JEFFREY JOSEPH KOVATCH, 43, of Huntington, W.Va., died on Saturday, Nov. 5, 2016. He was born on July 2, 1973, in Pittsburgh, Pa., to Edward and Aurelia Kovatch. He learned to love the outdoors riding bicycles with his brother, Charles, and sister, Melissa, in the woods behind the house in Seneca, Pa., often sneaking out to walk around a pond and snack on wild blueberries and apples. Jeff was a master tree climber by the age of 8. Boy Scouts helped Jeff hone his camping and canoeing skills. Jeff especially loved the Appalachian foothills and valleys where he lived, hunted, skied and hiked in various states for decades. Jeff was an avid hunter, and depending on the season, he served squirrel - in a salad or barbecued - without irony and with some of the best home-brewed beer anyone ever drank. Jeff participated in many organized sports, and as an adult would describe himself as consistently marginal at all of them. His sports apparel was second-to-none; he sometimes showed up to pitch a softball game at Syracuse University in a bathrobe (in his defense, he brought the beer). Jeff started college at St. Francis in Pennsylvania and joined Alpha Phi Omega. After two years, he decided the University of Pittsburgh offered more opportunities. At Pitt, he double-majored in biology and Phi Sigma Kappa. He completed a research experience at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama after graduating, and worked in Alaska as a fish inspector, trying his hand at living out a real-life "Deadliest Catch" experience. Jeff loved riding motorcycles. He started with and wrecked a Yamaha, and ended up with a Vulcan Drifter that resembled the Indian he would rather have owned. Jeff had a voice for radio, and he could do dead-on impressions of anyone, from television characters to his friends. After living for three years in Colorado, Jeff moved to Syracuse to work on a Ph.D. in physiological ecology. At SU, he met Paige Muellerleile. Their courtship started slow, over softball, beers and water balloons. Jeff and Paige married in 2003 on a camping site in central New York. Guests brought mountain bikes and hula hoops. Soon after, they moved to Wisconsin, and then to Huntington and Marshall University in 2006, where Jeff found a community that embraced watershed projects and ukuleles and going out into the woods and swamps to Do Scientific and Fun Things. Community outreach came easily to him, from working with the Fourpole Creek Watershed Association to organizing the popular Dine & Discover speaking series. Jeff earned tenure and was promoted to Associate Professor. Shortly before he died, he and a team of collaborators were awarded a sizeable NSF grant. Jeff was ecstatic to become a father: Jada was born in 2006, and Chelsea in 2011. Jeff rolled around in fatherhood like he'd found a pot of gold, leading Girl Scouts and filling out NCAA brackets with the kids based on which team's mascot could beat the other. He encouraged his girls to be kids - to get dirty, to build things, to ask questions and, most of all, to go outside, and he did all these things with them as often as he could. Jeff's outsized personality has left an enormous void in the lives of those who survive him: His parents, siblings, wife, children and his grandmother, Helen Kovatch, as well as aunts, uncles, cousins and friends. To remember Jeff, make time to make memories with your friends and family, because that's where life happens. A service celebrating Jeff's life is planned for Friday, Nov. 11, at the
Joan C. Edwards Performing Arts Center on the campus of Marshall University. Doors open at 3 p.m., with a service of sharing stories beginning at 4 p.m. Wearing green Chucks and game day jerseys is encouraged but not required.
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