Dennis John Nurkiewicz

Dennis John Nurkiewicz Sr., 82, was born in Youngstown, Ohio on August 1, 1942 and passed on July 4, 2025 in Morgantown, WV.

He is survived by his beloved wife of 61 years, Carole, sons Dennis Jr and wife Sherry, Timothy and wife Janet, brother Kenny and wife Mary Lou, brother-in-law Randall Barr and wife Ann, granddaughters Gwendolyn, Maegyn, Stacy and Schyler and other nephews.

He was preceded in death by his parents, John and Clara Nurkiewicz.

After graduating from Youngstown State in 1965, he was employed by the Pennsylvania State University for 25 years, retiring as the Director of Continuing Education at Penn State’s Fayette Campus and served as the Executive Director of the West Virginia Emergency Medical System Technical Support Network for several years before retiring to Uniontown, PA.

Dennis was an expert outdoorsman, finding adventure in the mountains, rivers and streams of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Michigan through fly fishing and hunting. He taught his boys to fly fish (favoring the dry fly) and hunt, and when it came time he watched his boys teach their families.

Dennis held his family history close, maintaining his Polish and Hungarian traditions and passing them down to his children and his grandchildren, mostly through good food with which he enjoyed good wine and good scotch whisky.

With his artist’s eye for detail Dennis became an award-winning wood carver and painter displaying his work first with the Uniontown Art Club, the Morgantown Art Association and later more broadly in international art shows and art galleries across the country where his pieces won numerous awards. Photographs of several of his award-winning works have been published in nationally circulated wildlife art magazines, including his Peregrine Falcon, an American Robin, a Common Raven and an American Barn Owl. He will be remembered for his later projects, delicate songbirds and powerful birds of prey—but those who loved and knew him well will remember him most for his ducks.

Those who survive him hold his memory dearly in their hearts and carry his passions with them into the future.

The family will hold a private celebration of Dennis's life at a later date.

Cremation services have been entrusted to Hastings Funeral Home/Omega Crematory.

In lieu of flowers, donations in his memory may be made to The Morgantown Art Association, 5000 Green Bag Road, Morgantown, WV 26501.

Condolences may be sent to the family online at www.hastingsfuneralhome.com