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Vol. 30 No. 4
Savings & Success!
Hablamos Español Street, Cedarhurst, NY 11516
Community is at the core of Lynch’s mission By MARK NolAN mnolan@liherald.com
Mark Nolan/Herald
PAUl lYNch wIll succeed Melissa Burak as Lynbrook superintendent.
When Paul Lynch was hired by the Lynbrook School District in 2009, he was overcome by a sense of community. On Jan. 11, Lynch was named the next district superintendent. He will succeed Melissa Burak, who is retiring after 30 years in Lynbrook on June 30. “I grew up right in Baldwin, so you know, there’s just a lot of simpatico,” said Lynch, 58. “I love Lynbrook.” Former Superintendent Santo Barbarino told Lynch in 2009 that community is what makes Lyn-
brook a special place. Lynch quickly found out for himself. “There is a sincerity about people here,” Lynch recalls Barbarino telling him. “People care about people. Kids are kind and nice. They hold doors, and ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ still exist here.” When Lynch was named superintendent last week, his nephew James Lynch, a Lynbrook native with three children in the district, told the Board of Education that his uncle was taught at the dining room table to believe in values of honesty and ethics. Continued on page 20
East Rockaway Army veteran Frank Luisi dies at 96 By BEN FIEBERT bfiebert@liherald.com
It was evident at Frank Luisi’s wake that the East Rockaway resident and Army veteran had touched the hearts of hundreds of people. Luisi died on Dec. 23 at the age of 96, of asbestos poisoning and old age. He lived a long and eventful life that started Nov. 19, 1926. Page after page of names in the guestbook at his wake made his impact clear. “We were astounded by how many people showed up that day,” said his daughter Denise White. “When you go into a funeral home, you write into a book, and we had
seven pages, front and back, filled up with notes.” Along with those notes, White sent 100 acknowledgement cards to thank people for coming, and she had to order 100 more. “This woman who I worked with for the wake said, ‘I couldn’t imagine how many people were in that church,’” White said. “It makes you realize what kind of person Frank was.” Before moving to East Rockaway later in life, Luisi went to St. Michael’s, in Brooklyn, and then attended Brooklyn Technical High School. When he was 18, he and his wife, Helen, were married — at Fort Bragg, North Carolina,
because Frank was in the Army. The young couple kicked off a lineage that is still growing today. “While he was in the Army, my dad would box,” White said. “He actually won the Golden Gloves.” According to White, Helen gave Frank an ultimatum, which was “boxing or me,” and Frank chose her. After they settled down as a newly married couple, Frank went to work for the American Can Company as a mechanic, working on ACC’s big machines. Frank and Helen moved to East Rockaway in 1963, and Frank became a construction inspector for roads in Nassau County. In his free time, Frank played
baseball. “His name was well known in Brooklyn as he was a great baseball player,” White said. “He loved baseball, and he’d go across the street from his house to play in a park. My mom would yell at him to come eat dinner, and he’d always be late.” Along with baseball, Frank loved to travel with Helen. They visited Greece, Hawaii, Italy and
other locations around the world. Frank and Helen were the proud parents of Jean, Denise, Frank Jr. and Michele, and they had 14 grandchildren and 21 great-grandchildren. Mike White, Frank’s grandson, said his earliest memory of his grandfather was of him always carrying Tic Tacs in his Continued on page 20