PACINI, CHARLES V.

A Mass of Christian Burial for Charles V. Pacini, 75, former varsity football and baseball coach at Eden High School and a World War II veteran, will be offered at 10 a.m. Tuesday in Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, Eden.

Burial will be in Evergreen Cemetery, Eden.

Pacini, a member of Edson’s Raiders while he served with the Marine Corps in the Pacific, died Friday [June 9, 1995] in his Eden home.

Raised in North Tonawanda, he attended the University of Vermont after graduating from high school in 1938. He joined the military in 1942, earning a Purple Heart for wounds suffered in the Pacific. He was discharged in 1946 and returned to Niagara University to complete his education, graduating in 1949.

Pacini taught high school classes and coached football and baseball teams in Philipsburg, N.J., for the next six years. Among his student athletes was Dick Lynch, who went on to play professional football for the New York Giants.

In 1956, he was hired as a social studies teacher and coach at Eden High School, where he remained until his retirement in 1983. Among his students at Eden was Bert Weidner, who plays for the Miami Dolphins.

Pacini was named Western New York High School Football Association Coach of the Year in 1969 and won the Western New York Football Coaches Association District 7 award in 1983. He is a member of the North Tonawanda School Hall of Fame and the Eden Central School Hall of Fame.

Pacini also served as Town of Eden recreation director in the 1960s and 1970s.

A director of the Gowanda Country Club, he also was a member of American Legion Post 880, the Disabled American Veterans, the Gowanda Moose Club and the Hamburg Elks Lodge.

Survivors include: his wife, the former Shirley Helwig; two daughters, Sandra Hess of Hagerstown, Md., and Charlene Gwinn of Martinsburg, W.Va.; and a brother, Bruno of Medina.