Last graduate of ’45, becomes first of 2012

Pages from the 1945 BHS yearbook celebrated young men who quit school to enlist.

Courtesy Baldwin Schools

Dominick Famularo, 85, finally received his BHS diploma last week. His classmates from 2012 have adopted him and even invited him to the prom.

Chris Connolly

Dominick Famularo, left, received his diploma from school board Trustee B.A. Schoen at a special ceremony last week. Famularo sacrificed the latter half of his senior year at BHS to fight in World War II.

Chris Connolly

• 
• 
• 

Dominick Famularo, 85, as beloved a figure as you’ll find in Baldwin, finally received his high school diploma last week. It was bestowed at a special Board of Education meeting that also celebrated the service of retiring district personnel.

“School board members are not paid, but we are rewarded…,” began Trustee Robert “B.A.” Schoen, addressing a sizable crowd that included many members of Famularo’s family as well as a dozen representatives of the Baldwin Fire Department, with which Famularo has served for 62 years. “Tonight is one of those rewards. Tonight I have the privilege to represent the Board of Education and, by extension, the entire community, in correcting an oversight that is 67 years overdue.”

Schoen fought to control his emotions at times during his remarks, and it was clear that ensuring that Famularo received his diploma was one of the chief initiatives of his remaining weeks on the school board. (Schoen will be replaced next term by Trustee-elect Eric Harrison.) Schoen was, in fact, responsible for the movement to award Famularo a diploma — an action inspired by his receipt of an old BHS yearbook from a friend.

“A few months ago, a friend of mine, who occasionally sends me items he has found, sent me a copy of the 1945 Nexus, the yearbook of our high school,” Schoen said. “I was interested in the accounts of the football and wrestling teams, and I was struck by a sentence in the football article.”

Schoen explained that what attracted his attention was the description of a BHS football win during which “the team had to carry on without their quarterback, Perry Watts, who was, according to the article, ‘playing for an even bigger team, the U.S. Army.’”

Schoen went on to read about several BHS athletes who left during their senior years to fight in World War II. “I was aware that those students who left school to enlist during a time of war are entitled, under the Regents regulations, to receive a diploma from their high school,” Schoen said, “and I wondered if any of those boys of the 1940s were still around so we could thank them.”