Roden S. Lightbody, 'Mr. Dover Township,' Mourned In Toms River

TOMS RIVER, NJ — Roden S. Lightbody, a fixture in public service to Toms River and to Ocean County for more than 50 years, has died. He was 73 years old.

Lightbody died Thursday morning of complications tions after suffering a heart attack a week ago, Toms River Mayor Thomas H. Kelaher said Thursday afternoon.

"He was truly concerned about serving the public," said Kelaher, who knew Lightbody for 30 years. "He was very involved in the community."

Lightbody, a Republican, served as a committeeman and as mayor when Toms River was still named Dover Township, and for at least 10 years on the Toms River Zoning Board of Adjustment. He also had worked for Ocean County for more than 50 years, starting as a draftsman in the Ocean County engineering office in the early 1960s. He also was heavily involved with Toms River Elks Lodge No. 1875, the Toms River Fire Company 1 and other community efforts around town, local officials who knew him said Thursday.

"Everybody knew him," said Freeholder Joseph H. Vicari, who served on the Dover Township Committee with Lightbody in the early 1980s. "He would go all over (town)."

"He was Mr. Dover Township," said Paul C. Brush, who served on the Dover Township Committee in 1988 and 1989, until Brush resigned when he was elected to the Ocean County Board of Freeholders. "He made this town his life."

Lightbody's family was just as important, by all accounts. He married his wife, Norvella Wasson-Lightbody, in July 1964, two years after he graduated from Toms River High School. He doted her and on his daughters, Elizabeth Lightbody Cimer and her husband, Robert, and Teri Lightbody Kubiel, whose husband, Brian, is a current Toms River councilman, as well as his grandchildren, extended family and friends, officials said.

He also took great delight in another role: playing Santa Claus every year.

Vicari said it started with Lightbody dressing up as Santa for Vicari's family one year, and blossomed from there, into an annual appearance with Toms River Fire Company 1 and with the Elks, Brush said.

"On Saturday mornings he would be at garage sales, picking up toys," Brush said. Come Christmastime, those toys would be distributed to needy children in the community by "Santa Roden."

"He loved being with people," Brush said.

Carl Weingroff, adviser of parade operations for the Toms River Halloween Parade who was involved with the coordination of Lightbody's Santa appearances for the fire company, said Lightbody possessed a special quality as "Santa Roden."

"Kids went from screaming when they saw Santa to seeing his gleaming blue eyes and smiling in the matter of a minute," said Weingroff, who played "Reindeer" to Lightbody's Santa until the mid-2000s. "It was absolutely amazing. Roden definitely had the Santa miracle touch."

Lightbody also was passionate about issues that affected Dover Township, officials said. J. Mark Mutter, the Toms River Township historian, said Lightbody was the one who fought for automating the township's Department of Public Works. "We take the robocans for granted today," Mutter said, "but he was a real proponent of them."

Lightbody also fought hard for the township when it came to the issues with Ciba-Geigy and the polluted water wells in the township in the late 1970s and 1980s, both Mutter and Vicari said.

"He was one elected official who was not afraid to take Ciba-Geigy to task for the issues (the township was) facing," Mutter said. "He wasn't afraid to hold their feet to the fire."

Vicari said it was Lightbody who pushed for residents to stop using wells and use public water, because of his concerns about the safety of the water due to the issues with Ciba Geigy and the Reich Farm tract, which later became an EPA Superfund site.

"Ciba gave the perception everything was good, but (Lightbody) knew something wasn't right," Vicari said. "He kept pushing. He said, 'I want to see the sicence behind it.' That's when we found out they weren't telling truth," Vicari said.

Vicari was named mayor when Lightbody began serving his first term on the Dover Township Committee in 1982, and the freeholder said the two remained friends throughout the years. Lightbody served on the committee for four, three-year terms, ending in December 1993 when he and a running mate, JoAnn Petrizzo, were replaced on the Republican ticket by Clarence "Bud" Aldrich and Raymond Fox. He twice served as mayor of Dover Township under that system, where the committee chose the mayor, leading the governing body in 1985 and 1988.

After his Township Committee service ended, Lightbody threw himself more deeply into his work as Ocean County traffic engineer. Vicari said Lightbody responded to every serious accident in the county, and was one of the first providing comfort to the victims and their families.

"He was always there to comfort people," Vicari said.

But Lightbody did more than try to comfort people in the wake of an accident. Vicari said Lightbody developed a bus safety program that was presented to students in the Toms River Regional School District yearly, to teach children how to be safe not only on their school buses but around them as well. That program exists to this day, Vicari said.

Additionally, he was heavily involved in the formation of the Ocean County chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving in 1982, when the issue of drunk driving fatalities was coming into sharp focus across the country.

Lightbody, who also was a frequent guest on Bob Levy's Topic A, the Sunday morning radio show on 92.7 WOBM FM, also helped push for stricter rules for teenage beginning drivers in New Jersey. In a 1997 interview with the New York Times on the issue, he said, "It's time we kept our kids alive."

"His job was aimed at taking care of the community," said Kelaher, who had known Lightbody for 30 years, though most of his interaction with Lightbody was during lawsuits against the county while Lightbody was traffic safety engineer and Kelaher was working as an attorney for the insurance company that served Ocean County. "He took his responsibilities seriously," Kelaher said.

"He memorized all the roads in Ocean County," Vicari said. And his knowledge made him a formidable foe: Brush said Lightbody pulled out every bit of his knowledge when the township, with Brush then serving as mayor, moved to change the township's name from Dover Township to Toms River in the 1990s.

"We had a public hearing and he grilled me for half an hour," Brush said. "He pulled out all the stops. 'Do you know how many utility poles there are in the township?' he asked me. 'Thousands. Every one has the Dover Township name on it,' he said," Brush said. It was part of Lightbody's insistence that changing the town name would costs the township thousands upon thousands, he said. "Roden was passionate about the town."

"He made (the town) his life," Brush, a Democrat, said. "You couldn't not like Roden. I am really sorry to hear this."

"He will be sorely missed," Vicari said. "He served the people of Ocean County for decades and he served them well. He made a difference in the lives of so very many people."

"He will be missed by the county, by Toms River, and personally by myself and my family," Vicari said.

Information on funeral services was not immediately available.

Roden Lightbody's official mayoral portrait, which hangs in the township's council chamber, photo of the portrait by Karen Wall