Maryknoll missioner who served on Big Island active in scouting
Maryknoll Brother Duane T. Crockett, who served nearly 18 years in Hawaii, died May 21 at Phelps Memorial Hospital in Sleepy Hollow, N.Y. He was 92 years old and a Maryknoll brother for 66 years.
Brother Crockett was assigned to Hawaii from 1956 to 1973. He served at St. Joseph Parish and St. Joseph High School in Hilo. Brother Crockett also was state president of the Hawaii High Schools Athletic Association, chairman of the Hawaii Island Tuberculosis Association, a director for the Catholic Youth Organization and a religion teacher.
The Maryknoll brother was born Stanley Crockett in Oakland, Calif., on July 17, 1925. He enlisted in the U.S. Merchant Marines in 1943, and engaged in combat on Okinawa. On Dec. 1, 1949, he entered Maryknoll, making his first oath on June 29, 1951, taking the religious name Duane.
Brother Crockett’s first assignment was to Maryknoll’s St. Francis Xavier Mission in Los Angeles, serving as youth minister for Japanese students. He took his perpetual oath on June 24, 1954.
After Hawaii, Brother Crockett did development work for Mary-knoll in Cleveland and San Francisco. He also volunteered for the Stockton police department.
In his later years, the Mary-knoll brother ministered as a chaplain at the Veterans Hospital in Palo Alto and for American Legion Post 558 in Los Altos. He moved to the Maryknoll residence in New York in 2014.
Among Brother Crockett’s cherished honors were the distinguished service award (Silver Beaver medal) of the Boy Scouts of America and the St. George Emblem from the National Catholic Committee on Scouting acknowledging more than 40 years of service to Catholic Scouting.
