Pascal Covello, 75, ex-teacher, fire chief, dies

Pascal M. Covello, 75, a retired teacher and former Westhampton Beach fire chief, died Monday at Stony Brook University Medical Center after a long illness.

He was born in the Bronx, and his family moved to Remsenburg in the 1950s. He and his wife, Marian, moved to Westhampton Beach after they married 49 years ago.

Covello had a passion for community service that showed in many ways. He served as fire chief from 1975-78 and was elected to the village board of trustees, serving from 1978 to '88, where he helped develop the Rogers Pavilion on the village beach on Dune Road.

He also served with the volunteer ambulance company and several county agencies.

Joining hundreds of other volunteer firefighters, Covello took part in the 1995 battle to extinguish the brush fires that spread across thousands of acres of central and eastern Long Island. His son, Christopher Covello, working on a newspaper in White Plains at the time, remembers calling his father. "I asked him where the fire was," his son said. "He said, 'Everywhere.' "

Covello was working at the Cornell duck research laboratory in Eastport when he met Marian, then a teacher in Westhampton Beach, at a party.

Later, he finished his bachelor's and master's degrees at Adelphi University and went to work teaching in grades 4 through 6 in Center Moriches from 1968 to 1995.

He found ways to combine his passion for teaching and firefighting. Covello visited schools to teach fire safety, and took schoolchildren through a special smoke-filled house to teach them how to safely escape.

The Suffolk County Fire Safety Educators Association named him educator of the year in 1995.

Covello was named to the executive board of the Suffolk County Fire Academy in 2000, and served until earlier this year. He was also active in the Suffolk County Volunteer Firefighters Burn Center Fund.

Besides his wife, Marion, of Westhampton Beach, and son Christopher of Princeton, N.J., Covello is survived by another son, Daniel, of Danvers, Mass.; a brother, Arthur, of Medford, N.J.; and three grandchildren.

A funeral Mass will be said at noon today at the Immaculate Conception Church in Westhampton Beach, with interment following at the Westhampton Cemetery.

There were visitors Thursday at the Follett & Werner Funeral Home in Westhampton Beach, with fire department services last evening.

The family requests memorial donations be made to the Suffolk County Volunteer Firefighters Burn Center Fund, in care of: Stony Brook University Medical Center, Office of Advancement, Clark House, Stony Brook, NY 11794-4020.