OBITUARY: Stephan Kurylas, 85, veterinarian, community activist
WHEATON, Md. - Stephan Basil Kurylas, a retired federal veterinarian and community activist, died of respiratory failure on May 2 at his home in Wheaton, Md.
Dr. Kurylas was born on February 6, 1921, in Poliukhiv, Ukraine and attended schools in Dobrotvir and Lviv. He graduated from the University of Veterinary Medicine in Hannover, Germany, and went on to receive a doctorate of veterinary medicine in 1951 from Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich.
Arriving in the United States with his family, Dr. Kurylas was hired as a veterinarian with the meat and poultry inspection service at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Baltimore and later worked in Canton, Ohio, and Cleveland.
He joined the Washington bureau in 1967 and was promoted to staff officer for laws and regulations in the Foreign Programs Division of the Food Safety and Inspection Service.
He was a member of the National Association of Federal Veterinarians and the Association of Ukrainian Veterinarians. After his retirement in 1985, Dr. Kurylas began his own international consulting firm.
In 1996 he participated in the planning and opening of an exhibit at the Embassy of Ukraine sponsored by the National Agricultural Library, highlighting the contributions of Ukrainians to American agriculture.
Dr. Kurylas was an active member of Washington's Ukrainian community. As a parishioner of the Ukrainian Catholic National Shrine of the Holy Family in Washington, he served on its pastoral advisory council. He loved to sing in church and was a member of The Washington Bandura Ensemble. He was a member of The Washington Group and the Shevchenko Scientific Society and was past president of the local chapter of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America.
On the 20th anniversary of the unveiling of the Shevchenko Monument in 1984 he was one of the organizers of a national march to protest the Russification of Ukraine. He valued Ukrainian heritage schools, loved children and often played the role of St. Nicholas at school presentations.
From September 1999 to August 2002 Dr. Kurylas was the coordinator for the William Petrach Project of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation in Old Dobrotvir, Ukraine. In this capacity, Dr. Kurylas opened the newly completed community center in Dobrotvir. The U.S.-Ukraine Foundation in 2000 chose Dr. Kurylas to distribute aid to the families of miners who died in the Krasnodon mining disaster. Dr. Kurylas was also an advisor to Virginia James, the trustee of the William Petrach Charitable Trust, on the distribution of funds in the District of Columbia area and in Ukraine.
Survivors include his wife of 61 years, Olha Chrupowycz Kurylas; three children, Peter Kurylas, Olenka Dobczanska and Larysa Kurylas; four sisters, two brothers and four grandchildren.
Funeral services were held at the Ukrainian Catholic National Shrine of the Holy Family in Washington on May 6, followed by interment in the Ukrainian section of Cedar Hill Cemetery in Suitland, Md.
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, May 28, 2006, No. 22, Vol. LXXIV
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