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By JIM TUNSTALL and ELLEN GEDALIUS
The Tampa Tribune

TAMPA - John Iorio had a bit of mischief in him.

In 2005, while taping his daughter’s annual Christmas show, he good-naturedly lectured on the finer art of making crab pasta.

He did it while waving around a crustacean he named “Robert.”

Iorio, father of Tampa’s mayor, also was a devoted mentor who taught thousands of students in his 30 years as a University of South Florida professor.

He was a dedicated friend and family man, too.

Iorio died Wednesday after a battle with bladder cancer. He was 82.

He and his daughter, Pam, enjoyed a close relationship. He encouraged her to run for the Hillsborough County Commission when she was in her 20s. That victory launched a political career that also included Hillsborough supervisor of elections.

“My father was a wise and kind man who lived his life in a joyful way,” the mayor said in a statement. “He spread joy to so many through his teaching and friendships. I am grateful to have had such a father.”

Iorio was an Italian immigrant whose family moved to New Jersey when he was 2.

He considered himself to be a red-blooded American and enlisted as a paratrooper during World War II. He was at the Battle of the Bulge.

Getting into the military, however, wasn’t an easy task.

Given his Italian roots, the FBI worried about possible sympathies or ties to his birthplace — then a major Axis power — so they grilled him when he tried to enlist, said Gary Mormino, his longtime friend and director of Florida Studies at USF St. Petersburg.

“Wagging his finger at John, an FBI agent said, ‘I have one question — would you bomb your hometown?’“ Mormino remembered, chuckling.

“John looked at him and replied, ‘Why would I bomb Trenton, N.J.?’”

After the war, Iorio went to Columbia University, then did his doctoral work at the University of Minnesota and University of Pennsylvania.

Later, he received a Fulbright Internship to teach at Vassar College.

He arrived at USF in 1963.

He quickly endeared himself to his students, his former colleagues said.

Tony Salinero took one of Iorio’s literature courses as a USF student in the 1970s. “He took things I could not possibly understand, and he made it enjoyable,” said Salinero, now a Tallahassee resident. “I’ll always remember him.”

Frank Fabry, a colleague of Iorio’s in the English department, described his friend as generous, witty and charming, a man with a keen intelligence. He was known around campus as a good teacher who encouraged his students to succeed.

“He was a very warm, kind-hearted person,” Fabry said. “On the other hand, he didn’t suffer fools.”

After Iorio retired he became professor emeritus and continued to write regularly, always passionate about his work.

“His wit, his intelligence, his humanity — they were his three best qualities,” Fabry said.

Don Wyly, a retired university English professor, described his colleague as a Renaissance man, knowledgeable of English, Italian, German and French literature; philosophy; history; classical music; and cooking.

Pam Iorio was brought up in a very educated, intellectual atmosphere, Wyly said.

Wyly’s wife, Katherine, recalls Iorio’s wit and ability to put anyone at ease. She also recalls written work, vignettes about growing up as an Italian-American. Everything he wrote, she said, was full of warmth.

“I don’t think he ever had a student that did not respect him and just love him,” said former university President Betty Castor. “People used to say, ‘Have you had John Iorio? You really haven’t experienced the university unless you’ve had John Iorio.’”

In 1972, John Iorio coached Castor, a homemaker and former teacher, on how to present herself to the public on her first run for office.

He told her to stand straight when she spoke to the public, but Castor clearly was nervous and inexperienced.

When his wife asked what he thought, Iorio said:

“She’s going to lose.”

She didn’t.

She earned 60 percent of the vote and became Hillsborough County’s first female county commissioner. She went on to become Florida’s education commissioner; her daughter, also a former county commissioner, is a freshman U.S. representative from Tampa.

Years later, Iorio told a Tribune reporter:

“So much for my prognostications.”

Reporter Jim Tunstall can be reached at (352) 628-5558 or jtunstall@tampatrib.com.

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