Senior fire protection engineering major Johnny Brungot was known as everyone’s friend.
Whether listening to the life stories of seniors at his grandfather’s retirement center, playing with children at his mother’s home daycare or simply hanging out with his fraternity brothers, Johnny Brungot was always making friends.
“I never met anybody in my entire life like Johnny,” said junior business major Blake Levy. “People gravitated to him because of how great he was.”
John Sivert “Johnny” Brungot died the morning of June 29 from multiple injuries sustained after a 25-foot-fall off the roof of his family’s home in Davidsonville. He had celebrated his 21st birthday the day before.
The Annapolis-born senior was an Eagle Scout, a camp counselor and a member of this university’s Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity. And no matter what the setting, Brungot’s upbeat attitude always attracted new friends.
“He was just always really friendly and happy all the time,” said high school classmate Hannah Anderson, a junior journalism major at this university.
Brungot attended South River High School, where he ran cross country and track. He was pursuing a degree in fire protection engineering at this university and interning for the fire marshal at the Pentagon.
“He loved the family; he loved his friends; he loved his neighbors; he loved the college; he loved the track team; he loved everything he did,” said George Brungot, his father. “He liked people. He was a people kid.”
And Brungot was known throughout the fraternity house for always having friends over to watch movies, said Levy, Alpha Sigma Phi’s president.
“I think he had like a terabyte on an external hard drive of movies,” longtime friend and fraternity member Nathan Suberi said.
Among his many interests, Brungot had a passion for running. Suberi, a member of Brungot’s cross country and track teams, said he had an uncanny ability to take the physical and mental anguish that came with the sport.
“He could just take so much pain,” the senior economics and mathematics major said. “He just had the ability to put that part of his psyche on the bacburner and just push through whatever adversity he had in the way.”
But he brought more than just his agility to the team — he always came to practice with a sense of humor, often wearing an orange Hawaiian shirt and bathing suits to training sessions.
Brungot and Suberi ran a marathon together in Richmond, Va., their sophomore year, highlighting a longtime friendship that had largely been built on their shared love of running.
“Whenever I go for a run now, I can’t stop thinking of him,” Suberi said. “When you’re running, especially long-distance stuff, you have a lot of time to talk. We knew everything about each other.” More than 500 lines filled Brungot’s registry book at George P. Kalas Funeral Home — a testament to his active social life, George Brungot noted.
“He’s always brimming with life,” Suberi said. “He lived every second of every day with a vivacity that you couldn’t contain.”
He is survived by his parents George and Christine Brungot; his brother Mark Brungot, 32, of Davidsonville; and his sister, Karen Brungot, 26, of Annapolis.
Alpha Sigma Phi is planning an event to memorialize Brungot this fall.
news at umdbk dot com
