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Alice Pompono, 59, Long Time SLU Faculty Member

Alice Pompono, or Ali, to those who knew and loved her, passed away on June 19, 2012 after surviving brain cancer for more than two years. 

Alice was 59, and lived in West Potsdam.

She was born in Port Jefferson and grew up in Ronkonkoma, NY.  She made the most of a life that was far too short.

Joyous, adventurous, courageous, a fierce warrior for justice with a kind and loving heart, she is missed by heartbroken friends in places as far-flung as Hawaii, Papua New Guinea, Australia, Italy, the Caribbean, and throughout North America.

Ali graduated from Connetquot High School on Long Island in 1970 and from SUNY Geneseo in 1974.  She spent a year during that time studying in Italy and developed friendships there that she maintained for the rest of her life.  She revisited these friendships in 2008 when she won a Fulbright Fellowship to spend a year teaching at the University of Siena in Tuscany.

She earned her Ph.D. in anthropology at Bryn Mawr in 1983, with a dissertation based on eighteen months of field work on a  ten-acre island called Mandok off the coast of Papua New Guinea.  She returned to Mandok for another year in 1987, and in 1988 she won a Mellon Fellowship to write and update her research at the University of Pittsburg.  In the last years of her life she was working on a dictionary of the unwritten language of the Mandok people, to help preserve their linguistsic heritage for future generations of islanders.

Ali joined the faculty of St. Lawrence University in 1983, earning the rank of Professor of Anthropology in 1994 and becoming Chair of the Department of Anthropology in 2004.  In the meantime she authored and edited three books and was elected President of the Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania, an international scholarly organization. 

She and her husband Richard Perry co-directed St. Lawrence University’s Kenya Semester Program for eighteen months from 1994 to 1996. In fall 2011 she won St. Lawrence University’s distinguished J. Calvin Keene Award for excellence in combining teaching, scholarship, and concerns for social justice.  Among the factors determining this award were the many admiring letters from her students.

In February 2013, the Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania will hold an event titled “Special Session in Honor of Ali Pomponio: Expressions of Joy in Oceanic Societies.”  The description states that “we have chosen to honor Ali with a session devoted to expressions of joy as homage to her vivacious, joyful personality and the joy that she has brought to all who have gotten to know her.”

Ali is, and will always be, sorely missed by her husband, Richard Perry and their son Charles Gregory Pomponio Perry.  Her parents Charles Angelo Pomponio and Marian (Addeo) Pomponio predeceased her, as did her brother Robert in 1983.  She is also survived by three brothers: Alan, Richard, and David Pomponio, and a sister, Marian Allred.

The world is poorer and sadder for her loss.  And the world is better, and richer, because she was here with us.

The family will receive friends at the Lawrence Funeral Home, 21 Park Street, Canton on Friday, June 22nd from 2-4 and 6-8 PM and on Saturday from 2-4 PM.  A memorial service celebrating the life of Ali will be announced in the fall.

Memorial contributions are suggested to the St. Lawrence County Cancer Fund, Inc., P.O. Box 291, Canton, NY 13617.

Condolences may be sent online at  www.lawrencefuneralhome.org.

Thursday, May 23, 2013
, Watertown, NY
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Funeral Homes Listings

Jefferson County:

Bossuot-Lundy Funeral Home, Carthage
315-493-3710

Calarco, D.L. Funeral Home, Watertown
315-782-4910

Costello Funeral Service, Alexandria Bay
315-482-5840

Cummings Funeral Service
Watertown - 315-782-0830
Clayton - 315-686-5101

Frederick Bros Funeral Home, Theresa
315-628-4451

Hart & Bruce Funeral Home, Watertown
315-788-3351

Johnson Funeral Home, Dexter
315-639-6257

Reed & Benoit Funeral Home, Watertown
315-782-6580

Cleveland Funeral Home, Watertown
315-788-6180

Cleveland Funeral Home,,Cape Vincent
315-654-2681

Becker-Cleveland Funeral Home, Chaumont
315-649-2912

Bezanilla-McGraw Funeral Home, Carthage
315-493-2621

Carpenter-Stoodley, Belleville
315-846-5211

T.R. Jetty Funeral Home, Clayton
315-686-2414

Piddock Funeral Home, Adams
315-232-4000

Lewis County

Adirondack Funeral Home, Croghan
315-346-6511

Iseneker Funeral Home, Lowville
315-376-8009

Scanlon Funeral Home, Croghan
315-346-6311

Sundquist Funeral Home, Lowville
315-376-2665

St. Lawrence County

Hammill Funeral Home, Winthrop

Buck Funeral Home, Norwood
315-353-2112

Fox-McLellan Funeral Home, Ogdensburg
315-393-4870

French Funeral Home, Gouverneur
315-287-2810

Green Funeral Home, Gouverneur
315-287-1330

Phillips Memorial Home, Massena
315-769-3549

Allen-Nichols Funeral Home, Ogdensburg
315-393-2220

Frary Funeral Home, Ogdensburg
315-393-1414

Lawrence Funeral Home, Canton
315-386-8513

O'Leary Funeral Home, Canton

Allen-Denesha Funeral Home, De Kalb Junction
(315) 347-2122

French Funeral Home Inc., Gouverneur

French Funeral Home Inc., Edwards

French Funeral Home Inc., Star Lake

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