OBITUARIES: Zenon Onufryk, community activist and leader, 66 (11/03/02)

OBITUARIES

Zenon Onufryk, community activist and leader, 66

WHIPPANY, N.J. - Zenon Onufryk, a well-known community activist in Morris County, N.J., died on September 24 after a long struggle with cancer. He was 66.

Mr. Onufryk was born on April 13, 1936, in Rohatyn, Ukraine. He arrived in the United States in 1950, settling with his parents in Rochester, N.Y., where he received a public high school education. He studied electrical engineering at the Rochester Institute of Technology and the State University of New York - College at Morrisville.

After completing his studies, Mr. Onufryk moved to New Jersey, where he worked as an engineer for AT&T - Bell Laboratories, today known as Lucent Technologies. He retired in 2001 after 42 years with the company.

In the Ukrainian community of Morris County, N.J., Mr. Onufryk was involved in myriad activities, from the school of Ukrainian studies, to the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, heading the local UCCA branch (first known as the Whippany Branch and later as the Morris County Branch) for several years.

As head of the Morris County UCCA, Mr. Onufryk was involved also in the work of the UCCA New Jersey Coordinating Council, most prominently in the realm of education, as he endeavored to have the Ukrainian Famine-Genocide of 1932-1933 included in the state's school curriculum. As well, he was involved in trying to correct inaccuracies regarding the Soviet Union and Russia that appeared in the textbooks used in the state's high schools, thus perpetuating misperceptions about that region of the world.

He played key roles in the annual commemorations of Ukrainian Independence Day on January 22 and was the community's liaison to local, county and state officials. In addition, he organized various social functions for the area's Ukrainians, ranging from picnics to dances.

Mr. Onufryk was a human rights activist and defender of Ukrainian dissidents during the Cold War period. He organized demonstrations in support of Ukrainian human rights activists and other public events aimed at building awareness of Soviet violations of human, national and religious rights. He was especially active on ad hoc committees that organized visits to Morris County by released Ukrainian political prisoners Leonid Pliusch and Valentyn Moroz, which garnered much publicity for the Ukrainian cause in the local news media.

A strong proponent of Ukrainian Americans' involvement in the U.S. political system, he was active in local politics, establishing contacts with elected officials from the town and county up to the state and national levels. Among the politicians with whom Mr. Onufryk worked closely were the late Rep. Millicent Fenwick; the late Dean Gallo, a freeholder who later was elected to the U.S. Congress; and Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, the current congressman from New Jersey's 11th District, whom Mr. Onufryk supported first as a county freeholder, then as a state assemblyman.

Mr. Onufryk also was actively involved in committees supporting the unveiling of the Taras Shevchenko monument in Washington and later in local commemorations of the Millennium of Christianity in Rus'-Ukraine.

In the late 1970s Mr. Onufryk was a founder of the Media Action Coalition, whose goal was to correct inaccuracies in the information and news media as they pertained to Ukraine and Ukrainians. One of the results of his work was a regularly published Media Action Coalition page in The Ukrainian Weekly, that included "Action Items" encouraging Ukrainian community response to erroneous or misleading reports published and broadcast in the media, inappropriate listings in news media stylebooks and other reference works, as well as useful information for readers such as how to contact the media and the importance of proper terminology. The MAC pages were published in The Weekly in the early 1980s.

He was active in the Rochester and later the Newark, N.J., branches of Plast Ukrainian Scouting Organization both as a youth counselor and in administrative capacities, and was among the leaders of many Plast camps for both "novaky" (age 6-11) and "yunaky" (age 11-18).

Mr. Onufryk was a member of the Chornomortsi fraternity of Plast and was one of the founders in 1955 of its Rochester-based crew (branch) called Viking. As a Chornomorets, he was an organizer of many sea scouting camps in the years 1955-1965, serving twice as the captain of such camps. His specialty in the fraternity was navigation and pilotage.

Mr. Onufryk also aided in the establishment of the Chornomorski Khvyli sorority of Plast, and subsequently in the creation of the Chornomorska Rada, a council encompassing Plast's sea scouting units. In 1965 he married a member of the Chornomorski Khvyli, Irena Omecinskyj.

In addition, he served on the National Plast Command in the United States, first as the director of sea scouting (1958) and later as the national commander of male scouts (1963-1965).

In addition Mr. Onufryk was a member of the Ukrainian National Association, Branch 172.

Surviving are his wife, Irena; son, Peter with his wife, Lori; daughter, Christina; and granddaughter, Lauren; as well as relatives in the United States, Canada and Ukraine.

The funeral liturgy was offered at St. John the Baptist Ukrainian Catholic Church in Whippany, N.J., on September 30. Burial followed at St. Andrew's Ukrainian Orthodox Cemetery in South Bound Brook, N.J.

Donations in Mr. Onufryk's memory may be made to the Sea Scouting Development Fund; checks made payable to Plast Chornomortsi should be sent to: Wolodymyr Pylyshenko, 915 Winona Blvd., Rochester, NY 14617.

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