Well-Loved New Canaanites Recalled at Peter M. Deane Fitness Center Rededication

New Canaan resident Pete Deane, Jr. remembers a saying his late father had: “You make a living by what you earn. You make a life by what you give.”

As his friends and family recall, the late Peter Deane—a 1959 New Canaan High School graduate and standout athlete who long oversaw the family business, Kitchens by Deane, and died suddenly in 1990—gave back to the community in scores of ways, by connecting with and helping people from all backgrounds, through nonprofit organizations and a gregarious natural instinct.

On Saturday morning, Deane’s family gathered with a handful of his closest friends and fellow NCHS ’59 grads and their families, for the rededication of the NCHS fitness center named for him.

Created in Deane’s memory through donations to our All Sports Booster Club (est. 1976)—mostly recently with a generous gift from the Dauk family of New Canaan—the center ranks among the very best in the state. Since the high school’s major capital project in 2005, the plaque commemorating the fitness center had been in storage.

During ceremonies led Saturday by New Canaan Athletic Director Jay Egan—who noted that New Canaan High School maintenance worker John Hannigan had spent two days touching up the newly re-installed plaque—Deane himself was recalled for the many lives he touched.

“He excelled in football, basketball, baseball and track,” Egan said, reading from a dedicatory statement that will be mounted on the wall beside the plaque itself (full text below). “For many years he held the record for the longest touchdown run from scrimmage for the varsity Rams football team and was a member of the state champion basketball team.”

“Following graduation, Peter married local beauty Ingrid Girard and began a career in the kitchen design and construction business. He eventually started his own company in that field and was soon recognized as the standard against which all others were measured. Pete and Ingrid produced daughter Carrie and son Peter, Jr. who went on to impressive athletic accomplishments of their own at NCHS and beyond. As he achieved success and recognition in his chosen profession, Pete found numerous avenues for public service and contributed to the town of New Canaan in many ways.”

As Deane’s survivors and friends recalled, the honored man’s best friend in high school was Paul Dauk. Part of the ceremony included acceptance and recognition to the memory of Paul’s older brother, Peter Dauk, whose family again through the All Sports Booster Club purchased new fitness equipment for the center. Peter Dauk, Egan said, was a 1954 New Canaan High School graduate and president of his class who played football under coach Joe Sikorski. He was New Canaan’s “first all-state player in his senior year, when they won the state championship,” Egan said, and was also a baseball standout and in basketball was the league’s leading scorer who set several longstanding records.

Classmates of Deane’s who were on hand for the ceremony, with their families, included Dave Elders, Mike Hobbs, Carlton “Skip” Raymond, Joe Rucci and Walter Stewart.

Asked for memories of the old gang, Hobbs said with a smile and perhaps a hint of pride: “This was not the MENSA group that you’re seeing here.”

“We had a good time. Everybody that you see here was an athlete,” he said, adding that Elders was the best hockey player in the class.

“Peter knew everybody and was a tremendous contributor to the town,” Hobbs said. “It’s an unusual thing for a group to have been together as long as this group was together with Pete, and I think it’s a tribute kind of to who he was that everybody wanted to try and find a way so that he didn’t just go away.”

It’s an effort that Deane’s widow, Ingrid (Girard) Deane, said touches her deeply.

“I was taken aback that they were going to rededicate, once more, and it just fills my heart with such happiness because so many young people are enjoying this fitness center, and number two, and it’s so wonderful today, so many more students are taking care of themselves better with sports, exercising the right way,” she said.

“It’s terrific and I was just delighted when I heard about the Dauk family, whom I knew, Peter Dauk’s family, who dedicated money for the machines this morning, his brother Paul was my husband Peter’s best friend in high school. All of these friends. It’s terrific. I just can’t believe that, number one, it has grown so, and then listening to Jay this morning say this is probably the best in the state, if not the country. I am totally taken aback by it and so proud. And so proud of Peter’s wonderful friends, first of all, that got together after he died and all the wonderful work they did to make this a possibility. Talk about good friends. And doers. I love them all.”

That includes Joe Rucci, who recalls his time for about two decades with Deane in the Rotary Club of New Canaan, and about how his friend “was always helping people.”

