Flash forward 24 years later and, effective Dec. 1, Ms. Edwards was officially named director of health, physical education and athletics at Riverhead Central Schools.

“When I saw the position open up, I knew I had to throw my hat in the ring,” Ms. Edwards said. “When you love athletics and you love education and you love being around kids, there’s no job better. It’s my dream job. And most importantly, Riverhead is home.”

After a lengthy interview process in the spring with Bob Hagen, Riverhead’s new superintendent of schools, and the board of education, seeing her phone ring with his name plastered on the screen this summer instantly brought mixed feelings.

“He started talking about how much of a great candidate I was and saying all these nice things about me,” Ms. Edwards said. “Listening to all this, I was waiting for the ‘but.’ I had already programmed myself to accept not getting the position that I didn’t realize, there was no ‘but.’ He just offered me the job.”

After graduating from Riverhead in 2001, Ms. Edwards starred for Springfield College in softball, playing catcher. She smacked 26 home runs in her collegiate career, which set a school record at the time. Following her playing career, she coached at the college level in the Boston area before coming back to Long Island.

“My whole family is here,” Ms. Edwards said. “Family always pulls you back, and that’s exactly what keeps me here today.”

Ms. Edwards accepted a position to coach Pierson in softball and field hockey. During her time there, the field hockey team won a New York State Championship for the first time in school history, and the softball team made it to the state championships three years in a row.

“It was a crazy time because once we started getting success in softball and field hockey, other teams started following suit,” she said. “Baseball started getting good, soccer, every sport wanted that taste of success. At that point, winning becomes the expectation, which is exactly the mentality I want to bring to Riverhead.”

In 2013, Ms. Edwards got an opportunity to head into the administrative field, accepting the assistant athletic director position at McGann-Mercy, a private school in Riverhead. That assistant tag didn’t last long as she fully took over the program shortly after. She held the position until the school closed its doors in 2018.

“While I was at Mercy, I realized this is the job I was meant to do,” Ms. Edwards said. “The opportunity to make an impact on kids across the board and give them a true chance at success was so fulfilling. I wanted nothing more than to do it again.”

She decided to go back to school and received her master’s degree in physical education from Adelphi University. Edwards then accepted a teaching job at Wantagh while being the assistant softball coach for a few years before most recently heading to East Hampton High School to coach their softball team. 

“No matter where I went, I always wanted to come back home,” Ms. Edwards said. “I live in Riverhead. I was born in Riverhead. This was always my end goal.”

When Hans Wiederkehr, Riverhead’s interim athletic director, first heard of the hiring and met Ms. Edwards, he knew instantly she was the right person for the job. 

“Energy,” Mr. Wiederkehr said. “If you don’t have energy in this position, you’re done. And if it’s not positive energy, it’s even worse. She has the energy, and she legitimately wants the best for Riverhead athletics. It’s not just talk. Nobody wants this more than her.”

Mr. Wiederkehr will stay on board to help with the transition and to build off of what’s been done already. The main focus has been on youth sports. In partnership with the booster clubs, youth sporting opportunities have skyrocketed in Riverhead.

There’s football, soccer, basketball, lacrosse — anything youth-related, it’s been started. Most recently, there’s been an emphasis on kid wrestling taking root again.

“Our buildings are full with kids’ sports every day of the week,” Mr. Wiederkehr said, showing off a detailed sheet on his desk. “Parents have stepped up. There’s many volunteers that are committed to turning things around, and both of us are committed to helping do that.”

Another thing Ms. Edwards plans on tackling is the playing fields. 

“We want to make this place pristine and top-notch like our athletes deserve here,” she said. “We’re working hard with the grounds crew to clean this place up. Every day, we have a new project.”

To Ms. Edwards, the budget cuts excuse is gone. There are no more excuses. Riverhead will succeed.

“The fact of the matter is I care,” she said. “This is my home. I know all these long-time Riverhead families. I want the best for this town, and I believe in this town. Riverhead athletics is changing. We’re already seeing major progress. All I want to do is foster that success and make it an expectation.”

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Andrew Mitchell, PBMC’s former chairman and CEO, still vividly remembers those nights.

“There are many patients today who’ve gone through heart attacks and been brought to the hospital,” Mr. Mitchell said. “They’re alive today because of what Stanley did.”

Early years and the path to medicine

Growing up in Cape Town, South Africa, medicine wasn’t something Dr. Katz ever imagined for himself. He recently celebrated his 79th birthday, but still recalls wanting to be what many boys dreamed of: a professional soccer player.

