. “He was great.”

“Him and his tractor were always going around doing good deeds,” said Corson’s wife, Barbara.

Strickford died at his Contoocook home Thursday at the age of 70. His death was sudden, according to an obituary published in the Sunday Monitor.

A well-known and respected member of the community, Strickford was committed to public service. He worked as a Hopkinton police officer and a state trooper. He continued to serve in retirement as a Contoocook precinct commissioner, member of the town’s sewer committee and a fence viewer. He had recently been appointed to the roads committee.

“He was the kind of person that is like the glue of the town,” said Selectman Ken Traum, who shared similar stories to Corson’s about Strickford helping neighbors through the winter months. “He did things for people. He was always friendly, always had a positive word.”

Strickford is survived by his wife of 52 years, Sue, a member of Hopkinton’s select board who served as town clerk for more than 40 years, and their four children. A celebration of Strickford’s life will be held at 1 p.m. today in the Great Room at the St. Methodios Faith and Heritage Center, 329 Camp Merrimac Road, Contoocook. Town offices will be closed today from 12:30 to 3 p.m. so staff can attend the service.

Strickford came to Contoocook from Passaic, N.J., just before starting the sixth grade, said Tina Hoyt, a Contoocook native and longtime friend of Dick and Sue. Hoyt described him as a “quiet guy” who she got to know better later in their lives.

Strickford graduated from Hopkinton High School in 1963, and he and Sue married shortly after. Hoyt and her husband, Garrett, stayed close to the Strickfords as the two couples continued to live in Contoocook through the years.

Hoyt remembered Strickford as always having a new restaurant in the area to recommend, and she said his taste was right in line with theirs.

“He was forever telling Garrett, ‘I have a new restaurant you gotta try,’ and we always agreed,” Hoyt said.

Strickford’s last recommendation for the Hoyts was Kimball Farm in Jaffrey. Just a couple of days before he died, the Hoyts made the drive down and, once again, Strickford was right.

“Great seafood and ice cream,” Tina Hoyt said. “We just liked the same things.”

An avid outdoorsman, Strickford was the owner of the Mill Mountain Fish and Game Club in Stark, where he often hosted hunting outings and invited friends to enjoy the camp.

When Dan Blanchette, Hopkinton’s director of public works, drove up to Stark with his daughter for a softball tournament, Strickford told them to spend the night at the camp rather than rushing the two-hour drive home.

Strickford was a familiar face at the town’s the highway garage in his later years, stopping by a few times a week right about 9 a.m. when the crew would take a 15-minute break for coffee.

“He had his own box of coffee,” Blanchette said – Green Mountain decaf K-cups. “It’s still here.”

The Corsons heard the news of Strickford’s death over Louis’s pager, which he still holds onto from his years as a volunteer member of the Hopkinton Fire Department.

“We heard a call for (their house) and thought, ‘Isn’t that the Strickfords?’ ” Barbara recounted. “It was very sad . . . he was just a good guy, and there’s not too many of them nowadays.”

(Nick Stoico can be reached at 369-3309, nstoico@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @NickStoico.)