We regret to announce that our friend and colleague Sam Newman died this past Friday. Sam had an incredible legal intellect and was a major influence on not only the members of our firm but on our entire bar association and Monroe County as a whole. He was one of a kind and we’ll miss him dearly.
Samuel Whitman Newman, 84, of Stroudsburg, died Friday, May 3, 2019, at St Luke’s Hospital in Bartonsville after developing complications following surgery. He was the husband of Maryjane (Obal) Newman, with whom he shared his life in Stroudsburg for the last 26 years.
Sam was a beloved husband, father, lawyer and businessman. He was born at Pocono Hospital on March 22, 1935, in Stroudsburg, the son of the late Morris Jacob Newman and Ida (Whitman) Newman. After graduating from Stroudsburg High School in 1953, he went on to attend the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and graduated with a BA in economics in 1957. He graduated cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he was on the Law Review. After law school, he clerked for a year with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in Philadelphia. He returned to Stroudsburg in 1961, where he started his Monroe County legal career with Russell Mervine and Lester Brown. What later became Mervine, Brown, and Newman is now Newman, Williams, Mishkin, Corveleyn, Wolfe & Fareri.
In 1973, Sam embarked on a 32-year association with Camelback Ski Corporation when he became general counsel. He held the position of Camelback’s president and CEO from 1986 through 2005. During his tenure, he was instrumental in expanding Camelback from a ski area to a year-round resort with a waterpark and other summer attractions. The ski area doubled in size and went through significant growth, expansion and change, making it one of the largest and most well-reputed resorts in the Poconos. As part of this expansion to Camelback, he introduced high-speed lifts (one named the Stevenson, for his dear friend Bill Stevenson), snow tubing as well as Camelbeach, the first waterpark in the region. In 2007, he was awarded the distinguished Service Award by the National Ski Patrol System and inducted into the Pennsylvania Ski and Winter Sports Museum Hall of Fame in 2008.
Mr. Newman sat on dozens of boards, including the Pocono Hospital Board as its president, the Temple Israel Board, the Monroe County Salvation Army, the SPCA, the Kiwanis club, Planned Parenthood, the Pocono Mountains Chamber of Commerce and Vacation Bureau, the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission, several Monroe County township boards, county governmental departments, and Stroudsburg Area School District. He received numerous awards for his philanthropic work and business acumen, including the A. Mitchell Palmer Award in 2014.
He was also the president and co-director of the Lester G. Abeloff Foundation.
An avid fisherman since he was a boy, he was a member of the Tunkanna Fishing Association since 1976. After his tenure as president, a section of the river was named “Newman Run” in his honor in 2003. He remained active until his death serving on the membership committee.
Sam is survived by his wife; loving daughter, Rebekah Grace Newman; his stepdaughter Megan Berg and husband Fred Berg; his granddaughter, Sonia; his brother, Phillip Hirsh Newman, M.D., and wife Phoebe D. Newman of McMinnville, Oregon; nieces: Marcy Newman Hart of Philadelphia and Rachael Newman of Petaluma, California; nephew, Adam Newman of Albuquerque, New Mexico; his grandchildren: Elena MacNemee of Sacramento, California; Jeffery Newman of New York, New York; Zach Newman of Sarasota, Florida; and Jennifer Fuhriman of Boise, Idaho; and nine great-grandchildren, and great-nephews and -nieces. He was predeceased by sons, Jonathan Edward Newman and David Aaron Newman; sister, Minda Newman Hart; nephew, William Newman Hart; and his parents, Morris Jacob Newman and Ida Whitman Newman.
William H. Clark Funeral Home
1003 Main St., Stroudsburg
wmhclarkfuneralhome.com