“Medicine was the last thing on my mind, because I would get queasy in biology class and passed out at my cousin’s bris,” the silver-haired surgeon recalled in a sit-down with the Riverhead News-Review. “But then I desperately wanted to get out of South Africa. It was, at the time, Apartheid era.”

Many of his friends were taking the medicine route for the same reason — a path out of the country. One was already in a program, and when Dr. Katz tagged along to observe a lab, he surprised himself. He didn’t pass out. That realization nudged him toward medicine.

After graduating from the University of Cape Town and interning in Israel, Dr. Katz came to the United States at 26. He spent his 20s and 30s training at Long Island Jewish Medical Center and Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx. He then directed the cath lab at what’s now NYU Langone Hospital in Mineola for nine years before being recruited in 1991 to North Shore University Hospital as chief of cardiology — a position he held for 26 years.

When Dr. Katz started at North Shore in 1991, the hospital was performing 100 stent procedures a year. A decade later, that number had grown to 3,000.

A pilot’s mindset

Outside the operating room, Dr. Katz has another passion: flying. For years, he has piloted a multicolored, four-seat Cirrus out of Francis S. Gabreski Airport in Westhampton Beach, a hobby he picked up in his 50s.

He sees a familiar rhythm between the cockpit and the cath lab.

“When I’m doing a procedure, I’m looking at the monitor, but I’m also looking at the EKG and the blood pressure, and I’m listening to the patient’s respiration,” he said. “It’s the same with aviation. You have to be multitasking and monitoring many different parameters all at the same time. There’s a certain risk-taking with flying and the same with interventional cardiology.”

For him, it’s not the thrill but the problem-solving discipline that connects the two.

Coming to the North Fork

In 2016, on the verge of turning 70, Dr. Katz was told the hospital where he worked wanted to move toward younger leadership. Around the same time, PBMC was in talks to join the Northwell system. He knew Mr. Mitchell, who hoped the merger would bring the hospital its first cardiac catheterization lab.

The two spoke, and Dr. Katz expressed interest in coming out himself to help make that a reality. They had dinner, discussed the opportunity and Dr. Katz was hired that year.

“I think what he really set out to do, and what he accomplished, is … establish a standard of care that the people on the East End of Long Island deserved,” said Mr. Mitchell, who retired as CEO in 2022 and has since helped raise millions of dollars for the hospital.

The cath lab first opened in an interim operating room on the second floor in 2017, before plans began taking shape for the permanent home of the program: the Kanas Regional Heart Center.

Mr. Mitchell still recalls watching Dr. Katz sit overnight with patients, just as he had done decades earlier — a hallmark of his approach.

“One of the things that I believe really makes a difference in the care of the patient is if they have some kind of medical advocate, because they don’t know enough to ask the right questions,” Dr. Katz said. “So when I take care of a patient, I act as their advocate. I spend time going over everything with them so that I earn their trust.”

Building programs and raising standards

Once the program got going, it grew quickly and gained credibility. In 2023, PBMC’s cath lab was ranked as one of the top 100 labs in the country — out of more than 1,700 nationwide.

Since Dr. Katz came aboard, the hospital has also built a credible electrophysiology program — putting in pacemakers and defibrillators — and expanded its interventional cardiology capabilities. PBMC became a level three trauma center in 2017, and its next goal is becoming thrombectomy-capable for strokes.

Looking ahead, Dr. Katz would like to see PBMC become a tertiary hospital, where heart surgeons can perform open-heart procedures. That would eliminate the need to transfer patients west of the medical center.

Mentorship and legacy

PBMC president Amy Loeb, who succeeded Mr. Mitchell, credits much of the hospital’s cardiac program growth to Dr. Katz’s influence. She said he commands deep respect, and that it’s clear from speaking with him how patient-centered he is. She describes him as an extraordinary individual.

Alongside his clinical work, Dr. Katz has made it a priority to mentor the young doctors who work beside him.

“One of Dr. Katz’s famous sayings that I love is, ‘Just say yes,'” Ms. Loeb said. “What he has taught those coming behind him is to have that mentality that you must figure out how to find a ‘yes’ for patients. He’s probably trained more interventional cardiologists on this island than anyone else. His fingerprints are literally all over this island and country.”

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The league has managed and operated the Southold animal shelter since 1980. It was one of the first not-for-profit organizations in New York State and the first humane society on Long Island to enter into a contract with a town. In March 2013, the League took over the management and operation of the same program in neighboring Riverhead and built a new, state-of-the-art center there. NFAWL offers many services to the public. According to its website, dog control officers are on-hand 24 hours a day and are called on to pick up lost or runaway dogs and other companion animals.

