The region mourned many local people who had made impacts on the Concord area in 2023.

Writers, filmmakers, musicians, coaches and individuals who simply wanted to do something good for someone are included. Some lived full lives. Others left us far too soon. Here are just some of the many individuals who touched lives while they lived, and left a void after they passed. The names are in no particular order:

John Gfroerer

John Gfroerer loved history and filmmaking, so it certainly made sense that he devoted his life to making documentaries.

He died in July at the age of 73, after fighting cancer for three years and suffering a traumatic brain injury in a fall.

He produced films about the home front during World War II. He made films about the presidential primaries, a distinction for which the Granite State remains willing to fight.

To Gfroerer, everyone had a story to tell, rich with history, tragedy and triumph. Everyone was a star in some way, and that included the old couple rocking in chairs on their porch in a dusty and desolated part of Maine, along U.S. Route 1. The couple became part of his documentary, showing the appreciation the couple had for one another.

Tom Walton

Just two months ago, the town of Hopkinton had an easy decision to make when choosing the face and legacy for a recent local fundraiser.

When the event is a road race and the town is Hopkinton, there’s the late Tom Walton and then there’s everyone else.

Few have promoted fitness sports such as running and paddling like Walton did, as a coach, a participant and a friend. Shockingly, this fitness fanatic, lean and strong, died from a heart attack in February. He was 74.

The running and kayaking community lost an individual who treated great runners like they were great runners and slow runners like they were great runners.

He coordinated efforts to introduce new races to the area. He coached on the high school and college levels, kicked butt in the senior divisions of various road races and did everything with that same Tom Walton smile that everyone knew so well.

Kelsey Mayer

A tribute was held to honor Kelsey Mayer in September at Memorial Field before the start of Concord High’s soccer game against Manchester Central-West.

Mayer’s death at such a young age, 18, created harsh pain felt far beyond Concord.

She died in March, just three weeks from her 19th birthday. Her Chevy Cruze collided with a logging truck that was backing up on Route 9 in Stoddard around 4:45 in the morning. She died from her injuries the next day.

The Memorial Field remembrance included dozens of photo collages of Mayer with family and friends. The booster club sold black “Mayer #12” shirts, helping raise money for the scholarship fund created in Mayer’s honor. A 50-50 raffle collected over $800.

Mayer was pivotal to Concord’s 13-4 season her senior year. She became a leader, as concerned with lifting her teammates’ energy and skill level as she was about her own play.

She played soccer at Keene State College, where she became the first walk-on player in 20 years to earn a spot on the women’s soccer team.

Rusty Cofrin

Rusty Cofrin went down fighting the cancer that took his life in October, and that’s all he ever wanted from his athletes during his 30 years of coaching cross country at Concord High School.

Cofrin demanded effort and courage, two key ingredients when fighting the cruelty of long-distance running. He had been diagnosed with brain cancer 16 years ago and retired from coaching and teaching to look after himself.

He barely slowed down. Cofrin was diagnosed with brain cancer the first time in 2007. He thumbed his nose at the disease, continuing his active lifestyle and contributions to running while undergoing radiation treatment. He biked 20 to 50 miles per day.

And Cofrin didn’t stop there. While still suffering from the disease, Cofrin competed in a 100-mile bike race in Philadelphia to raise money for cancer research. He volunteered to help stage the annual High School Track and Field Championships at the University of New Hampshire.

Katy Burns

Katy Burns of Bow, an award-winning freelance columnist for the Concord Monitor for more than 20 years, left behind a legion of fans when she died in November following a long illness.

Burns had an army of passionate fans, some of whom liked her very much. But Burns often addressed political issues during her time at the Monitor, using wit, humor and a landslide of liberalism to draw the ire of many readers.

Burns, a resident of Bow, kept a high profile in politics, serving as press secretary for John Glenn during his successful bid for the U.S. Senate in Ohio, her birthplace.

She was also a regional press secretary for Jimmy Carter when he was elected president and for George McGovern during his bid for the White House.

Isiah Rosario

Bad luck led to the death of another Concord High student, 15-year-old Isiah Rosario, who was shot and killed in Providence, R.I., in March.

Rosario moved to Concord from Providence two years ago and attended Rundlett Middle School before his freshman year at Concord High.

Rosario left Concord abruptly to visit his old neighborhood, a tough area in spots, in Rhode Island. He was reported missing from Concord on April 1 by his mother and tracked to Providence prior to the shooting.

Police said that Rosario was not the intended target when an unidentified person shot him in the chest and killed him.

Providence police said the neighborhood had been crime-ridden over the past few weeks, and the shooting might have been a retaliatory act in response to recent violence.

The Concord High School principal said Rosario was quickly becoming well-known and liked. The news of his death left the high school community angry, confused and sad.

Mike Pride

Mike Pride, whose mentoring while editor at the Concord Monitor produced some of the best journalists in the country, and who carried a torch to show the value of small newspapers, died in April at the age of 76.

