PROUD EVENING FOR MARGIOTTA FAMILY

Norma Jean Margiotta is not just a darned good soccer, softball and
basketball player for St. Rita's School. Now she's a scholarship winner as
well.

Charlie Margiotta (he of Staten Island Touch Tackle League fame) tells us his granddaughter (daughter of fallen firefighter Chuck Margiotta and wife Norma) received the scholarship (which she'll use at Notre Dame Academy) from the FDNY's Columbia Association (the Italian quivalent to the Emerald Society).

The ceremony was the other night at Christ the King High School in Queens. It was held in conjunction with the Italian National Day festivities conducted by the Association and featuring such hotshots as Danielle Gardner, liaison from the Columbia Association to the Consul General of Italy in New York, who presented Norma Jean's scholarship, as well as Giorgio Radicati, that
selfsame Consul General, who congratulated our heroine.

"It was kind of a pull for us that night," Charlie tells us, "because (granddaughter) Sarah Margiotta (Chuck’s niece), was being honored at the Varsity Club dinner (she was St. Joseph Hill's candidate) so we had to make a decision. "But (Sarah's dad) Mike, (mom) Patti and (brother) Michael were there so Molly (Charlie's wife), Norma, Charlie (Norma Jean’s brother) and I went to Middle Village.
"Besides," he added with a catch in his voice, "this was very special."

Of course, the family wasn't the only one to help honor Norma Jean- and, through Vincent Tummino, who's president of the fire department's Columbia Association (and, incidentally, the man who suggested Norma Jean for the prize) was there as was Tom Delpino, one of Chuck's best friends, the firefighter assigned to help the family after 9/11 and the man who's spearheading the Chuck Margiotta memorial garden at the side of Ladder 85's New Dorp headquarters.

But even if others were there, you better believe Charlie the grandfather
and his group were the proudest.

Julie Summers