3 Photos
Russell Drumm, an author and longtime reporter and columnist for the East Hampton Star, died on Saturday at the age of 68.
Mr. Drumm, widely known as Rusty, worked at The Star for more than 30 years, covering his adopted hometown of Montauk, its commercial fishing industry, the baymen’s community and the business of the East Hampton Town Trustees. He also wrote fiction and non-fiction pieces and authored two books and an e-book, and had recently finished a draft of a new book.
He was an avid surfer and sailor and a scholar of boating and seafaring.
In his weekly column, “On The Water,” Mr. Drumm wrote prolifically and often poetically on waterborne subjects, from weekly fishing reports to tales of steering his sailboat on Gardiners Bay to stories of the maritime culture of the South Fork.
“His writing was joyous,” David E. Rattray, the editor of the Star, said this week. “There was an ability to turn a phrase that was really a gift … even with the most ponderous coastal policy stuff. He could teach all of us that newspapering could be fun.”
His wife, Kyle Paseka, said that she met Rusty when he heard her on WEHM radio and called into the station to ask her out.
“He said he loved the sound of my voice and he asked me out,” she recalled. “That was Rusty.”
Ms. Paseka said that Mr. Drumm was a lover of life and awoke each day “like a little kid greeting the day with enthusiasm and joy.”
“If it was snowing he would want to go out and run in the snow, if it was raining he’d say let’s go walk in the rain on the beach,” she recalled. “He went through life seeing only the good.”
She said she marveled at his breadth of knowledge about boats and the ocean and fish and birds and everything that came into his focus.
“He could do everything well—skiing and sailing and writing—and he was the best dancer in the world,” she said. “He was amazing and he died too soon.”
Mr. Drumm was born in Syracuse in 1947 and raised in Levittown. He attended Colgate University and earned a master’s degree in filmmaking from Columbia University. He moved to Montauk in the 1970s and worked as a commercial fisherman before joining the Star in 1982.
His first book, “In The Slick Of The Cricket,” used the events of a fishing trip with Montauk’s most famous charter captain, the late Capt. Frank Mundus, to delve into the flamboyant shark hunter’s colorful past and professorial knowledge of fishing. Published in 1997, the book won the Pushcart Press Editor’s Book Award.
His second book, “The Barque of Saviors,” traced the history of the U.S. Coast Guard’s four-masted sailing ship Eagle, built for the Nazi navy in 1936 and recommissioned by the United States as a training ship for the Coast Guard after World War II.
His third book, “A Rogue’s Yarn,” a fictional tale about the life of an aging Hawaiian surfer named John Finch, was self-published as an e-book for sale on Amazon.
In addition to Ms. Paseka, Mr. Drumm is survived by a daughter, Melissa Flaherty, of Springs, and a granddaughter born in May.
A graveside service will be held Wednesday, January 20, at 1 p.m. at Fort Hill Cemetery in Montauk. Mr. Rattray said that a memorial service for all who wish to attend will be hosted at the East Hampton Star’s office on Thursday afternoon from 3 to 7 p.m.
on Jan 17, 2016