Sports
Doug Ault - (54) Former baseball player who, in 1977, became the first person to hit a home run in Toronto Blue Jays" history and set a club rookie record for RBI's that lasted for a quarter century before finally being broken in 2002, who spent three seasons with the Blue Jays before retiring in 1980, and who served as a manager for the Blue Jay's Class A teams Dunedin, Kinston, and St. Catherine and the Triple A Syracuse SkyChiefs, was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on December 22 at his home in Tarpon Springs, FL, a few miles from the Blue Jays" spring training quarters in Dunedin.
Ken Burkhart - (89) Former major league pitcher and umpire who made one of the most disputed calls in World Series history; during Game One of the 1970 World Series, Baltimore catcher Elrod Hendricks grabbed Ty Cline's chopper in front of the plate as Burkhart moved out to rule it a fair ball; but the umpire was then caught in the middle as Bernie Carbo slid home and Hendricks tried to tag him; Burkhart got spun to the ground and, with his back to the play, signaled that Carbo was out; replays showed that Hendricks made the tag with an empty glove-the ball was in his bare hand-while Carbo missed the plate; the play left the score tied at 3 in the sixth inning, and the Orioles later won 4-3; Baltimore won the Series in five games; died of emphysema in Knoxville TN, Dec. 29, 2004.
Joseph Durso - (80) Sports reporter for the New York Times for 51 years who also wrote biographies of Casey Stengel, Joe DiMaggio and histories of Yankee Stadium and Madison Square Garden and co-authored "My Luke and I" with Eleanor Gehrig, who covered both the Yankees and the Mets, and The Kentucky Derby, died of cancer in Stony Brook, New York on December 31.
Bob Ferguson - (64) Former All-American fullback at Ohio State (1959-61) who played for coach Woody Hayes and was Heisman Trophy runner-up in 1961; scored 26 touchdowns, including four against Michigan in 1961, when the Buckeyes defeated the Wolverines 50-20 to cap an 8-0-1 season; during his three years at Ohio State, the 220-pounder accumulated 2,304 all-purpose yards, including 2,162 rushing for an average of 5 yards a carry; in a disappointing NFL career, was a Pittsburgh Steelers reserve for two years and played another season with the Minnesota Vikings; later worked as a youth counselor, retiring in 1990 because of health problems; died of diabetic complications in Columbus OH, Dec. 30, 2004.
Rod Kanehl - (70) Former baseball player who hit the first grand slam in the history of the NY Mets; spent eight years in the Yankees' minor league system before joining the Mets in their inaugural season of 1962; a long shot to make the team, he won the heart of manager Casey Stengel by crashing through fences to catch balls; spent three seasons with the Mets, playing every position but pitcher and catcher; died of a heart attack in NYC, Dec. 14, 2004.
Eddie Layton - (79) New York Yankees organist for over 35 years, he was rewarded outstanding plays with "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and sounded a trill when a pitch was high and inside; scored NY-based soap operas, played organ for the NY Knicks and Rangers, performed on the famed "Mighty Wurlitzer" at Radio City Music Hall; his 26 albums and CDs have sold more than three million copies. He was inducted into the NY Sports Hall of Fame in '92; retired at the end of the 2003 baseball season and died following a brief illness at his home in Forest Hills NY Dec. 26, 2004.
Bob Karstens - (89) First white contracted player for the Harlem Globetrotters, who created many of their more-famous routines, including the "Magic Circle" which is done pre-game, "Goofball" (which includes a ball that is weighted unevenly) and the "Yo-Yo" (a trick behind-the-back shot), who played from 1942-1943 but stayed with the team in management until 1954, died in Redlands, California on December 31.
Johnny Oates - (58) Baseball executive who managed the Texas Rangers in their first three postseason appearances in 1996, 1998 and 1999 and spent six seasons with the Rangers, who managed the Baltimore Orioles from 1991 to 1994 and shared manager of the year awards in 1996 with Joe Torre, and who ended up with a regular season record of 797-746, died of a brain tumor on December 24 in Richmond, Virginia.
Reggie White - (43) Two-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year (1987, '98); played a total of 15 years with Philadelphia, Green Bay, and Carolina; retired after the 2000 season as the NFL's all-time leader in sacks with 198; elected to the Pro Bowl a record 13 straight times (1986-98); was also an ordained minister; his image was tarnished when he gave a speech in which he denounced homosexuality and used ethnic stereotypes; later apologized; died of a respiratory ailment in Huntersville NC, Dec. 26, 2004.

Art and Literature
Richard Beckman - (47) Leading Florida sculptor who used the circle as the foundation for many of his bold, unique designs and was an associate art professor at the University of South Florida, whose works appeared in more than 100 group exhibits across the country and were reviewed in Art in America, Sculpture magazine, Visions, and the LA Times, and who won a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship in 1995, was found dead on December 25 in Flatwoods Park in Tampa, Fla., the victim of an apparent suicide.
Gretchen Bender - (53) Artist who worked with photography and film and whose work is displayed in several major museums including NY's Museum of Modern Art, Houston's Menil Collection, and the Pompidou Center in Paris, who liked to explore gender role and sexuality issues in her work, and who extended her pursuits to include directing music videos for acts like Babes in Toyland and Martha Wash, and editing videos for R.E.M., New Order, and Megadeth, died on December 19 of cancer in NYC.
