Dwight Relyea, former executive of Oyster Bay shellfish company Frank M. Flower & Sons, dies at 71

The bays, the Sound and the sea are the life waters of Long Island, where the shellfish bounty has sustained generations of harvesters. Among them is Frank M. Flower & Sons, with roots reaching back 150 years. And from 1995, Dwight Relyea was among the trio at the helm of what was then the largest shellfish company in the state.

"He was passionate about the shellfish industry and aquaculture," his friend and attorney, Oyster Bay’s James Cammarata, said about the Laurel Hollow clam and oyster man. Dwight Relyea owned the company with, initially, his brother David Relyea and Joseph Zahtila. "He was one of those guys that every day showed up for work, many times on weekends, and made sure the boats got out every single day and the product got harvested properly and brought to market."

"He had a really strong work ethic," agreed his wife, Christa Relyea, who joined the company as a partner when David Relyea left to pursue other ventures. "And he brought that to everything in terms of being a father and a business owner. And he cared deeply for his employees. They were like family to us."

Dwight Relyea died Feb. 21, two days shy of his 72nd birthday, at a care facility in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, near one of the couple’s daughters. He had suffered from dementia for months, his wife said.

A member of the Methodist Village Church of Bayville, he "was kind of this gentle giant," Christa Relyea recalled. "He was a very quiet man. He said he didn't need to talk, that he had his people do it. And I was his people."

Dwight James Relyea was born Feb. 23, 1954, in Glen Cove and raised in Bayville. The fourth of five children of AT&T service technician Rulon Douglas Relyea and Virginia Gloria Jarvis Relyea, he graduated in 1972 from Lattingtown’s Locust Valley High School, where he played varsity football.

By then he had already begun work at Flower & Sons. "The truant officer knew his mother's phone number by heart," said Christa Relyea, chuckling, "because he would go in the front door, sneak out the back and go work at the hatchery." There, seedling clams and oysters were cultivated for eventual release into the bay — a process that scion H. Butler Flower had pioneered in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Dwight "finally ended up getting back in school," Christa Relyea said, "but he worked since he was 16 and went to college at night." In 1977, he earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from C.W. Post College, now LIU Post.

The following year he married, and soon divorced, Karena Nitsios. He and Christa Margaret Shearer married in 1986.

Frank M. Flower had begun his shellfish concern on three acres of water in Mill Neck in 1876, incorporating in 1887 and relocating to Bayville in 1940. In 1995, employees Dwight and David Relyea and Zahtila purchased the company. "Collectively, the three of them had worked there for a hundred years," Christa Relyea said. "So they knew the system and were well-equipped and ready for the challenge and the responsibility."

Former special-education teacher Christa became the firm’s general manager after David’s departure.

Dwight Relyea’s tenure was not without controversy. Since 1937, the founders had held a town lease to 1,500 and later 1,800 acres of underwater land, signing a 30-year-extension in 1994.

But in 2011, the North Oyster Bay Baymen’s Association sued the firm, the Town of Oyster Bay and New York State in order to invalidate the lease, leading to highly public acrimony. Relyea, then age 60, was beaten and hospitalized in 2014 following an altercation with 49-year-old Bayville clammer Donald J. Lopez, who was acquitted of assault the following year.

When the Town of Oyster Bay ultimately did not renew the lease, Flower & Sons filed its own suit against it. Last August, Nassau County Supreme Court Judge Gregg Roth dismissed that suit, ending the lease. Flower & Sons remains in operation in Connecticut.

Regardless of the outcome, "I think he was a true steward of the bay," Cammarata said. "He was a quiet gentleman who was most interested in ensuring that the bay continued to be healthy and would continue to produce annual harvests of clams and oysters."

An avid gardener partial to roses, and a motorcyclist who switched to ATVs, "He was always doing stuff to help families that were in trouble financially or whose children had critical illnesses," Christa Relyea said. "He helped others see how important it was to think of others first."

In addition to his wife, he is survived by their daughters, Heather Relyea, of upstate New Paltz, and Holly Relyea Moran, of Longmeadow, Massachusetts. Another daughter, Heidi Relyea, died in infancy. Other survivors are his brother David, of Bayville; sisters, Martha Relyea, of Bayville, and Linette Relyea Gordon, of Westbury; and seven grandchildren. Another brother, Theodore Relyea, predeceased him.

A memorial service will be held Saturday at the Village Church of Bayville. Donations may be made to The Michele Megas-Ditomassi and Susan and T. John Megas, Jr. Endowment of the Baystate Health Foundation.