Other programs include spaying and neutering clinics for dogs and feral cats and microchip clinics as well as educational programs that address humane treatment of animals and the prevention of cruelty, bite prevention, dog training, dog therapy visits and more. They also have an open-door policy for dogs and cats without homes and provide veterinary care for sick pets. Every dog and cat that comes in to either location gets a complete check-up, including vaccinations, according to the website.

Times Review spoke with Leslie Benway, president of NFAWL’s board of directors, about what reaching this milestone means to the organization. 

Q: What is NFAWL’s biggest achievement in these past 60 years?

A: An organization is made up of its people and throughout the 60 years that we’ve evolved, they’ve had incredible staff; they’re compassionate and caring. We have a community that responds to the needs of the animals — and without the community, we’d be nothing.

Q: How has NFAWL been so successful for this long?

A: Sixty years is incredible. They started in a trailer in Southold and then it’s evolved into big buildings that Southold owns and we just recently bought the Riverhead shelter … we can [house] close to 30 dogs there. We’re able to not only serve our community with homeless dogs or people who have to relinquish their dogs, we’re also able to reach out to neighboring shelters, and shelters that euthanize, so we’re able to save those animals as well … there’s way more [that we do] than just adopting animals out, it’s what we give back to the community that helps us survive with their donations.

Q: What have been the biggest hurdles that NFAWL has overcome?

A: Over the years, we went from just managing the Southold shelter to managing the Riverhead shelter as well. [It] took some time to get to know the community there, we’re still doing that now that we’ve moved the building. We’d like to expand our volunteer base in Riverhead and we would like to get more integrated with the community, which we’re working on.

Q: What’s in store for the future of NFAWL?

A: As we look forward and we look to the future, we want to continue to focus on animal care and animal abuse and stopping animal abuse in our community. We want to continue to educate people on how to care for their pets. And we probably, at some point, as we have these contracts with the two [towns], we want to do more outreach to high schools and even elementary and junior high schools and get students involved … helping at the shelter and walking dogs.

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Among them are a small rock one of his daughters painted with the word “love,” a historic firefighter’s badge a former commander bought for him at the New York City Fire Museum and various challenge coins he earned throughout his 29 years in the United States Air Force.

Since April, when the 46-year-old Mattituck resident was promoted to command chief of the 106th Rescue Wing at Francis S. Gabreski Airport in Westhampton Beach, this office is where he’s spent the first half of most days. Like office duty anywhere, his is awash in emails and memos.

But during the afternoon hours, he puts on his cap and tours the grounds of the 106th. He gathers the information he needs to perform his primary duty as command chief: advising Col. Shawn Fitzgerald, Commander of the 106th Rescue Wing, on matters influencing the health, morale, welfare, quality of life and professional development of all enlisted personnel assigned to the wing.

“I may advise the Wing Commander on how we need to tweak different policies,” he explained. “Essentially, I don’t stick my hand in the cookie jar. I have squadron chiefs that handle their business, and then there’s group chiefs.”

Chief Master Sgt. Rittberg first joined the New York Air National Guard at the 106th Rescue Base in 1997. When discussing the wing’s mission with a reporter from The Suffolk Times last week, he broke it down between federal and state responsibilities.

The base’s federal mission is combat rescue, for which they have a Guardian Angel unit. This collective of combat rescue officers, pararescuemen and specialists in survival, evasion, resistance and escape, known as SEREs, rescue personnel around the globe during peacetime and war.

Civilians are more likely aware of the 106th’s New York State mission, which entails domestic rescues during crises.

“Let’s say there’s a hurricane, or there’s flooding somewhere, or a snowstorm,” Chief Master Sgt. Rittberg said. “We have to send the pararescuemen out with the technical rescue equipment that they have to go facilitate rescues anywhere in New York.

“It can go beyond New York as well,” he continued. “We’ve been tasked to very different environments, [such as] Louisiana [during] Hurricane Harvey, so we can be tasked to go anywhere in the United States.”

There are four groups on the base: operations, mission support, medical and maintenance. These are the cookie jars in his kitchen that the new command chief doesn’t touch, but he knows what is involved in each of them. After all, he has worked in each of these groups during his nearly three decades of experience, and he believes this diverse background helped him secure his latest promotion. His tenure at the 106th has included time as a rescue loadmaster aboard an HC-130 aircraft in charge of cargo and personnel drops as well as sequential duties as senior enlisted leader of the mission support, medical and maintenance groups.

In between these tasks, he served as chief of the Air Expeditionary Force at the ANG Readiness Center at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland from 2011 to 2014. There, he was responsible for the deployment of 105,000 airmen worldwide.

