It was with deep sorrow that we received the news of the death of the prominent intellectual, organizational and public activist and devoted national figure, the late Dr. Misak Haygents, which occurred in the United States on Saturday, October 17.
The funeral service took place on Thursday, October 22, at the St. Leon Armenian Church in Fair Lawn, New Jersey.
After the service, Norair Meguerditchian, Co-Chair of the Central Board of the Armenian Democratic Liberal Party, delivered the following eulogy.-
We bid our final farewell to a unique personality, who was a prominent and devoted national leader, also the worthy bearer of the rich and proud legacy of an educational worker, a skilled journalist and a meritorious community activist.
Misak, the second son of Hayg and Hranush Kupelian, was born in Alexandria, Egypt, on August 19, 1937. From an early age he showed a clear inclination, interest and love toward the national heritage and culture. After graduating from the Boghossian National School and the local French lycee, he served for eight years as a teacher of the Armenian language, while at the same time carrying out exceptionally active work within the Dikran Yergat Cultural Union. Meanwhile, with deep conviction and enthusiasm he had joined the ranks of the Armenian Democratic Liberal Party. He had also adopted the surname Haygents.
In 1963 he was invited to Fresno, California, to take over the editorship of the ADL official triweekly “Nor Or.” A year later he made his notable contribution to the paper’s move from Fresno to Los Angeles. During his five-year tenure as editor, Misak Haygents distinguished himself as a courageous and influential journalist.
In 1968 he had been invited by Mr. Alex Manoogian to Detroit, assuming the responsible post of personal assistant to the great national benefactor. Alongside his responsible posts in California and Michigan, by exerting exceptional effort, he had succeeded in obtaining bachelor’s and master’s university qualifications in business administration.
In 1970 he had been elected to hold the highly important post of Executive Director of the Armenian General Benevolent Union and had moved to New York. His more than twenty years of exceptionally successful and conspicuously effective tenure was constantly imbued with a deep consciousness of the supreme national interests.
After being called to retirement in the early 1990s, with his characteristic determination, he earned a doctoral degree from the law department of Seton Hall University and at the same time successfully passed the state bar examinations, becoming a qualified attorney.
Throughout his entire life Misak Haygents was characterized by intellectual curiosity, strict discipline, enterprising determination and a growing zeal to make a contribution within his milieu.
And in addition to all this, by unwavering devotion and loyalty to the ideology of the Armenian Democratic Liberal Party and to its devoted national conceptions.
On this sad occasion of the irretrievable departure of Misak Haygents, in the name of the Central Board of the Armenian Democratic Liberal Party, its worldwide membership and its broad circles of sympathizers, I express deepest condolences to his son, Dr. Misak Haygents Jr., and to all the bereaved members of the Kupelian family.
“May the memory of the righteous be blessed.”
