SOUTH DEERFIELD — Fifty years after the death of Deerfield Police Officer Walter R. Dacyczyn, fellow Deerfield officers, state troopers, Deerfield firefighters, South County EMS personnel, veterans, Selectboard members, his family and their friends gathered outside Deerfield Town Hall on Friday to prove that his memory is not forgotten.
The ceremony took place beside his memorial stone. Surrounded with flowers, the stone plaque reads Walter R. Dacyczyn’s name, printed above his birthday, and Oct. 2, 1976, the day he died at 46 years old.
“On an ordinary night during an ordinary shift 50 years ago today, he was struck and killed by a drunk driver and died in the line of duty while trying to help someone stranded in the middle of the night,” explained the Rev. Randy Calvo of the First Congregational Church of Sunderland, a friend of Dacyczyn’s sons. “This town lost one of its most dedicated sons.”
State troopers and Deerfield police officers attend the ceremony honoring Walter R. Dacyczyn on Friday. Credit: AALIANNA MARIETTA / Staff Photo 
David Dacyczyn, Walter R. Dacyczyn’s youngest son, speaks at Friday’s ceremony at Deerfield Town Hall. Credit: AALIANNA MARIETTA / Staff Photo 
The plaque honoring Walter R. Dacyczyn outside Deerfield Town Hall. Credit: AALIANNA MARIETTA / Staff Photo
A lifelong Deerfield resident with the exception of his time spent in the military, Dacyczyn worked at the Deerfield Police Department for 11 years before that night and volunteered with the Deerfield Fire District.
“His commitment to helping others was not something reserved for extraordinary moments,” said Blake Gilmore, Selectboard chair and a retired Deerfield officer. “It was simply who he was.”
To fellow retired Deerfield Police Officer Raymond Burniske, Walter R. Dacyczyn was a mentor who “took [him] under his wing” as a 20-year-old officer finding his footing in the force. To the eldest of his two sons, Walter J. Dacyczyn, “If there was ever a perfect dad, he was probably close to it.”
His father coached his and his brother David Dacyczyn’s Pee Wee baseball and basketball teams, and helped lead their Boy Scout troops. He instilled in them manners and the mandate to “never give up, never quit,” Walter J. Dacyczyn recalled.
“He cared about the community. … He was a good man,” he continued. “His memory guided us to work hard and be good people.”
Walter R. Dacyczyn’s memory continues to guide Deerfield Police Chief John Paciorek Jr.
“In my 14 years as chief … there’s not a day that I walk by that plaque that I don’t remember him,” Paciorek said, turning to the family members. “His memory is always on my mind and it forever will be.”
“For the members of the Deerfield Police Department, Walter became part of the department’s history as a reminder that the badge carries with it a responsibility that sometimes comes at the greatest possible cost,” Gilmore said. “Walter’s story also reminds all of us in Deerfield something important: that service does not end when the shift ends, a commitment to others does not disappear with time and a life giving service to a community should never be forgotten. … He lives on through his family and he lives on through every Deerfield police officer who understands that the simple act of stopping to help someone can be an act of courage and service.”
Gilmore added that Walter R. Dacyczyn’s legacy also lives on in the achievements of the local high schoolers who have benefited from the scholarship fund in his honor.
Members of the Hale-Clapp Veterans of Foreign Wars Post honored Walter R. Dacyczyn with an echoing gun salute before the audience listened to a trumpeter play “taps.”
David Dacyczyn called the ceremony a comforting symbol of “what it’s like to be part of a small community.”
“He and our mother chose to live here and raise a family because of the quality and importance of community — the values that existed at the time,” he said. “The fact that this memorialization of his sacrifice is taking place today is a testament that many of those values still exist in the community his two sons have called home for decades.”
Paraphrasing the famous quote from Vivian Eney Cross, whose husband died in the line of duty, he told the audience, “It is not how this officer died that made him a hero, it’s how he lived. Your presence here today is proof of how true that is.”
