Uncrowned Community Builders

James Covial was a native of Belhaven, North Carolina. When he was 3 years old, he and his mother relocated to Raleigh. He attended that city's public schools. He earned a football scholarship to North Carolina A&T State University, where he was a member of the varsity team and graduated in 1956. He moved to Buffalo in 1958. He met his future wife, Rosalie Peoples, in Buffalo.

Mr. Covial received a master's degree in guidance counseling from the University at Buffalo. He also completed a labor relations course at Cornell University and an emerging technologies course at the University of Wisconsin. He also studied administration theory and supervision at Canisius College.

Covial was a guidance counselor at Buffalo Alternative High School before serving as coordinator of Erie County Medical Center's emergency alcoholism program from 1978 to 1982 and deputy county youth services commissioner in charge of detention from 1982 to 1988. At his death, he was director of the Community Action Organization's Drug Abuse Research Treatment Clinic.

He held several other positions: executive director of the Erie County Youth Board, coordinator of a county research project, executive director of the county Narcotics Guidance Council and coordinator of the Marine Midland Bank Career Center. Covial was past president of the Community Action Organization board and head of its Publicity Committee; former president of Housing Opportunities Made Equal; past chairman of the United Way's Allocation Committee; and a past board member of the Hopevale Home and Gateway Home. He was a life member of the NAACP. He was a trustee and active member of Faith Baptist Church, which he joined in 1963.

The Covials have three sons, James Jr. of Los Angeles, Mark of Buffalo and Wayne of Raleigh, N.C., and three grandsons.

Mr. Covial is buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo, New York.