Glenn Zempel

May 3, 2022

Glenn Zempel of the South Hills and Sarasota, Florida, passed away on Tuesday, May 3, 2022. Born in Pittsburgh in 1944, Glenn was the son of Harold Zempel and Marie Cox Zempel Liebegott. A '62 graduate of Penn Hills High School and Slippery Rock University, he taught Physical Ed/Driver's Ed for the Fox Chapel School District. After teaching, he worked on oil rigs in Louisiana before pursuing a career with the Allegheny County Health Department as a health inspector. Sports were an art form to him. Glenn, a southpaw, was an outstanding athlete playing football, basketball, golf, and baseball as a first baseman. In high school, he was chosen to join the "Little Pirates," (possible future Pirates in training) by the Pittsburgh Pirates. Glenn took up hiking, fishing, skiing, flying, and then sailing, not an easy sport to follow in landlocked Pittsburgh. He loved his time racing his J-22 at the Pymatuning Yacht Club. After he retired, he and his wife, Valerie Westcott, spent several summers on Lake Champlain, the Chesapeake Bay, and the waters of North Carolina, living aboard their 31' Island Packet sailboat. Glenn is survived and will be missed by his wife, Valerie Westcott; his sister, Jerilea Zempel of New York City; stepdaughter, Rae Michelle Dono (Dono Tatsuya) of Osaka, Japan, stepdaughter, Katherine Westcott (Jason Suchy); two grandchildren, Layla Powell and Joshua Suchy as well as many cousins and close friends. A memorial service will be scheduled for the end of June. In his name, memorial donations may be made to the Pittsburgh YMCA Summer Camp Program because he believed every child should have the chance to learn the many life lessons of playing a team sport, especially outdoors.