Toni Tepe, 75, died April 8 after a battle with cancer.

Tepe was the Town of Huntington’s first and only woman Town Supervisor. She was also a former state assemblywoman and the current Huntington Republican Committee chairman. She passed away nineteen days after her husband Phil Tepe, commissioner of the Dix Hills Fire Department and an accomplished public servant in his own right. He died unexpectedly March 20.

Tepe was born Antonia Patricia Bifulco in Manhattan Oct. 20, 1944, to Pasquale Bifulco and Mary (Finello) Bifulco, she was raised in Huntington and graduated from Huntington High School. She went on to attend Katherine Gibbs School in Melville and work as an administrative assistant in the Suffolk County courts.

 After marrying John B. Rettaliata, Jr., she  ran for elected office under her married name, Toni Rettaliata, and became the second Republican woman, and third female, to ever hold the office of New York State Assemblymember from the Town of Huntington. Tepe followed in the footsteps of Huntington Republican suffragette Ida Bunce Sammis, the first woman to ever serve in the New York State Assembly, and succeeding Mary Rose McGee, a Democrat, in the 8th Assembly District (1979-1982), then, after redistricting, serving in the 10th Assembly District (1983–1987). 

As assemblywoman, Tepe notably secured the first $31,000 in funding that allowed former Town Clerk Jo-Ann Raia to build the award-winning and history making Huntington Town Clerk’s Archives and Records Center.

In 1987, Tepe was elected Town of Huntington Supervisor and served the then two-year term as the first and only woman to ever hold the office (1988-1989). She was responsible for the formation of the Town of Huntington Veterans Advisory Board.

She remarried in 2000 to Phil Tepe. Toni Tepe was elected chairman of the Huntington Republican Committee in 2006 and served as its leader until her death. As chairman, she was responsible for the 2017 local election in which the Republican party won control of the Huntington Town Board for the first time in 24 years.

Born in Rockville Centre Jan. 15, 1949, and raised in Dix Hills, Philip H. Tepe was a Vietnam veteran, commander of the Nathan Hale VFW Post 1469, and served on the Town of Huntington Veterans Advisory Board, which his future wife established during her time as Town Supervisor. Phil Tepe served as a Suffolk County Deputy fire coordinator, a Town of Huntington fire marshal and was a great leader in his own right, most recently serving as commissioner of the Dix Hills Fire District, of which he was an ex-chief, Badge #207 and 52-year member of Engine Company 2.

The Tepes are survived by Toni’s sister Hope Van Bladel; Phil’s sisters Diane Marks and Elizabeth Finkelstein; Phil’s children Tiffany (Luke) Legrow, Philip Anthony Tepe II, Brett Tepe; and their grandchildren Shane Legrow and Blakely Legrow.

Funeral arrangements were entrusted to M.A. Connell Funeral Home. A public memorial service will be held at a later date to be determined.

—Submitted by the Huntington Republican Committee