Walter Pocalyko, for decades a leader in public service in Bethlehem Township and the Bethlehem Area School District, died at his home, the John Knox Village of the Rio Grande Valley in Weslaco, Hidalgo County, Texas, on June 14, 2021. He was 96. The cause of death was complications of a stroke.

Born in Palmerton, Carbon County, Pennsylvania, on May 26, 1925, he was the fifth of six children of Ukrainian immigrants. As a young man he was a Boy Scout, caddied at Blue Ridge Country Club, worked on the staff at Camp Trexler BSA, and was a painter at the New Jersey Zinc Company's West Plant. A 1943 graduate of Stephen S. Palmer High School, he served in World War II as a B-24 oxygen systems mechanic in the 466th Bombardment Group of the Eighth Air Force in Attlebridge, England. As a USAAF corporal on a crew flying supplies into Germany on April 15, 1945, he was one of the few Americans present as the British 11th Armoured Division liberated the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. He was featured in the documentary "The Other Band of Brothers" that aired in the United Kingdom in 2004.

A 1950 graduate of Muhlenberg College, he taught at William Allen High School, moved to Bethlehem, and worked at Finkelstein Jewelers before beginning a 17-year career as a pricer and manager at the Bethlehem Steel Corporation. On a two-year break from the Steel in 1957-58, he built and operated Broad Street Shell, a full-service garage at Eighth and Broad Streets on Bethlehem's West Side.

He was appointed to the Bethlehem Township School Board in 1960 and was the last surviving member of the original Bethlehem Area School Board from its formation in 1961. At a contentious 1964 board meeting, he spontaneously suggested naming Bethlehem's new high school "Freedom," deliberately complementing "Liberty" as the alternative to "Eugene Gifford Grace High School," the name fiercely advocated by Bethlehem Steel executives. He became Bethlehem Township's first Zoning Administrator, Auditor, and Secretary to the Board of Commissioners, which at the time was the jurisdiction's only professional township manager. He established and chaired Bethlehem Township's civil service board. In 1969 the school board named Walter Pocalyko Secretary Business Manager of the Bethlehem Area School District, where he served for the next twelve years, overseeing the district's budget expansion, school bond issues, development, planning, transportation, union contract negotiations, tax policy, and the construction or modernization of more than twenty public schools including open-concept elementary schools and major additions to Liberty High School. He played an instrumental role in Harrisburg advising legislators during the passage of Act 195, the Public Employee Relations Act of 1970, that granted teachers and other public employees the right to strike. After departing leadership of the Bethlehem Area School District, he held the same position of Secretary Business Manager for Pennsylvania public schools in the Sharon, Antietam, and Bangor Area School Districts until his retirement from public service in 1993. He considered writing the Bethlehem Township Master Plan in the 1960s to have been his greatest professional achievement, and he frequently regretted providing the deciding vote for Bethlehem's adoption of the Initial Teaching Alphabet. In retirement he consulted to Pennsylvania school districts and intermediate units and was considered one of the commonwealth's foremost experts on school budgets and school bond financing.

He lived in Palmerton, Allentown, Bethlehem, Miller Heights, Butztown, Sharon, Moore Township, and Lansdale, Pennsylvania, and in Texas since 2010.

Walter Pocalyko had a significant civic presence. He was a founder and charter member of the Bethlehem Jaycees, active in Democratic Party politics, and worked in campaigns and political advisory roles through the 1980s. He was a member of Robert Mader American Legion Post No. 269 of Palmerton, the Edgeboro Pembroke Democratic Club, the Bethlehem Township Volunteer Fire Company, and was the longstanding secretary-treasurer of the Roosevelt Democratic Club of Miller Heights. He was Scoutmaster of Troop 6 at Saint Anne's Roman Catholic Church and Boy Scout Neighborhood Commissioner for Bethlehem Township troops. He made the first encampment at Camp Minsi BSA at Pocono Summit in 1949, and was Scoutmaster of the eastern Pennsylvania troop at the 1953 National Jamboree at Irvine Ranch, California. He was founding vice president of the East Hills Junior High School PTA, a member of the Rotary Club of Bethlehem, and a 49-year Mason in Bethlehem Lodge No. 283 F&AM, the Valley of Allentown Scottish Rite, and the Lehigh Valley Club. At Muhlenberg College he was on the executive committee for the college's World War II veteran reunion and was the speaker at his class's 60th reunion in 2010. The "Walter Pocalyko Seminar Room" in Muhlenberg's Ettinger Building is named for him. He was an avid golfer and member of the Alamo Country Club in Texas. Until 2019 at the age of 94, he was treasurer of his resident-governed retirement community, the John Knox Village of the Rio Grande Valley.

He was a member of Zion First Hungarian Lutheran Church of Bethlehem from 1954 until the congregation's closure in 2018. He served on the church council and as treasurer. At the time of his death he was a congregant of Saint John Lutheran Church in San Juan, Texas.

He was predeceased by his wife of 47 years Anna Margaret (Pagats) Pocalyko (1925-2001) and his companion of ten years Doris Ella (Cole) Myers (1930-2013), parents Nicholas Pocalyko (1892-1977) and Dora (Bendera) Pocalyko (1894-1991), sister Teny Pocalyko Smith (1915-2016), and brothers Michael Pocalyko (1917-2007), Peter Nicholas Pocalyko (1922-1997), Andrew Pocalyko (1923-2021), and Stanley Pocalyko (1928-2000). He is survived by two sons, Michael Nicholas Pocalyko (Barbara Snelbaker Pocalyko) of Reston, Virginia and Paul Walter Pocalyko (Colleen Catherine (Lowery) Pocalyko) of Ambler, Pennsylvania; three grandchildren, James Kenneth Pocalyko of Herndon, Virginia, Kathryn Laura Pocalyko (Daniel Curtis Silverman) of Richmond, Virginia, and Elizabeth Anne Pocalyko (Brian William Hruza) of Renton, Washington; two great-grandchildren, Naomi Barbara Silverman of Richmond, Virginia and Paul Edgar Silverman of Richmond, Virginia; and a large extended family.

The Reverend Kathryn Pocalyko, Pastor of Lutheran Church of our Saviour, North Chesterfield, Virginia, and Dean of the Richmond Conference, Virginia Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, will preside at a memorial service at Light of Christ Lutheran Church, 2020 Worthington Avenue, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 18017-4955 on Saturday, July 10, 2021 at 2:00 p.m. The family will receive visitors at the church before the memorial service from 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. Interment will follow at Hellertown Union Cemetery with military and Masonic honors. Arrangements are by the Pearson Funeral Home. Persons wishing to make a memorial contribution in Walter Pocalyko's memory should please consider a Lutheran charity or a local council of the Boy Scouts of America.