Daniel Conway dies; former Hampton Jitney manager was 67

Daniel Conway, a longtime Northampton resident and former manager at two bus companies, including the Hampton Jitney, died Thursday of complications related to liver disease. He was 67.

His wife and siblings remembered him as an outgoing adventure-seeker who drew others toward him with his artful storytelling.

“People just adored him,” said his wife, Connie Conway, 59, of Northampton. “He’s always been the funniest guy in the room.”

Daniel Conway was born Feb. 8, 1950, in upstate Troy, the second of six children, according to his wife, who is the Southampton Town supervisor’s chief of staff. He spent his childhood in Wheaton, Maryland, and Greenwich, Connecticut — in both places burnishing his role as the family’s resident entertainer, his sisters said.

“You gathered toward Dan,” said his sister, Susan Schenk, 64, of Westhampton. “Without needing to be the center of attention, he just became the center of attention.”

Another sister, Terri Kerley, 68, of Clayton, Missouri, recalled two instances during their childhood in which her brother arrived home with animals he had found, including a horse.

“He traded his bicycle for it,” Kerley said, laughing.

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Conway studied business and accounting at what is now Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts. It was during his college years that Conway gathered the material for many of the stories that he later became known for among often-incredulous family and friends.

He and his college friends often would drop in, uninvited, on cocktail receptions for strangers’ weddings — sometimes even bringing along congratulatory cards for the bride and groom, Connie Conway recalled.

“They were the original wedding crashers,” she said.

Connie Conway said she met her future husband at the wedding of her brother and his sister. The two hit it off and married three years later.

They lived in Boston for many years, she said, where her husband co-owned a cardboard manufacturing company.

Around 1990, the Conways moved to Northampton, she said, and Daniel Conway became a sales manager for the Hampton Jitney.

He later worked as a manager for the Medford-based transportation company Elite Transport before retiring around 2013, said his wife, who previously worked as a reporter at News 12.

Daniel Conway also is survived by sisters, Leslie Sheldon of Groton, Massachusetts, and Megan Desmarais of Vancouver, Canada; and a brother, Kevin Conway of Manhattan.

A funeral Mass will be celebrated at 10:45 a.m. Tuesday at St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church in Riverhead.

Conway donated his body to the Stony Brook University School of Medicine, his wife said.

The family has established a scholarship fund at the Stony Brook University School of Journalism in Conway’s memory.