Herb Kavash stands in front of a photo of his wife, Molly, who died in May 2011. (Submitted photo)
Herb Kavash, John Strobel remembered by council
Two local legends have been lost in recent weeks, each of whom left a lasting impact on North Wales.
Council members paused to mourn the losses of longtime fire company volunteer Herb Kavash and former councilman John Strobel during their final meeting of 2024.
“At the last meeting, we were applauding for Herb Kavash, before his 100th birthday. We had the sad news that he passed away about a week ago, so we will remember him fondly as a community,” said Mayor Neil McDevitt.
Kavash was recognized at council’s late November meeting for reaching his 100th year. A Lansdale High School class of 1943 graduate, Herb had served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, then met his future wife Molly in 1946; the two were married in 1949 until her passing in 2011, according to his obituary. While working in communications and the aerospace field, Kavash volunteered with the Fairmount Fire Company of Lansdale and the North Penn Volunteer Fire Company, and helped organize Lansdale High School reunion events, while also serving on the North Wales water authority.
“He and his wife Molly had been members of the community for years, and committed themselves for all of our events” as volunteers, said councilman Mark Tarlecki.
Borough solicitor Greg Gifford said he first got to know Kavash during Gifford’s tenure on council in the late 1980s, when Kavash was a pioneer in all things technology, including those bulky brick-style cellphones.
“He was the first person to ever get that cellphone number from me, because he was smart: he helped me — he was in his late ’60s, and retired, and he helped out every little old lady in the entire borough of North Wales” to set up their cellphones, Gifford said.
“He would help people with taxes, or something would always come up, and he would call me and say ‘Hey Greg, quick question.’ So Herb and I became very good friends. That man retired, only to work 40- or 50-hour weeks, helping everybody in the borough. That was the kind of individual he was,” he said.
Funeral services for Kavash will be held on January 18, 2025, at St. Peter’s Evangelical Lutheran Church: 211 South Main Street in North Wales, with visiting hours from 9 a.m. to noon and a funeral service immediately after.
Tarlecki then added another sad announcement, recalling Strobel, the former councilman and longtime North Penn School District administrator for facilities, whose family announced in late 2023 that he was suffering from primary progressive aphasia, had died.
John Strobel. (Credit: NPSD)“Unfortunately, John passed away this past week. And he had passed away as a result of a form of dementia, similar to what Bruce Willis has,” Tarlecki said.
Roughly a year ago, district administrators recalled how Strobel worked his way up from custodian to director of facilities in his three-plus decades there, in addition to serving as a life member of the North Penn Volunteer Fire Company; former member of borough council; member of the North Wales and then North Penn Water Authority’s boards of directors; volunteer at Trinity Lutheran Church and more. At the time, his wife Karen called John an “all-around wonderful human being,” recalling how the two learned of his diagnosis, ahead of a fundraiser hosted by the fire company for the family.
“John was a member of the fire company, he was also a member of borough council — he was a very dedicated resident, and was only 62 years old, and left behind a wife and three children,” Tarlecki said.
No funeral plans or arrangements had been made as of mid-December, Tarlecki added, before asking council and the public to “please keep the family in your thoughts and prayers.”
Read Strobel's obituary written by his wife here.
This article appears courtesy of a content share agreement between North Penn Now and The Reporter. To read more stories like this, visit https://www.thereporteronline.com
