Stephen Paliska ’53

Steve, who specialized in mechanical engineering and worked globally designing an asphalt plant in Puerto Rico, a NATO jet-refueling station in Iceland, a desalination plant on Ascension Island, and a fire-breathing dragon at Disneyland, died July 21, 2013. He had a stroke four years ago, according to his wife, Toni Marie Callaway, and he died in Palm Springs Regional Hospital from a bacterial infection.

Born in Cincinnati, Steve attended the Wardlaw School and at Princeton roomed with Eric Sundt and Clark Tufts. Clark recalls that Steve kept a “souped-up” car behind Terrace Club and on weekends would race on the New Jersey dirt tracks. Clark was best man when Steve married Barbara Burns, the mother of his sons Steven III and Paul. They later divorced. Steve met his second wife, Toni, when they were engineers in the oil fields surrounding Bakersfield, Calif.

Besides Toni and his sons, Steve leaves behind three grandchildren and a sister. Steve’s family members said he liked “Princeton reunions, Ivy League clothes with cowboy boots, country-western music, fast cars, and pretty women.” For those of us who’ve had the pleasure of meeting Toni, she is the prettiest.