On a Saturday afternoon in mid-October, the main floor of the Ellsworth Public Library will fill with the particular quiet of a chess tournament: the soft click of pieces on boards, the thump of a clock being pressed, the low murmur of players leaning over a position. The Ellsworth Public Library and the Ellsworth Chess Club will host the Dick Powell Memorial Chess Tournament on Saturday, Oct. 17, from noon to 5 p.m., bringing players from across the region together to remember a man who spent decades teaching the game to Maine schoolchildren.
The tournament is explicitly beginner-friendly. The library's event page puts it plainly: if you know how the pieces move, this tournament is for you. It is open to all ages, with a non-rated community section for players who do not hold a U.S. Chess Federation membership and a rated section that includes a kids' PK-8th grade tournament. Players are encouraged to bring their own sets and clocks, though a limited number will be available on site, and the library will provide free light snacks. Online preregistration is strongly encouraged through easypairchess.com, and sign-in and late registration begin thirty minutes before each section.
That a memorial tournament should be pitched at beginners is fitting, because Powell's reputation was built on taking children who had never touched a rook and turning them into champions. He founded the chess program at Deer Isle-Stonington Elementary School and coached there for 28 years. During his tenure the team won 39 state championships and competed in national tournaments, according to the Bangor Daily News. The scale of that dominance is hard to overstate. At his 75th birthday party in 2018, Powell shared a piece of Maine chess trivia: in the twenty-year span from 1993 through 2013, Deer Isle-Stonington schools amassed thirty-six Maine state scholastic championship wins, while every other scholastic chess team in the state combined won thirty-five. ChessMaine.net, reporting on that birthday celebration, wrote that calling the Deer Isle-Stonington Mariners chess program a mere dynasty "doesn't do the teams justice," and credited the two-decade run largely to one man.
Powell was born Richard Aldrich Powell and lived in Ellsworth. He died on Oct. 1, 2025, at the age of 82. In 2014, the Maine Legislature recognized him upon his retirement as a teacher for his extraordinary commitment to the youth of Maine. The Maine Legislature's records from that session also note the Deer Isle-Stonington K-6 chess team's 2013 Maine Scholastic Team Chess Championship, its fourth consecutive title in that division.
Asked in a 2014 interview with ChessMaine.net about the source of his success, Powell resisted the idea that there was any trick to it. "There are no 'secret formulas' that I used along the way," he said. "Keeping their interest and having fun were the cornerstones for me." He described his own motivation just as simply: "The fact that I could play [chess] wherever I happened to be — Madagascar, New Zealand, Brazil, Guatemala, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, etc. — was what kept me interested." Powell was an avid traveler who spoke French, German, Spanish and Portuguese, and the list of countries in that answer suggests a life in which a chessboard was a constant companion across continents.
His ties to the local chess scene ran well beyond the school where he coached. Powell helped organize the Ellsworth Chess Community, and he remained a familiar and influential figure in Maine's chess circles long after he stopped teaching. When he turned 75, friends, family and players gathered at the Flexit Café and Bakery in Ellsworth for lobster rolls, birthday cake, live music and a ten-player, four-round blitz tournament played at a five-minute time control. Powell finished that tournament with 1.5 points; Stephen Tucker won it undefeated. Prizes included vintage Deer Isle-Stonington chess t-shirts.
The memorial tournament follows a year of renewed chess activity in Ellsworth. In October 2025, the Ellsworth Chess Club and the Ellsworth Public Library hosted a National Chess Day Tournament with help from MDI Chess, drawing players of all ages from communities including Machias, Lewiston, Bangor, Glenburn, Mount Desert Island, Ellsworth, Thorndike and Winthrop. The Dick Powell Memorial builds on that momentum, and the organizers frame it as an occasion for former students, fellow players, friends and chess enthusiasts to remember Powell through the game he loved.
The library describes itself as an open, welcoming and safe space where people come together to learn, connect and grow, and where strong communities begin with equitable access to knowledge and lifelong learning. Hosting a free, all-ages chess tournament on its main floor — one that welcomes the rank beginner alongside the rated competitor — is a fairly direct expression of that idea, and a fitting tribute to a coach whose entire method, by his own account, was keeping kids interested and making sure they had fun.
Players and community members who want to participate or learn more can visit the library's event page at ellsworth.libcal.com or preregister at easypairchess.com. The tournament runs Saturday, Oct. 17, 2026, from noon to 5 p.m. at the Ellsworth Public Library, 20 State Street.