Obituaries

As bar president, Runfola criticized the pardoning of former President Richard Nixon as a "possible erosion of public respect for the law" and stunned the legal community when he warned judges not to berate juries for acquitting criminal defendants. He held every office of the Erie County Bar Association and created several new committees, including the Committee on Sex Discrimination, which was ahead of its time. He was named Distinguished Lawyer of the Year in 1976 by the bar association.

Runfola graduated from Canisius College and earned his law degree from UB in 1950 after working for many years for his father's company, Runfola Coal & Coke. His law firm was Runfola and Birzon.

He served as president of the William Paca Society, named for the only Italian-American to sign the Declaration of Independence, president of the Justinian Legal Society and as a member of the State Bar Association's Committee on Judicial Selection.

Robert Secrist, clinical associate professor emeritus of medicine
Robert Secrist, clinical associate professor emeritus at the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, died Nov. 5 in Briody Health Care Facility, Lockport, after a long illness. He was 78.

A native of Lockport, over the course of his career Secrist developed a reputation for compassion, making house calls to patients all over Buffalo and for treating them regardless of their ability to pay. He retired in 1988.

From 1937 to 1939, he attended Cornell University on a scholarship. He left school to join Bethlehem Steel, where he worked until he was drafted into the Army infantry in April 1941. He was on guard duty at Fort Shaffer on the island of Oahu, five miles from Pearl Harbor, when the Japanese attacked on Dec. 7.

Later assigned to combat duty in France and Germany, Secrist received the Purple Heart for a wound received in combat. After five years of service, he left the Army as a first lieutenant.

Following the war, Secrist went back to school under the GI Bill. He received a bachelor of arts degree from Columbia University and entered the UB medical school in 1947. He graduated in 1951.

Secrist, a member of the Erie County and New York State Medical societies and the American Medical Association, was board certified in internal medicine in 1958, and recertified in 1977. He was a member of the American College of Chest Physicians.

Services will be held at 5 p.m. today in Beach-Tuyn Funeral Home, 5541 Main St., Williamsville.