Tom Irwin ’84 🐯, Comedian, will perform at The Caz in Buffalo on December 6th.
For more information and to purchase tickets, click here.
Tom Irwin, 1984 Amherst Central High School Grad, is a national touring comedian based in Los Angeles California. He is a founding member of GIs Of Comedy. Tom has been featured on Talk Of The Nation, This American LIfe, and performed his one person show “25 Days In Iraq” at The White House in Washington DC. Featuring Mike Wilson of Austin TX (Austin High / Standup Empire) and special musical guest Jeff Senn of Nashville TN (Wynona Judd / Trisha Yearwood / Paul Brandt). GET OFF THE COUCH! for Tom Irwin & Friends Comedy & Music Tour 2025!
John R. “Jack” Davis knew what it meant to give back to his community – literally and figuratively.
Trained as an engineer while completing his military service, he and a partner parlayed their industrial expertise and entrepreneurial spirit into founding a manufacturing company whose products are still used across the world.
Forty years later, he turned his attention to public service, unsuccessfully running for Congress four times in eight years to represent a district in Buffalo’s eastern suburbs that included Clarence and Newstead. And knowing how he got his own start in business, he gave back to his alma mater that launched his career, with a $5 million donation to University at Buffalo 13 years ago to fund construction of a new building.
He died Jan. 23 after a long illness. He was 89.
“He wanted to leave his legacy,” said his widow, Barbara. “He was kind and helpful to the community.”
Born in Pittsburgh to John R. and Norma Davis, he grew up in Amherst after his father’s employer, Westinghouse, moved his family to Buffalo after World War II. He graduated from Amherst Central High School in 1951.
In a biography posted on his political campaign’s old website, he recalled helping his father change piston rings on a 1935 Ford when he was 12 years old, and bolting a gas motor from a Maytag washing machine on the back of a wagon for his “first go cart” when he was 14.
He wrote that he “did fairly well in math and science,” enough to get into UB’s seven-year-old School of Engineering, where he started in mechanical engineering but switched to industrial, which “turned out to be a smart move” by preparing him for the future. He graduated in 1955, but had already spent four years as a Marine Corps reservist, having signed up while still in high school to meet the “Armed Service Requirement” for men.
He barely avoided the Korean War as his reserve battalion was activated, instead getting deferments to finish high school and then college, while getting officer training in the Marines from 1951 to 1954. “You may have heard stories about the tough training for enlisted Marines – it was tougher for officer training,” he wrote on his political bio. “They took a young boy and made him a man – tough, self-confident and a leader.”
He and a fellow engineer, Stan Matys, left Carborundum in 1964 to start their own company, called I Squared R Element Co., which makes silicon carbide and disilicide heating elements and hot surface igniters used in high-temperature electric furnaces and appliances. It’s the only U.S. manufacturer of its products.
(Barbara and Jack Davis Hall on UB’s North Campus in Amherst. | Derek Gee / Buffalo News)
The new firm, which they launched in Davis’ garage with just $20,000, competed against Carborundum and another multi-national company, but was profitable after just six months, while its two rivals were later acquired. Its first customer was Corning Glass Works, enabling it to move to a building in Tonawanda, then to Lancaster, and finally to its current site in Akron, where it employs 90 in 122,000 square feet.
“He loved his work, so it wasn’t work for him,” Barbara Davis said.
From 2004 to 2011, Mr. Davis ran for Congress for New York’s 26th Congressional District as a critic of free-trade policies – three times as a Democrat and once as an independent, including after the resignation of Chris Lee opened up the seat in 2011. He also successfully sued the Federal Election Commission, getting the “millionaires amendment” to the McCain-Feingold Act struck down as unconstitutional because it violated candidates’ First Amendment rights.
In 2010, Mr. Davis and his wife, Barbara, donated $5 million to UB’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, which named The Barbara and Jack Davis Hall in their honor. He also established an irrevocable trust to ensure that the company wouldn’t be sold and employees’ jobs were safe, and arranged for company profits to be used for scholarships to UB.
