WWII vet relives past on Epcot tour

It was the kind of Disney World tour few ever get to see.

The less pretty stuff. The bolts, the wires, the control panels: the underbelly of Epcot.

Stephen Nemeth, 94, gazed up as a flashlight shone on the pipes in the American Adventure Pavilion — pipes he’d helped install.

The Kissimmee man was on a private Disney World tour with his two children recently to go behind the scenes and see what he helped construct for the park’s 1982 grand opening. The tour was Disney’s goodwill gesture to Nemeth, a World War II U.S. Navy veteran, for his contributions to both Disney World and America.

In 1982, Epcot was one of the biggest construction projects in the world. Nemeth, then 57, a plumber living in Fort Lauderdale, was one of the thousands of workers called in to help build what essentially amounted to a city.

“The best job I ever had,” Nemeth said.

He climbed high up on Spaceship Earth, unperturbed by heights, for he knew real fears, like when during the war he protected merchant ships from German submarines on the rough ocean.

His biggest problem working on Epcot’s iconic globe was that there was no high-up bathroom for construction workers. He hurried down the 15 floors, Nemeth said as he laughed about the memory.

About three hours later, there was one final surprise. In the marina, about 20 workers gathered to unveil a small maintenance boat christened in his honor, a tribute dating back to the U.S. Navy.

The Epcot crew working in the lagoon will be riding on “Seaman First Class Stephen A. Nemeth, United States Navy.”