Paulette Brinka, of Ridge, radio reporter, public official, college professor, dies at 76

When Avianca Airlines Flight 052 crashed in Cove Neck in 1990, she was there. When the Grucci family’s fireworks factory in Bellport was rocked by fatal explosions in 1983, she was there. And as the world of South Shore baymen began changing irrevocably in the 1980s, she was there.

For more than a dozen years beginning in the mid-1970s, Long Island radio anchor and reporter Paulette Brinka chronicled Long Island for WGSM (now WNYH), WALK-AM (now WLID), the still extant WALK-FM and other outlets. "She knew the backstory for everything from politics to pine barrens," said her friend and one-time newsroom boss Susan Murphy, a Long Island Journalism Hall of Famer. "There was not a story she couldn't give you chapter and verse on."

In the early 1990s, she became a Brookhaven public official, and in 1997 a leader in the Brookhaven chapter of the women’s employment-support nonprofit Dress for Success. She later capped her career with a long stint teaching communication and rhetoric in college.

"She always put others ahead of herself," said her son, Chris Brinka, of Sag Harbor. "She was always, ‘How can I help? What do you need?’ I mean, she lit up every life she touched." She was, he said, "generous with her guidance — she mentored so many people."

Paulette Brinka, of Ridge, died on Sunday of gallbladder cancer at East End Hospice in Westhampton Beach. She was 76.

"We celebrated Christmas on the 23rd this year, and it was a real blessing," her son said. "We had Christmas at East End Hospice. She gave us our presents. We gave her our presents. Christmas was really important to her," he said, adding, "It's poignant that she passed away during Christmas week."

Born Paulette Frances Barsi in Southampton on Feb. 8, 1949, and raised in South Haven, she was one of three daughters of World War II Navy veteran Daniel Angelo Barsi, who managed the Riverhead men’s clothing store Carl & Bobs for four decades, and homemaker Eleanor Dorothea Behrens Barsi.

At Longwood High School in Middle Island, she played flute and other instruments in both the marching band and concert band, and was a member of Future Teachers of America. After graduating in 1967, she attended Boston University, earning a broadcasting and film degree in 1971 and developing a lifelong love of its namesake city.

In 1974, she married fellow broadcast journalist Frank Brinka. The two would work together at Patchogue’s WALK-AM and WALK-FM, where he served as news director from 1976 to 1988. At various times, Paulette Brinka contributed to WNEW, WCBS and radio network, and wrote for The Suffolk County News.

She shared a 1985 Press Club of Long Island award for Best Public Affairs Radio Reporting and won a 1986 Focus on Long Island Operations (FOLIO) award for education reporting.

Paulette Brinka, by then separated from her husband, continued on under Murphy before leaving journalism to become the Town of Brookhaven’s public information officer in the early 1990s. By 1997, she had transitioned to the position of citizen’s advocate in the town supervisor’s office.

That same year, she helped establish and served as chair for Brookhaven’s chapter of the nationwide organization Dress for Success, which provides professional business wear and support for financially strapped job seekers. She continued in that role through 2011 — earning a master’s degree in speech communication and rhetoric from Hofstra University along the way, in 2004.

Brinka taught communication and rhetoric into the 2020s as an adjunct at Hofstra, in Hempstead; at the Patchogue campus of St. Joseph’s University; at the now-defunct Dowling College, in Oakdale; and at Nassau and Suffolk counties' community colleges.

Outside her professional life, "she was a very proud alto in the North Shore Chamber Choir," where she was active as secretary and in other roles, said her son.

A lover of history, "she became a first ladies scholar," said Murphy, who lives in Charlotte, North Carolina. "She lived, breathed, ate, drank and slept first ladies."

This included interviewing Rosalynn Carter and later speaking about her on a panel for the Ohio-based First Ladies Association for Research and Education (FLARE). Brinka's favorite was Lucretia Garfield, wife of James A. Garfield, president for only six months in 1881 before he died in office.

In addition to her son, Brinka is survived by a daughter, Jocelyn Brinka Linse, of Ridge; sisters Carol Barsi Zabinski, of Uxbridge, Massachusetts, and Jeanette Barsi Cooper, of Yaphank; and one grandchild.

Visitation will take place at Alexander-Rothwell Funeral Home in Wading River on Friday. A funeral Mass will be celebrated on Saturday at St. John the Baptist Church in Wading River, followed by burial at Yaphank Cemetery.