A few years ago, The Southern Cross featured an article about Sam Krupsky’s contribution to the Glenelg parish and his involvement in a two-year course in Ministry Formation with the intention of dedicating more of his time to the parish following retirement. Sadly, Sam passed away in May, just following his 66th birthday.
Sam was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In younger years, Sam was an impressive athlete with a passion for basketball. In 1972 he was offered an athletic scholarship with the University of California. He graduated in 1976 with a Degree of Bachelor of Economics and soon after left the United States to play basketball for South Adelaide on a two-year contract.
Sam fell in love with Australia and its way of life; that initial two-year adventure eventually turned into 41 years of contentment, living in ‘the Land Down Under’. In 2010 Sam was extremely proud to be granted Australian citizenship.
Sam played basketball until he was 32 by which time he was entrenched in a career in the IT industry that necessitated extensive interstate and overseas travel as an applications support manager. Sam made a career move to a supply chain solutions company in the capacity of information technology executive; then settled in for the long haul as a senior business analyst with a major railway corporation until his retirement in late 2016. It was Sam’s expertise in computing, accounting and business management that led to his involvement with the Glenelg parish finance committee and the parish pastoral committee.
In 2017 Sam received an Archbishop’s Award for Service to Parish Life within the Archdiocese. He was acknowledged for his leadership as chair of the finance council at a time when significant rationalisation of churches and major redevelopments were occurring. His contribution included being a special minister, a collector at Mass every weekend and opting to be on the counting roster as well as participating in an outreach program to support Timor Leste seminarians.
Throughout his life, Sam had a thirst for learning. He continued to build on his qualifications by gaining a degree in Business Administration in 2010. Sam also loved to acquire new skills from learning complex computer programming languages through to wood-working.
His IT skills were greatly appreciated by the Glenelg parishioners, many of whom benefited from his unstinting offers of help when needed. Similarly, his handyman skills were often put to work in the parish.
Family was everything to Sam; he was a devoted son to Eleanor and Samuel (both deceased) and son-in-law to Geneanne (deceased) and Norman, a loving brother and brother-in-law to Joyce and Tom, Michael and Susan, Danny (deceased), Robert, Haydon and Janice, Vicki and Tom. He was adored by his wife Wendy. They shared a love of movies, nature, travel, theatre, music, their dogs, family and just time spent together.
There are many who knew Sam in basketball, IT, local and church communities – at six foot 10 he couldn’t help but stand out in the crowd! He was always positive, loved to tell stories, was funny and interesting to talk to, always polite and had the enviable ability to say the right thing at the right time – he excelled at everything he put his mind to; at heart though, he was a humble, proud and private man.
In his youth Sam never envisaged that “playing ball” would lead him half way around the world, but he was glad it did. He would tell you it was the simple things that brought him the most pleasure; fishing, wood-working, reading, writing short stories, family, friends and being of help to others.
Sam was a big man with a big heart; he will be missed.
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