Clark and Garwood Year in Review: The Ones We Lost

Gone but never forgotten. The loss of these four young Clark natives shook the community this year.

Clark native Army Sgt. James Harvey II was killed by small-arms fire from insurgents in the Ghazni province of Afghanistan on June 20, 2011.

Harvey was a 2005 Arthur L. Johnson graduate, where he played lacrosse for two years, was well liked, a good student and had many friends. He lived on Conger Way in Clark after moving from Union with his parents and three older sisters – Christine, 35, Robin, 29, and Tracey, 25. (The Harveys moved to Toms River in 2007.) Harvey went on to study at Lincoln Tech, work as a mechanic and then as a substation operator for PSEG. But joining the Army was always on his mind. He enlisted in January 2009 and was deployed to Afghanistan in January of this year.

The Harvey family’s pain is only mitigated by the knowledge that James – more often known as “Jimmy” – died with honor, doing what he loved.

“Jimmy wanted to do this right out of high school,” said Christine. “I do think 9/11 might have had a little to do with it. He was trying to find out where his knack was after high school and the bottom line was it all kept leading back to the Army.”

At his funeral on June 29, the roar of motorcycles signaled Harvey's approach, as dozens of members of the Toms River American Legion Riders and the Patriot Guard Riders escorted the hearse. Harvey was posthumously promoted to sergeant and was awarded the Bronze Star medal, Army Commendation Medal for valor, Global War on Terrorism medal, Afghan Campaign medal, NATO ribbon, Good Conduct medal and Purple Heart.

Read more:

Joseph A. Urban III, 26, was killed after his motorcycle struck a curb and lost control on Route 35 (St. George Avenue) in Avenel on July 10, 2011. The impact caused Urban to be thrown off his bike and into a telephone pole around 3 a.m. that morning.

After his death, friends gathered to remember Urban at his favorite hangout – Clark's Dunkin' Donuts.

"It was, 'I’m going to Dunkin', I'm going to Dunkin'' all the time," Barbara, Urban's mother, told Patch. "I would tell him to get a life, stop hanging out at Dunkin'. I finally convinced him to go out to Arizona at the end of July to a motorcycle repair school. I thought maybe he’d graduate from the Dunkin' crowd."

But in the wake of his death, Barbara Urban soon learned that her son had more than just "a life" at the coffee hangout – he had a whole other family.

It was around 3:30 a.m. when her brother-in-law, a Rahway police officer, came to her door to break the news. Hours later, as Barbara was still coming to terms with the fact that her son was gone, she was comforted by a constant stream of Joe's friends from the Dunkin' Donuts crowd. They would pay their respects at the family's Meadow Road home, offering condolences to her, her husband, Joseph, and their four other children.

"On Sunday morning I must have had 50 or 60 kids on my front lawn," Barbara says. "He truly had a whole separate life there. And learning and meeting all the people, all the lives he touched, whether you talked to the kids that knew him well or barely knew him – I wouldn’t say he was a different person, but it's a whole different side of Joseph that I didn’t know."

Days after his death, the Dunkin' crew agreed to an interview to share memories of their friend. The stories most of Joe's friends have to tell are about him being selfless and generous, the first to help you fix your car or computer – two of his favorite things. Joe Salerno, 26, from Clark says, "Urban had a gravitational pull. People who needed something would just find him, and he'd always want to jump in and help."

 Read more:

The body of Clark native Jean Baptista, a 2004 Arthur L. Johnson graduate, was found in a Delaware creek on Aug. 29 in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene.

Baptista and a friend – 25-year-old Christopher Valentine of Hockessin, Delaware – had not been seen since midnight on Sunday, when they left a friends house and texted another friend that they were "running through the hurricane" to Valentine's home, approximately 2.5 miles away.

Baptista was born in Elizabeth and lived there, before moving to James Avenue in Clark 16 years ago. In 2004 he graduated from Arthur L. Johnson High School in Clark, where he participated in track, soccer and lacrosse. He then went on to the University of Delaware and graduated on the Dean's List with a Degree in Civil Engineering.

ALJ lacrosse teammate Scott Diaz was shocked to hear the news of Baptista's death. "He was a really fun guy," Diaz told Patch. "This sucks."

Baptista is survived by his parents Alberto and Magda and siblings Nicholas, Gabriela and Estavan.

Read also:

Nicole Marzano, a 2011 Arthur L. Johnson graduate and freshman at the University of Delaware, was killed in a car accident as she was traveling from a club soccer game back to school with two other students.

Marzano was the Class of 2011 salutatorian with a GPA of 4.69 and played varsity soccer and Marzano also participated in Key Club, Peer Mediation, Peer Leadership, Science League, Teen Arts and Chorale. Marzano was nominated for homecoming queen and was also one of the recipient of the 2011 Clark UNICO scholarship. At the University of Delaware, Marzano planned to study accounting and psychology and hoped to someday work as a treasurer or event planner.

Marzano is survived by her parents Francine and Vincent Marzano, and younger brother Vinnie and a sister Danielle – both students at ALJ.

About 1,000 mourners came to honor Nicole at her wake and funeral, many shuddering in the mid-Autumn cold as they stood outside every entrance of St. Helen's Church in Westfield.

John Bolil, who has served as the Business Administrator for the Clark Board of Education and has also worked with Nicole’s mother, Francine, spoke freely about what Nicole and the Marzanos mean to so many in the Clark community.

“She was everything that anyone would want in a daughter," Bolil said. "She was talented, gifted vocally and athletically, a true scholar and role model that touched so many lives."

Read more: