Honoring the Legacy of Norman P. DeTullio
Educator, Mentor, Beloved Member of the St. Joseph Community

Norman Philip DeTullio Honored at the 2001 Maroon & Gold Gala

Norman Philip DeTullio taught Literature and Creative Writing for 32 years at St. Joseph High School.  For ten of those years he served as Chairman of the English Department.  He published the first Literary Journal in 1971, moderated the school newspaper in its infancy, jump started the Driver Education Program in 1968 and expanded the bookstore operation in the 80’s.  He took over the financially troubled Yearbook beginning in 1972, and brought it to the attention of the Columbia University School of Journalism.  He served as Senior Adviser throughout all of his years at the high school. 

Married to the former Barbara Rolly in the fall of 1963 he settled in Queens, N.Y. and began a short stint in the advertising business in Manhattan where city life and raising a family did not feel right.  “I arrived at St. Joes on a whim with the intention of staying only one year to figure out what I was going to do for the rest of my life,” he is fond of telling friends, “I just loved the place so much, I never left.”

“The two best things that ever happened in my life occurred on two fortuitous moments,” he said recently, “the summer afternoon when I was 15 and met Barbara on the Milford shore, and the spring morning I first set foot on the St. Joe’s campus.” Throughout his teaching career Norman ran his father’s restaurant business during the summer months.  He has been published in The New York Times, as well as a variety of magazines.  A fictional novella was recently published and he is currently at work on a novel.

Retired for the past few years Norman continues to serve on the Alumni Council at St. Joe’s, participates in several special humanitarian activities, teaches a special program through Sacred Heart University and continues to write.  His favorite special interest is building stone walls which he finds closely related to the writing process.  He and Barbara, a potter and interior designer, have resided in Nichols for the past 25 years.

A NOTE FROM LISA DETULLIO RUSSELL ’82: Back in 1979, my 8th grade class at St. Catherine had a tradition of writing letters to ourselves that we would receive after graduating high school. My Dad fell in love with this idea - so much so that he decided to make it a part of his Creative Writing Classes and ask his students to write letters that they would then receive after graduating from college. My father retired in 1999 after 32 years of teaching, hosting Driver’s Ed, serving as the Head of the English Department, and running Prom. He most certainly left Room 206 in June of 1999 with his red clown nose on his face (true story) and those letters in his briefcase, before stashing them in a safe place in his library desk. In 2019, my folks decided to sell their home - the house they bought in 1977 to be closer to St. Joes! For 42 years, several times a day former students would honk their horns as they passed. Upon cleaning out the home...and reading every note and letter stashed between pages of yearbooks, books, and files...he found the lost letters from the Class of 1999! 

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