Joe Kaluza leaves a legacy of love, grace and resilience

The affable former manager of a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant on Youngstown’s South Side who was robbed of $306 and ripped of his mobility in a brutal street assault seven years ago will long be remembered as no average Joe.

Indeed Joseph J. Kaluza, who died this month at age 49, will long be recognized for his exceptional qualities of unbounded resilience, abiding grace and hometown heroism.

We join thousands today in memorializing Joe and in remembering the positive impact and inspiration he provided to his family, his friends and countless members of our community.

Joe first made headlines March 28, 2008, when a pair of depraved robbers — Taran D. Helms and Hattie L. Gilbert — attacked the restaurant manager en route to a bank, stole his $306 in KFC receipts and shot him, causing paralysis from the neck down. The two were found guilty of charges that included aggravated robbery and attempted murder and are serving 38-year prison terms in state institutions in Mansfield and Marysville.

Unfortunately, Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul Gains does not believe Helms and Gilbert legally can be retried on murder charges now that Joe has died. At the very least, however, Gains and his successors should spare no energies in fighting any possible additional reductions in their sentences or calls for parole until their release dates in 2049.

Keeping the two assailants imprisoned for the maximum duration of their sentences reflects justice, not bitterness. Joe, for one, would never let lingering bitterness rule his life. As he expressed to the court at the sentencing of his attackers in 2008, “I am determined to not allow myself to become a bitter person.”

Such amazing grace from a man whose life was forever painfully impaired speaks volumes to the strength of Kaluza’s moral fiber.

His grace was outshined perhaps only by his determination and resilience to recoil from adversity. Pity Kaluza? Joe would have no part of that. The two assailants may have shot down his ability to walk but they could never shut down his indomitable spirit. Even as a wheelchair-bound paraplegic, Joe remained an independent, hard-working, loving family man who inspired thousands in the Mahoning Valley.

‘I’m just being me’

A couple of years after the shooting, Kaluza had remarked to a Vindicator reporter, “Every time I go out, I talk to someone who says ‘I’m an inspiration.’ If I really am, that’s great, but I’m just being me.”

Just being Joe, however, struck a chord in the Greater Youngstown community that resonated most vibrantly through the Joe Kaluza Project. In it, more than 400 individuals and companies worked diligently and selflessly in 2009 to build Joe and his family a new $300,000 home on Ivanhoe Avenue. That gift enabled Joe and his family to live a more comfortable life with fewer barriers. Joe was eternally grateful.

It is rare in this day and age that one person can unify an entire community around good will. In his understated ability to unlock the best qualities of his legion of friends and followers, Joe Kaluza truly rose to the level of a community hero. As the Rev. David Parry, pastor of Paradise United Church of Christ in Canfield, said at Joe’s funeral last week: “Real heroes are the ordinary people who work hard to take care of their family. That’s what Joe did. That’s what we call love.”

We best can pay tribute to Joe’s legacy by keeping his lessons of love, grace and resilience alive within ourselves and by sharing them generously for the greater good of all.