Deceased May 10, 2022
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In Memory
Joe Zalot of Southampton, Mass., died on May 10, 2022, after a brief illness.
Born in Hadley, Mass., just down the road from Amherst, Joe attended Hopkins Academy, where the good scholar also played varsity soccer, basketball and baseball. Graduating from Hopkins in 1948, Joe then attended Cushing Academy, near Boston, graduating in 1949 before entering Amherst.
Joe’s skills as student and athlete had no season. He earned freshman numerals in three sports and later played varsity soccer and basketball. A classmate recalls that Joe played “point guard” in basketball before that position had a name.
In athletics, as in his fraternity, he was a natural leader. The U.S. Army pried Joe away from Western Massachusetts, drafting him after graduation and sending him to Fort Knox, where he started in tank school and wound up as an instructor in radio school when the Army recognized a talented teacher. After Army service, Joe went “home” to earn his M.Ed. at UMass and then teach for two years at Hopkins before being named their principal in 1958. After 12 years as Hopkins’ principal, Joe was named principal of the new Hampshire Regional High School, a position he held until he retired in 1991. Joe served as board member and chair of many Massachusetts interscholastic associations and athletic tournaments. Among his awards and honors: a renamed Joseph E. Zalot Gymnasium at Hampshire High.
In retirement, Joe was a longtime volunteer at Easthampton’s Williston Library and Southampton’s William E. Norris School, teaching children to read. In 2014, Hopkins’ 350th Anniversary Committee named him an Outstanding Alumnus.
Joe is survived by his wife of 64 years, Barbara; six children and their spouses: Mary Boucher, Teresa O’Connor, Marcella Zalot, Jozef Zalot, John Zalot and Justyna Kielty; 11 grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. They had a great teacher.