He built the Monitor into a highly decorated newspaper during his 30 years there, instilling confidence into young, unproven writers to unlock skills they never knew they had and allowing his writers and photographers the freedom to experiment and grow.

Under Pride, the Monitor won state, regional and national recognition and earned the reputation as a newspaper that would pour resources and time into complex projects.

He gave former photographer Preston Gannaway and writer Chelsea Conaboy a year to shadow a terminally ill woman and her family to document the challenges they faced. They covered the story right through until the woman died.

Gannaway won a Pulitzer Prize for that, as did Monitor alum Joe Becker for her work with the New York Times.

Pride led the Monitor’s coverage of the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion and the death of Concord High teacher Christa McAuliffe.

Facing the biggest story of his career, Pride assembled his staff, calmly laid out a strategy and, as the local newspaper covering an international story, explained that his reporters had to balance hard-hitting news with sensitivity toward the McAuliffe family.

Chris Kane

The state’s trees and plants lost a good friend on July 25 when Chris Kane died suddenly at the age of 68.

Kane was an easement steward for the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire forests. He identified trees 100 years old and older and advocated for easements that would allow, perhaps, another 100 years of growth.

Kane hiked where there were no trails, knowing that the forests up there were safe from cutting because of the difficulty reaching them, ensuring they would remain free from the logging industry.

He identified rare plants and made sure they were respected and left alone as well.

He volunteered for more organizations connected to conservationism than a Boy Scout, all with the same goal in mind: obtaining easements for areas with old, uncut trees and rare, unique plants.

Vivian Trimble

Few people in the Concord area – and that included serious music lovers – knew that a keyboardist from a groundbreaking band had moved here and taken a job as a ticket-taker at the Capitol Center for the Arts.

At the job interview, however, Vivian Trimble’s secret spilled out after she mentioned that she had played with a band back in the 1990s. She didn’t include the band’s name initially but had no choice but to reveal her background once a staff member asked her for the name.

“Luscious Jackson,” Trimble said.

An employee at the theater had a Luscious Jackson song on his phone’s playlist, which told him all he needed to know about the new applicant.

Trimble died from cancer in April at the age of 59. She moved from New York City 10 years ago and settled in Hopkinton.

She was part of an all-female group whose unique alternative rock sound, which included elements of rap, and cool stage presence led to some high-profile publicity.

Luscious Jackson played on Conan O’Brien’s late-night talk show and “Saturday Night Live.” The Beastie Boys signed Luscious to a record deal and they had a Billboard top-40 hit. Trimble played with Emmylou Harris, and her death was covered by Rolling Stone magazine.

After a little while, management believed she was overqualified as a ticket-taker and moved her to program director, becoming an unofficial face of the operation.

Bob Carey

Once a wild young man in his native Boscawen, known for abusing drugs and drinking to excess, Bob Carey had evolved into a mentor and support system before he died in April at the age of 67.

Known for his welcoming nature, quick smile and love for the Grateful Dead, Carey became a towering figure in town who was omnipresent at AA meetings, always inviting friends and strangers to use him as a sounding board to help them get sober.

Carey’s family owned Carey’s Market at 63 North Main Street in Boscawen, opening in 1953. The mini-mart stood as a meeting place of goodwill, until changing times forced Carey, by then the owner, to close his doors in 2007.

He had become a motivating force on a mission, using his gentle voice to get his point across.

He’d slowed in recent years, traveling with an oxygen tank and a walker, yet he continued to attend live music featuring Dead cover bands.

A service to remember Carey included Grateful Dead music and a standing-room-only gathering that attracted hundreds of people.

Lester Durgin

Lester Durgin of Henniker was a modest man who never drew attention to himself.

His son, Sean Durgin, had other plans for Lester, who died in August at the age of 78. About a dozen vehicles at the funeral followed the 1970 Mack dump truck that Lester once owned and still loved in his last days.

They moved slowly, headlights on, for the short drive from St. Theresa’s Church in Henniker, their hometown, to the local cemetery.

Beforehand, though, there was a small problem that did not turn out to be a problem at all: Lester had sold the Mack truck 14 years ago. Henniker residents Efner and Peter Holmes used it exclusively on their farm, hauling stumps and rocks.

So Sean and a family friend visited the Holmeses and asked if they could borrow the truck for the funeral. Sean wanted to take one last ride in what had become his close friend growing up. They said yes, without skipping a beat.

John Harrigan

At the start of the year, anyone who liked to hunt or fish in the Granite State mourned the loss of outdoors columnist John Harrigan, who died last December from cancer at the age of 75.

For more than 50 years, outdoor enthusiasts depended on Harrigan for the latest news connected to wildlife and land issues.

He wrote for the New Hampshire Sunday News and was the publisher of two North Country newspapers, which served as the platforms he used to voice his opinions, including his passionate opposition to the Northern Pass transmission project.

Harrigan was deeply involved in a fast-breaking national story while working at the News and Sentinel in 1997, when four people were shot and killed, including his partner and a colleague, in and around Harrigan’s newsroom in Colebrook.

He was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the murders, and he’s a member of the New England Newspaper Hall of Fame.