items of interest

with contributions from Barb Galbincea, Martha Sawyer Allen, Stephanie K. Taylor

"The Secret Society of Serendipitous Service for Hal is quietly at work: groceries left anonymously on the porch of a family down on its luck. A snow-clogged driveway surreptitiously cleared overnight. A waitress staggered by a $50 tip from a stranger. All done in the name of Hal Reichle, a Northeast Ohioan killed when his helicopter crashed in the first Gulf War. Since his death in 1991, Reichle's friends have honored the memory of a man who 'is kind of a cross between John Wayne and a leprechaun,' said Roger Cram, an administrator at Hiram College in Portage County. Just who performs these acts of kindness (known as 'pulling a Reichle,') is, by design, a mystery. But Cram estimates there could be 100 such 'Reichles' a year. ...

"'[Reichle's] charisma was the envy of anybody. ... But Reichle's real legacy was created without fanfare,' said Cram. Noticing a house urgently in need of repainting, Reichle did the work while the family—strangers to him—was out of town. A secondhand car mysteriously materialized for a factory worker. A teacher awoke on a snowy morning to a clear driveway. A classmate, turned down for a loan by a Trumbull County bank, prevailed after Reichle intervened, relying only on his charm and powers of persuasion. Reichle, who graduated from Hiram with a management degree in 1986, was an Army chief warrant officer when he died at age 27. But the stories of his good deeds survived. ...

"This year, for the first time, at least some of the deeds done in Reichle's memory will be cataloged—anonymously, of course—in a newsletter distributed to friends and family. If Reichle knew of his friends' tribute, 'I think he'd love it,' said Cram. 'He wasn't saintly. In fact, he was a rascal. He was a musketeer. ... He had no requirement for the people he helped. If he saw a need, he took care of it.'"

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