The chief master sergeant joined the Air Force after graduating from Bellport High School in 1994, enlisting as a life support specialist in charge of life-saving equipment. After completing technical training at Sheppard Air Force Base in northern Texas, he served the 335th Fighter Squadron at the Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro, N.C., where he became a survival instructor assigned to the 4th Fighter Wing.

As his time in active duty was coming to an end, his father, Alan Rittberg, turned him on to where he worked as a vehicle maintenance chief: the 106th. Mr. Rittberg said he and his father often crossed paths as they performed different duties on the flight line for the same deployments.

“As he was proud of me, I was proud of him,” he said. “There were different events we got to do together as father and son, and it was an amazing feeling, being able to work with your father at the end of his career.”

When he is not on duty serving his nation, Edward Rittberg serves his community as a volunteer with the Mattituck Fire Department, where he was chief throughout 2021 and 2022. His wife of 21 years, Carrie, is a Mattituck native and a physical education teacher at Commack Road Elementary School in Islip. He said he and Carrie have raised “two incredible young women that I’m proud of” — daughters Rylie, 19, and Paige, 15. “They’re my life.”

When asked what he’s been most proud of throughout his career — the end of which he said remains far in the distance — he did not ponder long on his answer.

“Working at the 106th Rescue Wing,” he said. “It’s an incredible feeling, it’s an incredible mission and I’m very proud to be here.”

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Verna Campbell, one of the longest-serving and most colorful employees at Town Hall — who served seven supervisors across 37 years — was laid to rest Friday following a funeral at Community Baptist Church on Sound Avenue. She was 90 years old.

From the late 1970s until her retirement at the end of 2014, Ms. Campbell was the Town Hall switchboard operator, greeting everyone who called or entered the building from her perch at a desk just inside the front door.

“As people walked in, she was the first person they saw and she just greeted everyone so warmly,” said Town Clerk Diane Wilhelm, a close friend of Ms. Campbell. “She was the voice — because she was the switchboard operator — so she was the voice of Town Hall as well as the first introduction. If you came in often, you knew her well. And if it was your first time, she treated you like an old friend.” 

Ms. Campbell’s daughter, Bonnie-Sue Luce, said the job was her mother’s “opportunity to be with the pubic and represent the town. She loved every aspect of it with her whole heart. It was so much what she wanted to be; she wanted to be seen and heard. She loved Riverhead and she very much loved being a part of Town Hall.”  

Longtime Town Hall denizens loved her, too.

“She was there the longest and she was this smiling person and she was happy and she could sing and she loved her church — and everything about her was just positive,” said veteran Riverhead attorney Peter Danowski. “You don’t say that about many people.” 

Ms. Wilhelm and several other local officials said that while Ms. Campbell treated everyone kindly, she had a special affection for Mr. Danowski, a former Riverhead town attorney. 

“Oh my gosh, she loved Peter,” Ms. Wilhelm said. “They had known each other such a long time and Peter’s really a great guy and she’s just a joy so they just had that kind of chemistry. She adored him and he adored her. It was really sweet.” 

Mr. Danowski was modest, but honest. 

“I’m not sure it’s unique to me,” he said of Ms. Campbell’s affection. But then said without prompting,  “I used to tell her when she’d give me a hug and kiss, ‘Verna, don’t you get your lipstick on my collar or I’m going to be in trouble when I get home.’ ”

Whenever Mr. Danowski ran into Ms. Campbell at her favorite lunch spot, Meetinghouse Deli on Main Road in Riverhead, he’d buy her lunch, according to deli employees and other friends of Ms. Campbell. 

She ate the same meal every time, said Meetinghouse Deli manager Melissa Carragher. 

“Turkey, with Muenster cheese and Russian dressing,” Ms. Carragher said. 

“She was definitely one of kind,” she said. “One of those unforgettable characters. Everyone who works here knows exactly who she is.” 

“She’s a legend,” added deli worker Tina Green.  

One time, Ms. Campbell gave her town hall colleagues a scare when she was late to work one day about a decade ago.  

“I ran to the supervisor’s office, because she was never late, she was always early,” said Ms. Wilhelm. “And I ran in and said ‘something’s wrong. Verna’s not here. And they had a police officer go to her house for a wellness check … and he woke her up.”

Ms. Luce credits her mother’s intense faith with a trip to New York City with her mother — Ms. Luce’s grandmother — to see Southern Baptist preacher Billy Graham. She and her mother met Billy Graham’s wife and the revival left a deep impression on young Verna. 

Ms. Luce said her mother “loved the beach.

“She felt closed to God at the beach.” 

Mr. Danowski said Ms. Campbell’s good cheer was infectious in town hall for decades. 

“Her spirit boosted everybody’s spirits,” he said. 

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