Tom Casey, of West Sayville, former teacher and leader or member of nature groups, dies at 79

West Sayville’s Tom Casey, an officer and board member of numerous wildlife and environmental groups for decades, was one of Mother Nature’s best friends, family and friends said.

"He would walk by and casually say, ‘oh, that's wintergreen’ or ‘that’s a lady’s slipper orchid,’ and keep on walking. And people would take pictures and make mental notes. He taught without teaching," said David Reisfield, president of the Long Island Greenbelt Trail Conference.

And figuratively as well as literally, he walked the walk. Michael Nelson, executive director of the Quogue Wildlife Refuge, recalled: "The day he joined the board, he became the secretary. Maybe two months later he became president and continued his role as secretary. And he was both for almost 10 years" until the June 18 crash in which a speeding passenger van rear-ended his Subaru at a stoplight on Montauk Highway in Brookhaven.

Following monthslong care at a nursing facility, Casey died at Stony Brook University Hospital on March 25 of complications from his injuries. He was 79.

"He was a very active person. He loved to volunteer," said his wife, Sherri Casey. "There’s a saying: Think globally, act locally. He epitomized that. He had a great love of the outdoors, of the woods, the mountains, the rivers, and did all he could to preserve them and to teach about them.

"He was a born giver — of time, of information — and he loved to share what he knew," his wife said. As recently as two months before the crash, he spoke at the Walt Whitman Birthplace State Historic Site in Huntington Station. Just days before, he gave the lecture "The Pine Barrens: Past, Present and Future" at the Quogue Wildlife Refuge’s Nature Center, she said.

Thomas Francis Casey was born Sept. 16, 1945, in Queens, the youngest of three children of bank clerk Martin Casey and Helen Marie Czerniecki Casey. After graduating from Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School in Brooklyn, he earned an English degree from St. John’s University in Queens in 1967.

He began an education career at a junior high school in New Hartford, New York, while earning a master’s in the teaching of English at Colgate University in nearby Hamilton. Casey moved to Lindenhurst in 1968 to be an English teacher at Walter G. O'Connell Copiague High School, from which he retired in 1999, and later lived in Bay Shore, Bohemia and finally West Sayville, said his wife, whom he married in 1982.

In a 2020 interview for the Long Island Pine Barrens Society's blog, Tom Casey recalled he "started hiking in Harriman State Park. In 1974, I backpacked in Montana for the first of eight straight summers. Back home, I helped edit an edition of the [New York-New Jersey Trail Conference’s] ‘New York Walk Book,’ and in the process discovered ... the diverse treasures of our open spaces" on Long Island.

Beginning in the 1980s, he held often concurrent positions with multiple nature groups, including as a board member or officer of the Long Island Greenbelt Trail Conference, the Quogue Wildlife Refuge, the Long Island Pine Barrens Society and the Long Island Environmental Voters Forum.

In those capacities, "he had a thoughtful approach to every situation," Nelson said. "In any organization there’s politics and drama. And Tom had a way of gently easing through it and making things come out the right way."

Casey also was a delegate to the New York State Trails Council and a member of Friends of Connetquot, the Suffolk County ATV Task Force and the Suffolk County Legislature’s Parks Rx Committee. He led approximately 1,000 Greenbelt hikes, wrote trail guides and brochures, edited a book about the Pine Barrens and taught SCOPE teacher-education courses on Long Island nature.

Additionally, he was president of the Walt Whitman Birthplace Association from 1997 to 2010.

"He was fun," said his wife, a childhood Girl Scout who shared his love of the outdoors. "He liked to go places, do things. He was easygoing and helpful." He painted oil landscapes, she said, and "was an accomplished woodworker. He made a lot of our furniture."

In addition to his wife, he was survived by brother Kevin Casey, of Bellevue, Nebraska; sister Kathleen Patten, of Traverse City, Michigan; and seven nieces and nephews.

Visitation and a remembrance were held March 30 at Raynor & D’Andrea Funeral Home in West Sayville. Casey was cremated. His wife said donations may be made to any of the nature organizations to which he was devoted.