Ronald Groncki

Ronald Groncki passed away on the evening of December 20, 2024. The family will host a viewing at the Geiple–Predicce funeral home in Glen Rock, PA from 6-9pm on Friday, December 27. A second viewing is on Saturday, December 28 at 10am at Geiple’s with a service at 11am. We will move to the internment at St. John the Baptist Catholic church in New Freedom, PA.

Ron grew up in Parkville Maryland as the son of Frank and Frances (Gladkowski) Groncki, who predeceased him and his brother Alan. As a kid, he loved the sports and the outdoors. He would often go rabbit hunting with his father, cousins and uncles fostering his lifelong passion for hunting and guns.

He was a star little league baseball player on the Parkville Lions during the summer of 1956. He hit two doubles during a no-hitter win during a regular season game and pitched two no-hitter games during the championships. The team won the championship with an undefeated season. He was mentioned by name in two different articles of the local newspaper for his play.

It was around this time that he would meet his future wife, Geraldine McKenna, at St. Ursula Catholic school in Parkville, Maryland. Apparently, there was an altercation between Ron and Jerri’s younger brother Dan. Ron was chasing Dan into the girl’s area of the playground when Jerri beat Ron upside the head with her lunchbox. It was the beginning of a lifelong love affair lasting until Jerri’s passing in 2020.

Ron graduated in the class of 1961 from Parkville High School. He was treasurer of the reunion committee until just shortly before his passing. The committee is a group of strong friends that meet several times during the year, every year. They would even hold a class reunion every five years as a way of justifying their organization name. But that seemed to be a fleeting excuse for longtime friends to meet, have few drinks and sometimes eat crabs.

Ron married Geraldine (Jerri) McKenna on August 8th, 1964, and honeymooned at a Poconos Resort. No lunch boxes were allowed at the wedding or honeymoon. Over time, the family welcomed four children: Scott and his wife Deirdra, Randall and his wife Alicia, Christa and her husband Don Bryant, Alicia and her husband Stephen Bradley.

Ron and Jerri celebrated 56 anniversaries before her passing. They cherished nine grandchildren: Nicholas, Jake, Peter, Piper, Ronan, Finnegan, Anjelica, Aiden, Declan and Trent. If your math is off, theirs wasn’t.

Ron graduated from the University of Baltimore with a bachelor’s degree in accounting in 1968. After a brief position as a junior accountant, he became a Special Agent for the U.S. Treasury Department in 1968. As he told the story, the Treasury Department had one day to hire him: He had to accept the job and start the next day or forfeit the opportunity – no two weeks’ notice to his current job. We understand that the accounting firm is still waiting for him to return from his “sick” day of that interview.

He excelled as a Treasury agent over a 27-year career until his retirement in 1995. Ron received numerous commendation letters and awards from the IRS, FBI, DEA, The United States Attorney’s Office, the States Attorney’s Office for Baltimore City and the Baltimore Police Department. He was a Master Firearms instructor for the Treasury Department’s Northeast and Southeast districts.

To be clear, his job was not auditing everyday people about receipts and allowances. He was a gun carrying member of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. Drug Lords, Mafia and other organized crime were his specialty. His department descended from Elliot Ness: Not calculators and piles of receipts, but early morning raids, safe houses with informants and trips to Miami, New York and Texas and wherever the bad guys were.

As a retirement job, Ron became an independent investigator until 2021. He focused on background investigations for the Federal Government. He thought it was so much nicer investigating people who wanted to be investigated over the drug lords who went out of their way not to talk to investigators. No early morning raids knocking down doors, but coffee and a nice conversation.

By this time, Jerri had been on the Southern York County School District board for several years. Anyone that knows Ron and Jerri knows that where Jerri went, Ron went too. So, in 2007 Ron became a member of the school board too, since he spent so much time there anyway. He served on the Lincoln Intermediate Authority and as a Chair of Athletics and Extracurriculars. Ron had a passion for the kids in his district to provide them with the best education possible. He and Jerri were so proud of the progress and improvement of the schools from a middling, good enough school for farmers’ kids to an example of excellence recognized statewide. They weren’t just following an example; they were setting the state example and standards for what a school district can be.

Ron left the board in 2021 in protest when a majority of the board voted, for cultural sensitivity, to change the school mascot from the “Warriors” to… something else. As a footnote, in January 2024, the School Board reinstated the “Warriors” name and logo to the school.

Ron was a longtime Republican and member of the local Republican Committee. He worked the polls during elections and held several lifetime memberships to the Republican National Committee. Fox News at a thousand decibels was a constant background noise in his home.

He was passionate about his firearms sports. A lifelong hunter, he would prepare all year for deer season on the McCracken Mountain. He participated in shooting competitions and pistol matches. A major part of his basement was dedicated to reloading and all the hunting gear. When Ron showed up on the mountain, he brought a lot of food and even more ammunition for all his friends.

If you would look around Ron’s living room chair, you would see reloading manuals, NRA and hunting magazines. He had several lifetime memberships to the NRA: He may have only one life to live, but he thought bigger than that when investing in the NRA.

Much, much more than anything else, Ron loved and lived for his family. He put all four of his children through college. He was always interested in what everyone was doing and asking about our lives. It was near unheard of that he would miss any event, celebration or gathering where he could be with this family. Everyone would get cards and a check for their birthday and Christmas. His children’s spouses became his children too. There was no distance he would not travel, no obstacle he would not overcome to support his family. If one of his children had any kind of problem in the middle of nowhere, he would be there shortly.

Jerri was his better half and a wife who he loved totally. After he retired, it was rare to see her and not him right beside her. When Jerri was declining, he was constantly at her side.

His grandchildren called him “Pappy”. …And then we all just started calling him Pappy too since it was so fitting. To them, Pappy was this wonderful, magical grandfather that loved them deeply and let them know it every time and anyway that he could. He was the warmest, most loving hug and wall against anything bad in the outside world.

And now, Ron is back with Jerri. I’m sure I heard the bang of a lunchbox hitting Ron upside the head as she welcomed him home.