“He was always outgoing,” Rucci recalled. “I had a lot of fun with Peter, whether it was the time we took his mother’s convertible and tooled around and then he backed it into the fence in the yard, or the time he had a brand-new Mercedes”—(here Rucci pointed to his pal Hobbs and said, “Mike remembers”)—“he had a brand-new Mercedes, I took the hubcap off it and auctioned it at the Rotary Club meeting. I mean we just had a lot of fun. What comes to mind when I think of Pete is helping other people. As a Rotarian, whether it was selling lobster tickets or selling charcoal, he would always be in there 100 percent.”

He was also an absolutely exceptional, gifted athlete, recalled Raymond, who played quarterback for the Rams while Deane played fullback (and whose own father, Pete Raymond, a 1933 NCHS grad, played basketball with the 1933 and state champion team).

“We didn’t beat Darien in the four years that I played,” Raymond recalled with a wistful look, moments before the rededication. “Peter was a very good basketball player. And then he did track and baseball. So Peter was really a four-letter athlete. Unfortunately he had a heart attack and died too damn early.”

His son, Pete Jr., said he was very touched when he heard from Egan about the planned rededication ceremony.

“I give a lot of credit to Jay for putting this together and getting us all together, because when we get together like this it brings back a lot of great memories and to be here with my dad’s friends is really special,” he said.

Here is the full text of the dedication for the Peter M. Deane Fitness Center at NCHS:

Peter moved with his family from Darien to New Canaan when he was in elementary school. As he progressed through the public school system, he developed into an exceptional athlete. He excelled in football, basketball, baseball and track. For many years he held the record for the longest touchdown run from scrimmage for the varsity Rams football team and was a member of the state champion basketball team.

Following graduation, Peter married local beauty Ingrid Girard and began a career in the kitchen design and construction business. He eventually started his own company in that field and was soon recognized as the standard against which all others were measured. Pete and Ingrid produced daughter Carrie and son Peter, Jr. who went on to impressive athletic accomplishments of their own at NCHS and beyond. As he achieved success and recognition in his chosen profession, Pete found numerous avenues for public service and contributed to the town of New Canaan in many ways. He had a large number of friends and from every segment of the town’s population, he was a much admired citizen.

On July 28, 1991 Pete suffered a massive heart attack with no warning and died immediately. The shock of his death was felt most deeply by his family, but did not spare his friends and acquaintances. The line outside Hoyt’s Funeral Home was one of the longest in memory as the townspeople tried to digest this tragic and untimely loss. A group of Peter’s friends started to meet informally to explore a worthy memorial to this exceptional man. After several unsuccessful ideas, Paul Dauk, Dave Elders, Mike Hobbs, Skip Raymond, Joe Rucci and Brock Saxe, classmates since third grade, met with NCHS Athletic Director Vinnie Iovino and agreed that a state-of-the-art fitness facility available to all students at New Canaan High School would be an appropriate and fitting memorial to Pete’s life.

As the group moved into fundraising mode, they quickly discovered that the mention of Peter’s name and a description of the proposed fitness center produced a large number of enthusiastic donors and the substantial cost of the project was quickly raised. There were several large contributions, but the most gratifying part of the effort was the sheer number of people who wanted to honor Pete. Vinnie oversaw the construction and equipping of the facility, which was dedicated with Ingrid, Carrie and Peter, Jr. standing proudly at the entrance on Nov. 21, 1992. At the time it was the finest high school fitness center in the state, setting a standard for other schools to follow.

The center was decommissioned during the major reconstruction of the High School building in 2005, but rose again, new and improved in a new location, with the same mission and still in memory of one of New Canaan’s finest athletes and citizens, Peter M. Deane.

Jay: Booster Club has continued to refurbish and resupply the equipment and when we go inside you can see that it is probably safe to say that it is still the best high school fitness center in the state, and the feedback we get from most of our athletes is even when they go off to college sometimes, the facility that they have there is not quite what they had in high school, so we’re very proud to have it and we’re very proud to have this plaque back up here so that everyone knows the story.