also multiple-sport athletes at Mepham, Proto flung himself headfirst into the association, serving as president for three years and treasurer for three years. “Whatever job needed to be done, I did,” he said. “It was to raise funds and help out.” Proto has volunteered for the boosters association for nearly two decades, even after his children graduated from Mepham and moved on. Today he remains an adviser to the group’s executive committee while also volunteering for the Mepham Alumni Association, for which he has served as president and is now treasurer. You might call Proto “Mr. Mepham.” At the Bellmore Herald, we call him the 2011 Person of the Year, in recognition of his extraordinary commitment to his hometown and his alma mater. Proto was born in Brooklyn and moved to North Bellmore in 1959. He attended Saw Mill Road Elementary School, Jerusalem Avenue Junior High School, which is now a BOCES school, and his beloved Mepham, where he was sports editor of the school newspaper. After graduation, he went on to Hofstra University, where he was an announcer for the football, basketball and wrestling teams and a football statistician. At the same time, he covered high school sports for Newsday. He considered a career in sports journalism, but instead chose to major in business. Proto graduated from Hofstra in 1974 with a bachelor’s degree in accounting and was immediately hired by Haskins & Sells, a major accounting firm that was later taken over by Deloitte & Touche. At Haskins & Sells, Proto met his wife of nearly 35 years, Mary. The couple married on June 4, 1977, lived in Queens and then moved to North Bellmore in 1991. Vincent earned his master’s degree in banking from Hofstra in 1979, and was soon hired by Bankers Trust, which was taken over in 1998 by Deutsche Bank. He is now a vice president of risk analysis for the global banking giant. Deutsche Bank’s old 41-story New York office building sat in the shadow of the World Trade Center and was nearly destroyed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks when the south tower collapsed onto it. Proto was among the thousands of financial industry executives who fled for their lives that day. He survived, but the horror of the attacks will remain indelibly etched in his mind, he said. Deutsche Bank is now headquartered at 60 Wall St. Though Proto is less involved in the sports boosters association than when his children attended Mepham, he is more involved than ever in the 3,000-member alumni association. In addition to his duties as treasurer, he writes articles for the group’s two publications, Scuttlebutt, its annual magazine, and Quarterdeck, its annual newsletter, profiling teachers and athletes while also reporting on Mepham’s famed Sprig Gardner
PERSON 2 0 11
OF THE YEAR Bellmore
HERALD December 29, 2011 - January 4, 2012
$1.00
YEAR IN REVIEW
Courtesy Scott Lipsky
Kennedy High School graduate Scott Lipsky made sports history in 2011 when he won the mixed doubles title at the French Open. Page 8
o t o r P t Vincen
There’s no bigger booster than ‘Mr. Mepham’
By SCOTT BRINTON sbrinton@liherald.com
I Jeff Wilson/Herald
Hurricane Irene may have been downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it reached the Bellmores, but it caused widespread flooding and damage in August. Page 10
f Webster’s Dictionary were to define “unsung hero,” the entry might simply read “Vincent Proto.” The 59-year-old North Bellmore native, a Little League parent volunteer and coach, shies away from the limelight. He wants no credit for all the good work he has done over the past 20 years. But make no mistake –– he deserves far more credit than we can offer in a single story.
In 1991, Proto, a proud Mepham graduate, began volunteering for the Mepham Alumni Association, and in 1993 he started coaching his children’s softball and baseball teams in the North Bellmore-North Merrick Little League, eventually becoming the organization’s director. In 1994 he joined the Mepham Sports Boosters Association when his daughter Catherine reached Mepham High School and got involved in several sports. With his two younger children, Annemarie and Nicholas,
See Mr. Mepham, page 4
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