WOODSTOCK, N.B. - A Mountie from New Brunswick who died in the earthquake in Haiti was remembered Thursday as a doting father, a gentle man who wanted to serve others, and a practical joker who became best friends with everyone he knew.

About 700 police officers marched in a procession to St. Gertrude's Roman Catholic Church in Woodstock before the RCMP regimental funeral for Sgt. Mark Gallagher. Some 350 people packed the small brick church for the service, while an overflow of mourners watched the funeral on television at a local civic centre in Woodstock and at the Moncton Wesleyan Church.

Gallagher, a well-known spokesman for the RCMP in the Maritimes, was in Port-au-Prince as part of the United Nations training force when the earthquake struck the island nation on Jan. 12.

Rev. Wesley Wade said he new Gallagher when he was growing up in Bathurst and followed his career with the RCMP, where he would often handle difficult situations as a media relations officer with the police force.

"Mark discharged his responsibility with dignity, with respect and with a great deal of compassion," he said in French.

Rev. Karl Ingersoll, the pastor of the First Wesleyan Church in Fredericton, said his friend was an avid runner and well-known practical joker.

He recalled a time when Gallagher pulled someone over for a traffic offence and the driver bolted into a wood.

"That was candy for Mark," Ingersoll said. "Mark the runner. He could have quickly chased this man, but he decided he would make a bit of a game out of it."

Ingersoll said Gallagher trailed him, slowing his pace to remain behind the suspect, while gently repeating, "I'm going to getcha," until the pursued man tired and fell into a heap.

The 50-year-old married father of two adult children, Heather and Shane, was also remembered for his service to others, particularly the disadvantaged.

Lisa Gallagher said her husband had patience for everyone, which was sometimes a frustration when he ran into people he knew in local grocery stores.

"It would take us hours to get through the store because Mark did not know really how to end the conversation," she said. "Mark's parents were the first to tell me that I would have to learn how to wait for Mark as he was born without an internal time clock."

Lisa said her husband -- whose guilty pleasure were bags of potato chips that he was known to hide around the house -- rarely got angry. "Mark was a gentle, kind spirit."

But his last trip home from Haiti at Christmas was different.

"Mark was conflicted on a number of different levels," she said. "He had tremendous trouble reconciling our lifestyle to the misery he was seeing in Haiti. He wanted to return to Haiti, yet he did not want to leave me alone in North Hampton over the winter months."

On Wednesday, hundreds of Mounties in red serge packed an Ottawa church to pay last respects to Chief Supt. Doug Coates, who was also serving with the UN in Port-au-Prince.

A moment of silence was held for Coates and the victims of the earthquake during Gallagher's funeral.