Marciano Aloe Captures the Howard Munson Scholarship

Marciano Aloe loves to tinker. He knows all the nuances of a modern automobile engine, spending countless hours under the hood of cars refining his craft. It would be surprising to no one if the Huntington High School Class of 2026 member could dissemble an entire vehicle and flawlessly put it back together again.

Mr. Aloe is this year’s recipient of the Howard H. Munson Memorial Scholarship Award, which honors one of the town’s legendary business figures. The $5,000 Munson scholarship will help defray some of Mr. Aloe’s expenses as he goes about pursuing studies at Suffolk Community College.

The scholarship is administered by the Huntington Fire Department. Ex-Chief Neil Getter presented this year’s award during the senior scholarships and awards night ceremony in the high school auditorium earlier this week.

Mr. Aloe’s work ethic around automobiles is second to none, similar in many ways to the one that Mr. Munson displayed during a business career that spanned a remarkable seven decades.

While Mr. Aloe and Mr. Munson never had an opportunity to meet personally, the teenager has surely passed his benefactor’s place of business at 197 New York Avenue many times over the years. The businessman’s success and spectacular generosity will benefit Mr. Aloe as he moves on to pursue his career goals.

Although Mr. Munson readily acknowledged that he never really enjoyed school, he knew it was important. So, he did what needed to be done, graduating Port Washington High School while focusing his eyes squarely on the future.

Born June 28, 1908, to Frank and Dora Hill Munson, Howard didn’t particularly care for traditional schooling, but he did like cars and he told his dad to forget about the new car he had been promised if he stuck it out and graduated from high school, because he would rather use the money to study engineering at Pratt Institute, which he did, obtaining a degree in 1928. After Pratt, he went on to graduate from General Motors Tech.

Mr. Munson opened an auto repair shop in Huntington on September 1, 1930, and continued running it until the very day he passed away on October 22, 1999, at 91 years of age. During the almost 70 years he was in the auto repair business he served the local fire department, the rich and famous, the poor who could not pay, the local townsfolk and those who came from afar after having learned of his expertise.

A telling episode in Mr. Munson’s life illustrated his character and the values he held dear. On a terribly cold and icy night, when there was a very bad fire in Huntington, he worked all night to keep a truck pumping and got it out of the way when the building started to collapse.

Mr. Munson was also an avid ice skater and continued to enjoy it as a hobby until he was 89. Over the years, his business continued to grow, largely due to the fact that Mr. Munson cared about his customers. He never once overcharged or cheated them in any way and while he got his hands dirty, he was noted for always wearing a necktie with his uniform and keeping the shop neat, clean and organized.

Just like Mr. Munson, Mr. Aloe’s work ethic is noteworthy. He will do very well in life if he achieves just a fraction of the success that Mr. Munson did. “Though he chose ‘blue collar’ work, Mr. Munson died a very wealthy man,” Mr. Getter said.

This marks the 26th year the Howard N. Munson Scholarship Award has been presented to a Huntington senior.