Angela Powers, a longtime New Hyde Park community leader and the first female president of the Chamber of Commerce there, died Dec. 29. She was 76.
Powers was “an institution in New Hyde Park” who always pursued her passions “vigorously,” New Hyde Park Deputy Mayor Lawrence Montreuil said.
“I absolutely had a lot of admiration for her, and for the values that she pursued there,” he said. “It’s a shame to see her leave us, and she’ll be greatly missed.”
A resident of New Hyde Park since 1966, Powers joined the Greater New Hyde Park Chamber of Commerce in 1973, serving as the “Welcome Wagon Hostess.” She was elected president in the 1990s.
In Powers’ four-year term, the New Hyde Park Chamber joined the Nassau Council of Chambers of Commerce and fostered relationships with local businesses and charities.
“Charity begins at home,” she said in January.
The chamber was “a labor of love” for Powers, and she never missed a meeting until she became ill, said Mark Laytin, a New Hyde Park marketer who led the group in 2012 and 2013.
“She was the kind of person that if she said she was going to do something, you could consider it done — the old-school handshake-agreement type person,” Laytin said.
In her later years, Powers provided major financial support for the chamber’s annual golf outing, its biggest fundraising event, Laytin said. She was also an active supporter of the Katie McBride Foundation, which supports the local Ronald McDonald House.
“I have no intention of retiring from anything,” she said when the chamber made her the first recipient of the first Angela Powers Award for Service in January.
Powers was also active in New Hyde Park’s Holy Spirit Church, the Order Sons of Italy’s Cellini Lodge and the Stewart Manor-New Hyde Park Republican Committee, a group she led for 18 years.
In a statement noting it was honoring Powers, the committee called her “a Republican Party stalwart” who “fostered and nurtured scores of candidates for elective office.”
In addition to the local club, Powers served on Nassau County’s 2013 Districting Advisory Commission alongside Franklin Square GOP leader Joseph Ra and Francis X. Moroney, head of the North Hempstead Republican Committee.
Montreuil said Powers was “very, very active” in engaging voters and garnering votes for New Hyde Park’s Republican candidates, often knocking on doors and handing out leaflets on train platforms.
“She was a great, engaged citizen, which is very important,” he said. “Many people are apathetic and she’s certainly the opposite of that, which was great.”
Powers is survived by her son Edward, a 20-year chamber member who serves as the Town of Hempstead’s emergency management director and a Nassau Community College trustee.
She is also survived by daughter Diane and son Bruce, and grandchildren Danny, Matthew and Brian.
She was honored with a funeral mass at Holy Spirit Church on Jan. 4 and will be buried at a private interment.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Katie McBride Foundation in Powers’ honor.
