If you grew up in Medford, Massachusetts, you probably knew him as Mr. Stags. The rest of us called him Paul, or simply Dad. He passed on May 5, 2026, surrounded by the family he spent his life building in the house he loved. Paul never met a problem he wouldn't try to fix, and he fixed most of them with duct tape. The rest, he made interesting.

For just about fifty years, he taught middle school science in Medford, which is to say he taught thousands of twelve-year-olds how the world really works, and then patiently reminded them again the next day. To them, he was Mr. Stags, and that's how they still remember him decades later, because you tend to remember someone who genuinely had an impact on your life.

He worked harder than any man we knew. For years he held three jobs at once to support his small family, and he never once mentioned the cost of it. He believed in showing up, and so he showed up: for friends, neighbors, or anyone who needed a hand, or for family members who didn't even ask. He kept no record of any of it. Instead, he helped because that was the man he'd decided to be. He taught his children that resourcefulness and dignity are the same thing, just wearing different clothes.

He could build or fix anything but the truth is the fix wasn't always pretty. There are still a few things in this world held together by his particular brand of handyman optimism that will probably outlast all of us. But that was the rule. If he didn't know how to do something, he learned. He had an unquenchable thirst for knowledge that fifty years in a classroom never came close to satisfying.

He loved Matignon where he went to high school, and Holy Cross, where he graduated in 1968. He loved the Red Sox even when they made it hard, and the Patriots when they made it even harder. He loved new tools and his pets and pistachio ice cream and the beauty of a well cut lawn. And he loved a truly bad dad joke, the kind that you couldn’t help but laugh at, because he just loved seeing people smile.

In a life that gave him plenty of reasons to complain, he never did. Not once that any of us can remember. He saw himself as a man who'd been handed a beautiful family and a life where he could serve others and that was enough.

Paul is survived by the love of his life, his wife of 56 years Nancy; his three children, Kristin Rapallo (Tony), Matt, and Amanda; and by brother Bobby of Medford, MA and sister Jean Gillam of Port St. Lucie, Florida (nephew Adam and niece Allison). He was preceded in death by his parents Carl and Miriam, a nephew and niece.

Relatives and friends are invited to visit with the family at the Dello Russo Funeral Home, 306 Main St., Medford, MA, on Tuesday, May 12th, from 4-8PM and again on Wednesday, May 13th, at 10AM, followed by a graveside service in Oak Grove Cemetery, Medford, beginning at 11AM.

If you were one of his students, one of his neighbors, or one of the many people he quietly helped over the years, just know he built a life around other people, and the best way to honor him is to keep doing the same.