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Gina J. Reilly, 51, a true champion Thursday, November 30, 2006 BY GEORGE BERKIN Star-Ledger Staff Gina Jane Reilly learned to skate while not yet a teenager, rising at 5 a.m. three days a week to practice, and as an adult took first place in two national ice dancing competitions. But when she contracted Young Onset Parkinson's Disease about four years ago, she retired from the ice and found another passion -- aiding others battling the disease by leading an association fostering mutual help. "She always skated with vigor, that would be the word, vigor and expression," said Jason Crawford of Yorktown Heights, N.Y., her skating partner. A longtime Morristown resident, Mrs. Reilly, 51, was changing a tire on Route 287 in Bridgewater on Thanksgiving Day when she was struck by a car, family members said. She died the following day at Robert Wood Johnson University Medical Center in New Brunswick. "She was a very passionate, outspoken individual," said her brother, Darrin Scherago of Livingston. "Her skating was a very important part of her life, but when she was stricken with Young Onset Parkinson's, that became the focus of her life." Born in Passaic, Mrs. Reilly, who went by Gina J., graduated from Millburn High School and Upsala College in East Orange. At the start of her career, Mrs. Reilly founded G.J. Designs in Morristown, a company that used computer technology to stitch custom designs into jackets for teenage customers, said her sister, Susanne LaBarbera of Boca Raton, Fla. Afterward, she was an advertising design specialist with Bristol-Myers Squibb in Princeton. But her outgoing nature, and lithe figure -- 5-foot-7, 115 pounds -- ensured that her heart remained with skating. "She liked to be on stage," LaBarbera said. "She was a natural performer." Returning to the ice in recent years, Mrs. Reilly, with Crawford, her skating partner, took first place in the U.S. Adult Figure Skating Championships in 1998 in Oakland, Calif., and 1999 in Ann Arbor, Mich., Crawford said. The routines, about 2 1/2 minutes long, included both a required set of steps and steps individually choreographed, from swing to tango. The performers were all over 25. At the time, Mrs. Reilly had a slight hand tremor, a foreshadowing of the diagnosis that would come a few years later, Crawford said. According to a Web site of the Young Onset Parkinson's Association, the average person with the disease is diagnosed in the early 60s, but about 10 percent are diagnosed before 40. Unlike some medical associations, YOPA is geared less toward fundraising for medical research and more toward raising money for those who can no longer work. "Gina was many things," wrote a friend in a posting on the Web site, "a tireless crusader for recognition, assistance, and a cure ... a hero to the many in our collective fight." In addition to serving as association president from 2002 to 2004, Mrs. Reilly founded Morristown-based Knockout Parkinson's. In addition to her brother and sister, Mrs. Reilly is survived by her daughter, Caitlin Reilly of Morristown; a second sister, Jacqueline Mokler-Wendel of Seekonk, Mass.; her mother, Ellen Kate Scherago of Florham Park and her step-mother, Marsha Scherago of Boca Raton, Fla. A service was held Monday. Burial was in Restland Memorial Park, East Hanover. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn