John D. Vairo, 91; headed Penn State's Delco campus

When Pennsylvania State University named John D. Vairo to open its Delaware County campus by September 1967, he ran into a buzz saw.

The Pennsylvania Board of Education in July 1967 recommended cutting Penn State's 1967-68 budget by precisely the amount that the university had earmarked for the campus.

A 1967 Inquirer story reported that the board "recommended that all existing extension campuses be converted into community colleges, or combined with existing community colleges, and that no more be created."

The state board's buzz saw didn't cut it. The campus opened as planned.

On Sunday, Jan. 1, Mr. Vairo, 91, the Delaware County campus director from 1967 until his retirement in 1986, died of esophageal cancer at his home in Middletown Township, Delaware County.

A former small-town newspaper editor, Mr. Vairo was an assistant professor of journalism at Penn State's main campus when the university decided to open a branch in Chester City.

In 2008, Phyllis Cole, an English teacher at the campus, told an Inquirer reporter that the rented site was "a big, abandoned retail space, right by the railroad tracks. Between a grocery store on the ground floor and a roller-skating rink on the third floor, and we had the whole middle.

"So they threw up partitions to turn this retail space into 10 classrooms in about six weeks over the summer."

In 1971, the university moved its campus, now named Penn State Brandywine, to an abandoned farm in Middletown Township, provided by Delaware County.

In 1995, an Inquirer story reported that the university board of trustees approved a campaign by Middletown campus faculty to name the library there for Mr. Vairo, as well as an endowment to buy library material.

And Penn State gives the John D. Vairo Award for exceptional service to its Delaware County campus.

"Teaching was what I was cut out" to do, Mr. Vairo told an Inquirer reporter. "I fell in love with the university."

Born in Felitto, in the Campania region of Italy, Mr. Vairo was brought to the States as an infant.

He earned a bachelor's degree in science at the Merchant Marine Academy and served as a Navy navigator from 1941 to 1947.

His son, Carl, said in a Wednesday phone interview that Mr. Vairo served on cargo and troop transports "at Iwo Jima and most of the major engagements in the Pacific."

Mr. Vairo earned a bachelor's degree in American history at Syracuse University in 1950, studies shortened by his previous bachelor's.

Penn State hired Mr. Vairo in 1956 with only bachelor's degrees because of his newspaper work, his son said, but with the understanding that he would earn a Penn State master's in journalism, which he did.

He had worked for five papers, all but one in Pennsylvania, in six years, his son said: the Clinton County Times in early 1950, the Milton Evening Standard from 1950 to 1951, the Corning (N.Y.) Leader from 1951 to 1955, the Lehighton Evening Leader in 1955, and the Jersey Shore Herald from 1955 to 1956.

His son wrote in biographical material that while at Penn State's main campus, Mr. Vairo "was instrumental in founding three planning commissions in the State College area: the Patton Township, Centre County, and Centre Regional Planning Commissions, and served as chairman of all three.

"Vairo Boulevard in State College was named in his honor for this work."

Middletown Township, for which he was a planning commission member, named him chair of its Tricentennial Committee in 1986.

A 1989 newspaper article identified him as chairman of the Delaware County branch of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Chapter of the American Red Cross.

In 1995, the Delaware County Council named him to the county library board for a three-year term.

A 1998 story reported that he was a member of the board of managers of the Rocky Run YMCA in Middletown.

In 2000, the Delaware County Chamber of Commerce gave him its lifetime achievement award.

Besides his son, Mr. Vairo is survived by daughters Annina, Christine, and Priscilla; nine grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren. His wife of 59 years, Greta, died in 2009.

A visitation was set from 9 to 10 a.m. Thursday, Jan. 5, at Minshall Shropshire-Bleyler Funeral Home, Route 352 and Knowlton Road, Middletown Township, before a 10:30 a.m. Funeral Mass at the Church of St. Francis de Sales, 35 New Rd., Lenni. Burial is to be in Calvary Cemetery, Media.