Ailing former Police Chief Stanley P. Brozana Jr. once told his daughter, Amanda Brozana Rios, that he did not want a fuss made after he had gone.
“Funerals are for the living, not the dead,” she replied. “People of this town will want to have somewhere to come and some way to say goodbye.”
She was right.
On Friday, 11 days after his battle with brain cancer ended, Orwigsburg gave 72-year-old Brozana a sendoff befitting a public servant who had a tremendous impact on the town.
For 40 years, 37 of them as chief, Brozana was a fixture in the borough police department and the community at large.
“Stan was an icon,” Mayor Barry Berger said. “He always gave 110%. He lived and breathed his job every day.”
Shortly after 10 a.m., a procession of police and fire vehicles passed beneath an American flag suspended from aerial ladder trucks provided by Union Fire Company of Hamburg and North End Fire Company of Pine Grove.
In dirge fashion, with Amanda in the lead vehicle driven by police Chief Vincent McDonald, the entourage moved slowly up North Warren Street to the former school that houses the police department.
Cradling her father’s ashes, Amanda watched as about 20 police vehicles and a dozen firetrucks passed in review. She was accompanied by her husband, Victor Barreto-Rios, and her cousin Michelle Zimmerman.
“It’s cool that everybody has come out,” Zimmerman said, dabbing her tearful eyes. “Everybody knew Stan. He was a good human being.”
Berger and borough officials laid a wreath in Brozana’s honor next to a monument to Officer Bill Bradley, a member of the borough police force for 17 years.
Known simply as “Chief” or “Stan, the man,” Brozana was a force to be reckoned with.
“He was tough, he didn’t bend,” said Larry Dagna, a borough firefighter who knew Brozana for many years. “At the same time, he was human.”
Amanda, 41, membership and leadership director at the National Grange in Washington, said her father had a great rapport with people, even with some whom he arrested.
“He had a short memory for what people did wrong,” she said, “and he gave a lot of second chances.”
The procession concluded at Orwigsburg Veterans Community Memorial Hall, where Brozana’s family received family and friends. At one point, the line stretched out the front door.
Amanda embraced mourners while her mother, Barbara Weller, handed out black lapel pins denoting awareness of melanoma, a condition that contributed to Brozana’s cancer.
“It’s so moving to see all these people,” Weller said. “Stan did a lot of good, and people remember him fondly.”
Delivering the eulogy, Amanda referred to numerous “Stan stories” that, perhaps, might be fodder for a book.
“I am very proud,” she said, “that I am able to share him with so many people who loved and respected him, too.”
Source: Berkshire mont
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