A Wilson Area High School player had so much to live for when he was taken away from family and friends.
Fifty-two years before a football-related injury took the life of Warren Hills quarterback Evan Murray at just 17, there was Ronald Kulczycki.
Just a kid himself, he had all the tools -- brilliant, handsome, charismatic, athletically gifted -- as a three-sport star and top student at Wilson Area High School.
It happened in a game against Pen Argyl on Nov. 2, 1963 -- during Kulczycki's junior year.
During a kickoff return, his younger brother Jim recalls, No. 86 was blocked from behind in the days before kidney pads were common.
"I was at the game," says Jim, who was 13 at the time. "They took him out, but, like any other teenager would do, he went back in and played."
Ronny soon lost the kidney, and in the weeks and months that followed, life strained to regain its normalcy.
Ronald Kulczycki (Courtesy photo | For lehighvalleylive.com) "He was getting better," Jim says.
Ronny's dreams returned to the field of play; probably not football, but maybe baseball, a friend says. He was the class president. Headed to Princeton in another year to join his older brother, Tony, Ronny wanted to be a doctor.
But then came the summer of 1964, and his other kidney began to fail. That was a time when transplants were rare and dialysis risky.
Suffering from high blood pressure and a blockage in an artery, his family was told an operation could make things right. It did, for a short time. But Kulczycki acquired an infection, a possibility any time a foreign object is introduced within the human body, says brother Jim, now a cardiologist.
"It just went on and on and on and couldn't get better," Jim says, his voice quieting and halting during a phone conversation from California.
Ronny died Sept. 23, 1964. He was 17.
"His life touches everybody, his death touched everybody. We're all touched by it," Jim says of the small community of Wilson. "... There's always a hole in your life and you live around that hole."
Living with loss
Ronny's dad, Anthony, died three years ago. His mom Mae is alive, but, Jim says, has a failing memory, so the pain isn't as vivid.
"It was very hard on my parents," Jim says. "They still talked about my brother to the very end" -- nearly a half century later.
"My brother was my hero," and then he was gone, Jim says.
Soon it was time to say goodbye at Curran Funeral Home, just blocks from the high school, before Mass at Holy Ghost Ukrainian Church in West Easton.
"It was just an incredibly sad day for the whole community," Jim says. "It was almost like a parade of people going into the funeral home. It meant a lot to our family."
"I'll never forget it," childhood friend Ken Davey recalls. "The entire Wilson High School went single file through that viewing."
For Terry Lee, one of Ronny's best buddies and longtime keeper of his flame, there was a moment that day that will never leave him.
Wayne Grube, who would go on to a legendary career as a football coach and political figure, was still near the start of his career path. He was an assistant coach and teacher at Wilson.
"He cried like a baby," the now 68-year-old Lee explains about Grube at the ceremony. "I'd never seen anything like that before. I was so upset by that."
Good times, tough times
Lee, Davey and Ronny Kulczycki would all become Eagle Scouts. The Kulczyckis' Tudor-style house was on Butler Street, near 25th Street. There was a corn field across the street back in the day, where a strip mall sits today.
Lee and Kulczycki had most of their classes together and sat near each other from seventh grade on, Lee says. They didn't meet until then because they lived in different parts of Wilson, with Lee growing up near 16th and Liberty streets.
Memories. There are so many. But not all sweet. Lee remembers the exact spot where he sat when Ronny's older brother, Tony, called to tell him that his friend was gone.
Terry Lee as a Wilson student. (Les Memories photo) "It was just a huge shock," Lee says.
But it wasn't supposed to be like that, Ronny's brother and friends say. Not for this young man. Ronny was special. Destined for greatness. He had big dreams. And there was no reason not to realize them.
"Kids get hurt all the time playing football," Lee, a Minerals Technologies retiree who lives in Williams Township, says during a conversation that often approaches tears, even 50 years later. "You don't think you're going to die.
"... He got along with everybody. He was (toward) the top of his class academically. I ended up being number two. He might have knocked me down a few notches if he had lived.
"He had a broad base of friends -- not just as an athlete, not just as a good student. He was well-rounded, much like the fellow at Warren Hills. ... When I heard about the Warren Hills kid, the first thing that came to mind was Ron -- and not just the sports."
It was the overall person.
"Everything he touched ... everything he touched turned to gold," Jim says.
