[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 141 (Friday, October 9, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2007]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page E2007]]
                        TRIBUTE TO BRUNO NOWICKI

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. SANDER M. LEVIN

                              of michigan

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, October 8, 1998

  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor an outstanding gentleman, Mr. 
Bruno Nowicki, ninety years young, on the occasion of his Testimonial 
Banquet on October 11, 1998 at the Polish Century Club in Detroit.
  Bruno Nowicki was born in Poland and came to the United States in 
1926 as an exchange student at Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh. After one 
semester, he began to work as a reporter for the Polish newspaper, and 
subsequently moved to Chicago and then to Detroit where he started the 
Hamtramck Business World in 1931.
  He changed course in 1936 and opened a monument business in the 
metropolitan Detroit area. Bruno sold not just cemetery memorials, his 
work included designing and building monuments that celebrate Poland. 
After fifty years in the monument business, Bruno ``retired'' to return 
to the Polish newspaper he left 50 years earlier and of which he later 
became a partial owner. This year, he was honored by the U.S. 
Conference of Polish Newspapers as ``the oldest Polish newspaperman 
working in the United States.''
  Actively involved in communities in both Poland and the United 
States, Bruno served on the Board of Governors of the Detroit Public 
Library, a founder of the Polish Riverfront Festival whose 
contributions benefit children's hospitals in Poland, and on the Board 
of the Polish Daily News. Bruno is a member of the Polish Century Club, 
the American-Polish Century Club, the Smith Old Timers, and the Monday 
night Lotto Club.
  An avid chess player, Bruno still participates in tournaments around 
the world where he ``wins his age division.''
  Bruno believes that ``no one has created a better way to perpetuate 
history and deeds than by monuments which endure and remind future 
generations of the contributions of the past.'' A designer, not a 
sculptor, he set out to work with others to design and build monuments 
that would remind future generations of the American-Polish culture and 
heritage. His first monument is the Veteran's War Memorial, dedicated 
in Hamtramck in 1950, listing the names of the servicemen and women who 
died in World War II and Korea. Additional names of those who fell in 
the Vietnam War were subsequently added.
  Bruno's other monuments depicting the arts, science and religion can 
be seen in the Polish room of the Ethnic Conference and Study Center at 
Wayne State University, Detroit Main Library, Hamtramck Public Library, 
Alliance College in Pennsylvania, Interlochen Music School and Academy, 
Detroit Science Center, and of course, his statue in Hamtramck of Pope 
John Paul II commemorating the first Polish Pope.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in extending our best 
wishes to this remarkable man and close friend for good health and 
happiness as he continues his work to ensure that Poland's's people and 
its history will live on and the role of Polish-Americans fully 
understood and acknowledged in the United States of America.

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