One of many things that could be said of Al Ruocchio would be that in his 69 years, he never spent much time in idle boredom. Ruocchio, volunteer voice of the WCPE Opera House for 26 years, died Thursday.

The job on nonprofit WCPE, the Wake Forest-based classical music station, brought Ruocchio over the airwaves to opera fans and, via the Internet, around the world. He had learned to love opera after his grandfather took him to the Metropolitan Opera House in New York when Ruocchio was a youngster. But that was only one of his many interests.

Ruocchio, of Raleigh, was an American Dream guy. He made the most of his opportunities, and gave his all even when he was just taking up a hobby. The family obituary that appeared in The News & Observer noted his pride in the fact that he had worked his way through college with earnings from a job at a camera shop.

He earned engineering degrees from Columbia University, joining IBM and becoming a part of the first group of "IBMers" who formed the nucleus of the company's operations in Research Triangle Park. Many of them have made great contributions to this area and to the state.

Ruocchio went on to become intensely involved in an astounding range of activities. Consider, for example, that he liked toy trains. Fine and dandy, lots of people do. But Ruocchio became president of the national Train Collectors Association. He was passionately interested in helping mentally handicapped children, and ran the local "Tootsie Roll" campaign for the Knights of Columbus many times. In that same spirit, he was a member of the board of directors of the Frankie Lemmon School and Developmental Center for over a quarter-century.

Ruocchio was, in short, much more than that familiar voice on the radio, pronouncing the titles of those Italian arias as they were meant to be pronounced. He achieved what everyone hopes for as a legacy, namely that he left this Earth better than he found it.

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