"He was president of the class -- probably the smartest one in the class. A star athlete," Davey adds.
A chance meeting in the hospital
It was the summer of 1964 when Davey went into the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania for an operation on a congenital heart defect. That was the early days of such surgery.
Ken Davey, left, as a Wilson Area High School student and right with his wife, Sharon, in 2009. (Courtesy photos For lehighvalleylive.com) "And there's Ronny Kulczycki," Davey recalls, a touch of happiness in his voice as he speaks from his home in New York state. Same floor. Same nurse. Different doctor. Ronny's surgery went well; Ken's was more difficult, he recalls.
Ronny, still in the hospital -- "from a wheelchair, like a social director, Ken says -- " gathered up their friends and brought them to visit Ken in his room.
"He was very charismatic," Davey says. "He was very popular with the doctors and nurses."
It wasn't long after that that Ronny got his infection.
"I came home two weeks after Ronny," Davey says. "I think it was about a month later. It was in Easton Hospital. And, of course, he passed away."
While he doesn't call it survivor's guilt, the retired guidance counselor and teacher struggles all these years later, Davey says.
"His death really had a profound effect," says Davey, 68. "There's probably not a day in my life where I don't think why I made it and he didn't."
Over the years, Davey says, Ronny's mother would cry every time she would see him. He met up with Ronny's parents about five years ago during the Greek festival at Meuser Park in Wilson.
He couldn't help but ask about her tears that would come at his sight.
"We had a great talk," he says. "I reminded her of that. It took me back, when she said it was because, 'I love you.'
"There was a strong connection between all of Ronny's friends and our parents. We were very close-knit. It was kind of like a large family. It was one of the great things about Wilson High School."
'We lost our innocence'
But Ronny's death, even a half-century later, was a milepost in growing up.
"It's kind of like we lost our innocence," Davey says. "After that was the Vietnam War. A fellow behind us -- Pat McDaniel, Class of 1966 -- was killed in Cambodia. It was profound."
For the family, there were times that became traditions.
Ronny was buried in the small Ukrainian Catholic cemetery just off Freemansburg Avenue, on Farmersville Road, in Bethlehem Township.
Ronald Kulczycki's grave is next to his father, Anthony's, resting spot in the Holy Ghost Ukrainian Catholic Cemetery off Farmersville Road in Bethlehem Township, Pennsylvania. (Tony Rhodin | For lehighvalleylive.com) "We went out to the cemetery every Sunday for years," Jim says. "It wasn't a burden; it was time for your brother. ... Mom had a dream, about my brother being cold. My father heard about grave blankets."
So each winter they would create one. So Ronny would be warm.
At Wilson Area High School's graduation this past June, the Class of 1965, on the cusp of its 50th reunion celebration later this month, made a $13,000 gift for scholarships. The scholarships were in the names of faculty adviser Louis Cardell and class president Ronald Kulczycki.
"I know emotionally (Ronny's death) did have a profound effect on people," Davey says. "He was the first to go."
Lasting legacy
Dr. Jim Kulczycki brightens when asked about the scholarships.
"In a way it's a surprise. In a way not," Jim says of the Class of 1965's generosity and long memories. His parents started such a fund years ago in Ronny's name and kept it going for some time, he adds.
"You go to reunions, you hear about someone who died and remember who they were," Jim says. "That part of your life stays with you.
"I'm very impressed with the people in his class that had that type of relationship. ... Those guys (in his class) were right next to me (when Ronny died). I have nothing but admiration looking up to them."
Jim Kulczycki, a doctor who works in a cardiac practice in California, graduated from Wilson Area High School in 1969. (Photos courtesy Jim Kulczycki and Les Memories | For lehighvalleylive.com) Perspective, all these years later, remains a challenge.
"You're thankful you had this person in your life and you got to know him," Jim says. "A terrific person. ... He was somebody that really left an impression. It was a young life."
The similarities to the recent tragedy at Warren Hills are inescapable.
"There's some very bright shining stars, these young people we have in our lives," Jim Kulczycki says. "It was a particularly promising life -- it would be a better world if there were more people like this. Then you lose them. You can extrapolate (to the death of Evan Murray). An extraordinarily wonderful young man. It compounds the loss."
Then something comes up. And, for just a brief moment, an urge.
"There are times I still think it would be great to talk to my brother about that," Jim says.
Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.