Thomas J. Puchalsky

It's heartwarming to see the messages posted here from so many people whose lives were touched, or better yet, changed, by crossing paths with Tom Puchalsky. He is one of the greatest teachers I ever had, and definitely my favorite at Lincoln-Sudbury. He really represented everything that is good about the world. He raised his students up, he challenged us, he changed our horizons and perceptions, and he did it with humor and incredible grace. To this day I still remember the great books...

Dear dear dear Professor, will always remember you...D. B.

A toast of remembrance and respect of hot mulled wine from the Carpathians in Western Ukraine to the professor who taught me the love of all things Slavic.

Deepest sympathies to Mr. Puchalsky's family.....I find it hard to believe he has passed from this place......

Who better than Mr. P to lead one through Dante's Inferno and the Iliad? His Great Books class was a jewel, like entering a sacred space each class period. To run into him in the hallway would take your breath away - here he was, in OUR world - one dared only smile and wave; he was like a great lion on the prowl, constantly seeking intellectual, artistic and spiritual...

Incredible passionate lively professor. I woke up today wanting to contact him and discovered this sad news. I will keep TP in my heart forever and promise myself to try to learn what he tried to teach me decades ago. I am very grateful to him.

Mr. Puchalsky was one of my favorite teachers--as a Freshman at L-S, he was truly my first "real" teacher. He was the first teacher truly interested in what my classmates and I thought even if it was unconventional or out of the box. We read "Night" by Elie Wiesel and JD Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye". I just searched for Mr. Puchalsky because I'd hoped to write him and let him know that Salinger's sequel to Catcher in The Rye will be released in 2015. Sadly, I've found that he is now gone....

Mr Puchalsky demonstrated for me the great appreciation of slavic culture. A direct causal link to the greatest part of my life, my half-ukrainian daughter.
A great teacher and a better man.

Mr Puchalsky was one of my favorite people and greatest influences of my life.
I remember, he once said something to the effect of "You are all ignorant because you are to young to have suffered enough yet!" (with a grin). I thought I understood what he meant then, but at 48, I understand his words much more.

One year a local news channel came to LS to create a school project by doing a news story on our HS. The story potrayed LS as a liberal hippy school who let it's...

Tom Puchalsky changed the way we think, changed what it meant to be a student and a reader, and shaped the way I now teach. If any of my students have felt the wild fire of intellectual inspiration in my classroom, they have Tom Puchalsky to thank. The gratitude is endless and enormous.

In sympathy to his family and friends these months later, remembering a man whom I have remembered so often fondly (and often with laughter!) since high school.