Agnes (Aggie) Loboda, a Tech Corporal in the United States Marine Corps, was born in Newark, NJ on November 12, 1916. Baptized Lutheran, she converted to Orthodoxy when she married Sam Loboda at St. Nicholas, located at 1765 Church St. NW, Washington DC at that time, in the 1950’s. Aggie was a faithful Orthodox believer. After Sam died in 1977, she became an active board member of the Fort Myer Credit Union, although the church remained a central part of her life. She devoted much of her energy to further the interests of the church.
Aggie was St. Nicholas Cathedral Bazaar chairman from the 1980’s through 1999. She had a wonderful talent to recruit volunteers to work the annual event, improve sales through attractive displays, and she understood the power of advertising. In that era of low tech media, she put ads in the newspapers, flyers at local businesses, and accessed radio time through her friend Renee Cheney, former drive time announcer on the classical radio station WGMS. Renee’s husband, Col. Arnold Gabriel, was director of the U.S. Air Force Band at the same time Col. Sam Loboda directed the Army Band. Aggie was known as a gracious hostess. She would treat the Bazaar workers to a “thank you” banquet at a military club.
Aggie was an active member of the Nation's Capital R Club, the Bazaar Committee, and the Dormition Guild (Sisterhood). She was always a generous benefactor of St Nicholas; she donated the granite kiot message board at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Edmunds Street and full-sized icons of Prophet Samuel and St. Agnes gracing columns in the church as part of the fresco iconography project. Aggie chaired the coffee hours at church with the assistance of Anya Gan and Danny Osolinsky for many years until her death. She died on January 2, 2000 during a Christmas-New Year's trip to the home of a niece in New Jersey.
Colonel Samuel R. Loboda was born in Homer City, PA, on May 21, 1916. He started playing the violin at age seven. He was in the high school orchestra in Homer City, where he learned to play the viola, double bass, clarinet, and saxophone. He studied at Indiana State College (now the Indiana University of Pennsylvania), where he played the violin in the symphonic orchestra, viola in the string quartet, clarinet in the wind orchestra, and sang in the chorus. He received his Bachelor of Science in 1936 and taught music in the Borough School District in Spangler, PA. Sam obtained his diploma in 1943 from the Music School of the U.S. Army in Fort Myer, VA and conducted the Army Music School Chorus.
After the music school closed in 1944, Sam became conductor of the U.S. Air Force Band, stationed on the Morrison Army Base at Hawking Airfield near West Palm Beach, FL. He also conducted the 398th Army Air Force Band in the Philippines (August 1945) and the 287th Army Air Force Band in Japan (September 1945 - January 1946.) Back in the states from 1964 to 1976, he served as Director of the United States Army Band in the rank of Colonel and was made second conductor of the Army Band’s “Pershing's Own” at Fort Myer in Arlington, VA.
Sam was also a composer. His work includes the Kiwanis International March, American Legion March, and the 1957 Screaming Eagles March for the Army's 101st Airborne Division. Sam was awarded the Indiana University of Pennsylvania alumni citation and an honorary doctorate in 1975. His memoirs were donated to the Samuel Richard Loboda Collection; manuscript group 168, at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania Special Collections and University Archives.
Sam died at home in Oakton, VA on November 13, 1977 with Aggie by his side. Their street, Samaga Drive, had been named by combining their first names, Sam and Aggie. Colonel Sam was honored posthumously during Aggie's appearances at the U.S. Army Band's outdoor performances of "1812 Overture", during which the Army Chorus sang О Господь спаси свой народ (O Lord Save Thy People), accompanied by real howitzers. Aggie was buried next to Sam 23 years later in Arlington National Cemetery, to the right of the cemetery entrance.
Memory eternal!
