“ To adapt our school’ s motto, Vir Bonus Est.( Tom) is a good man. And our school and everyone who has passed through it are better because they have known him.”
“ To adapt our school’ s motto, Vir Bonus Est.( Tom) is a good man. And our school and everyone who has passed through it are better because they have known him.”
who brought his students to a deeper appreciation of the Ten Commandments, Beatitudes, and Golden Rule. Most importantly, though, by his example he taught Saint David’ s boys the importance of selfless service to others. With boundless energy, he led the students’ major fundraising activities to help those in need. Each year, the Thanksgiving Food Drive— in which the eighth graders filled hundreds of boxes with canned goods brought in by the student body, sold pies, and collected money to buy turkeys – helped countless underserved New Yorkers. In the spring, there were good works of global outreach, in recent years involving building schools in Ethiopia, and this year helping Supreme Prep, a school in Jamaica severely damaged by the recent hurricane. With the eighth grade taking the lead, Tom orchestrated schoolwide activities to raise funds through walk-a-thons, basketball shootout contests, and t-shirt sales. Throughout the year, he was a regular presence in front of the school as it opened in the morning, coordinating sales, supervising collections, and coaching the eighth graders as they promoted and ran the events. The culmination of each year’ s charitable programs was the much-anticipated“ Are You Smarter than an Eighth Grader?” trivia contest, in which an audience of family and friends gathered to watch the eighth graders compete against each other, their teachers, and their parents. As Quizmaster, Tom revealed another aspect of his personality – his love of general knowledge. Each year, he would spend his free time adding to his astounding collection of personally made trivia cards, which would be brought in a chest to the contest with great fanfare. They literally numbered in the thousands.
Also in the thousands are those whom Tom has helped by leading these altruistic endeavors, but the lives he has most directly benefitted are the many students he taught, guided, and nurtured, and the many colleagues who have had the pleasure to work with him, to have him as a mentor or advisor, and to count him as a friend. As his son and namesake said about him at the recent spring gathering in his honor, Tom has“ the rare ability to make every person he meets feel important.” He never forgets a name, a face, a story. To adapt our school’ s motto, Vir Bonus Est. He is a good man. And our school and everyone who has passed through it are better because they have known him. •
Eugene Romanosky is an Eighth Grade Homeroom, English, Latin, and religion teacher at Saint David’ s School.
Summer 2026 • 7