Mr. Davis is survived by his third wife of 30 years, Barbara; four sons, Jack, Bob, Al and Ace; two daughters, Jill Josephs and Star Davis; a brother, Don; a sister, Peggy Jacobs; 16 grandchildren and 22 great-grandchildren.
Private services will be held at the convenience of the family.
(By Clay Pasternack – Class of 1968) Amherst High School has long been a source for successful and talent people in the entertainment world (television, movie, radio, and recording). Buffalo’s first Rock N Roll band to achieve success was the Eggertsville-based group, the Tune Rockers. Group members Tim Nolan (bass), Gene Strong (guitar), and Fred Patton (guitar) were from the Eggertsville area, and along with Mickey Vanderlip (drums) and Johnny Cappello (saxophone). The group was formed in 1956 and continued to perform until 1960. Mickey, Tim and Gene attended Amherst High School, with Mickey Graduating in 1957, Tim graduating in 1959, and Gene’ family moved, where he transferred to Sweet Home High School in September 1958, and graduated from there in 1959.
In 1958, the group record an instrumental song named “The Green Mosquito” named for the unique sound created from Gene’s guitar sounded like a mosquito (Gene played a green colored electric) guitar, hence the name “The Green Mosquito”. Because of the current success of the novelty song “The Purple People Eater” by Sheb Wooley, the song title was a play on the name of the existing hit record. The group was managed by Dick Lawrence, who was the program director of WKBW Radio, who had (around that time) recently changed formats to the extremely successful “Top 40” Radio format (July 4, 1958). Lawrence arranged for United Artists to release the single once it was recorded. The song reached the WKBW Top 30 survey the week of August 2, 1958, entering at #28, peaked at #4, staying in the KB top 10 for 6 weeks for a 10-week run. Most important, it entered the Billboard Hot 100 on August 25, 1958, peaking at #44 the week of September 22 1958, also for a 10-week run. The songwriting credits for “The Green Mosquito” were credited to WKBW staff members Art Wander (a fixture on the Buffalo music scene for years) and Art Roberts (later a very popular air personality at WLS in Chicago and other markets)
On September 13, 1958, the group appeared on the Dick Clark Saturday Night “Beechnut Show” in New York City. That night the Tune Rockers were the opening and closing act on the show. They shared the show with two current acts heading for stardom: Fabian and (a star many years later) Johnny Nash. The following week they appeared live on the daytime format of “American Bandstand” in Philadelphia. As the record gained momentum across the country, radio station people were introducing the single, and paying tribute to their local origins, as “The Eggertsville Boys”
‘The timing of the success of “The Green Mosquito” was perfect, as the impact of WKBW Radio on both the local area and along the Eastern Seaboard of the US (as well as Canada) became very apparent to the music industry. The changeover to the Top 40 format allowed many people to hear music that may not have already been programmed by other local and regional stations, having far reaching effect on promoting hit songs across the country. As instrumental songs became more popular at this time and continued to do so for many years, The Western New York connect was very apparent. Such records as “Rockin’ Crickets” by the Hot Toddies, The (Rockin’) Rebels AKA The Buffalo Rebels, not to mention the vocal group records “Ballad of a Boy and a Girl” by the Graduates came from the area.
Unfortunately, all but one of the original members of the Tune Rockers is still alive. Mickey is currently living in Boca Raton, Florida, Tim Nolan passed away in late 2019 and just recently, Gene Strong passed away this September (2022). The Tune Rockers were inducted into the Buffalo Music Hall of Fame in 2012, joining Amherst High School alumni John Boylan (1959), Eric Andersen (1961), Andy Kulberg (1962), Jim Ralston (1968),Tom Hambridge (1979), and Chris Trapper (1986).
Our thanks to Rich Sargent of the Buffalo Music Hall of Fame (also an ACHS alumni) and Bob Skurzewski, noted music and record industry historian and author, for their assistance and contributions to this document.
Tiger Tracks 