Charles Biederman - (98) American Modernist painter, sculptor and theorist who made his mark in New York in the 1930's and was known for his geometric paintings and aluminum reliefs depicting his fiercely held beliefs that art springs from nature, whose works are in collections of art museums around the world and who wrote extensively about art and art history, died in his sleep on December 26 in Red Wing, MN.
Shirley A(nn) Briggs - (86) Illustrator and writer who did graphics and writing for the Fish & Wildlife Department and drew dioramas depicting natural habitats for the Smithsonian IsNnstitution's National Museum of Natural History, who was one of the founders and the Executive Director / Secretary of the Rachel Carson Council (a group that promotes education for the public about toxic chemicals), died of heart failure on November 11 in Derwood, Maryland.
Peter Davison - (76) Poetry editor for Atlantic Monthly and for two publishing houses; a central figure in Boston's literary and publishing circles for almost 50 years; wrote 11 volumes of poetry and three prose works, including The Fading Smile: Poets in Boston from Robert Frost to Robert Lowell to Sylvia Plath; the work included his personal remembrances of his mentor Frost, of his friend Lowell, and of Plath, with whom he had a brief romantic relationship; died of pancreatic cancer in Boston, Dec. 29, 2004.
Ken Ferguson - (76) Ceramics artist and teacher who, for 32 years, was the chair of the ceramics department at the Kansas City Art Institute, who was a director of the Archie Bray ceramic arts foundation in Helena, Montana from 1958 to 1964, died in Shawnee, Kansas on December 30, 2004.
Mark Fiennes - (70) Photographer and father of the Fiennes film family-including sons and actors Ralph and Joseph, and daughters Martha, a film director and Sophie, a producer, who gave up a career in farming to turn to photographer at age 40, and who specialized in photography of architecture, art, landscapes and gardens, died on December 30, 2004.
Leslie Gourse - (65) Author who was best known for her biographies of jazz greats including "Unforgettable: The Life & Mystique of Nat King Cole" (1991), 's assy: The Life of Sarah Vaughan" (1993), and's kain’s Domain: A Biography" (1999) and 17 other books, who was the author of several childrens’ books that featured jazz artists, died of respiratory distress in New York City on December 23, 2004.
Susan Sontag - (71) Author and social critic; known for interests ranging from French existentialism to ballet, photography, and politics; author of 17 books, including "In America," which won a US National Book award; leading voice of opposition to US policy after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks; argued that talk of an "attack on civilization" was "drivel"; an op-ed piece in the Boston Globe responded by calling her a person with a "high IQ, but a few quarts low on compassion and common sense"; played herself in Woody Allen's 1983 comedy "Zelig," and directed four films of her own; died of cancer in New York, Dec. 28, 2004.
Anne Truitt - (83) Sculptor and writer; widely admired for her painted, columnar structures and for her published journals about her life as an artist; was among the first artists to exhibit three-dimensional works in the early '60s that would come to be identified by the term Minimalism; her diaries were published as Daybook: The Journal of an Artist (1982), followed by Turn (1986) and Prospect (1996); died in Washington DC of complications from abdominal surgery, Dec. 23, 2004.
Ho Wai-kam - (80) Art historian and curator considered one of the world's leading authorities on Chinese art; guest curator at the Shanghai Museum; an expert on Chinese painting, historical texts, poetry, and Chinese Buddhist art; also was an art historical detective; once traced a painting in the Cleveland Museum's collection to 10th-century master Juran by examining an obscure inventory seal in one corner; he discovered that the seal was used only from 1083 to 1126 to mark art work acquired for the Song government's imperial collection; books include Chinese Art Under the Mongols: The Yuan Dynasty, 1279-1368 (1968) with Sherman E. Lee and The Century of Tung Chi-chang, 1555-1636 (1992) with Judith G. Smith; died of diabetes in Shanghai, China, Dec. 28, 2004.

Politics And Military
George Barber - (90) Army chaplain from the U.S. landing at Omaha Beach on D-Day during World War II, who was one of four chaplains with the Army's 1st Infantry Division at Omaha Beach when Allied forces stormed the shores of Normandy and spent the day ministering to the wounded and dying at Omaha, who ministered during the Battle of the Bulge, later ministered with the Air Force during the Korean War, and serving in the Air Force reserves during the Vietnam War, died on December 17 of natural causes in Whittier, CA.
Wyeth Chandler - (74) Mayor of Memphis, Tennessee from 1972 to 1982 during the Memphis fire department strikes, pushed for construction of the Mid-America (now Main Street) Mall, Volunteer Park on Mud Island and a downtown hotel to serve the Convention Center, whose colorful nature led to having a baby hippo named after him, and who left his position as mayor to take a position as circuit court judge, died of a heart attack while mowing his lawn on November 11 in Memphis, Tennessee.
John Deardourff - (61) Pioneering political consultant who specialized in working for moderate Republican candidates, including former Pres. Gerald Ford, who worked as a consultant on more than 70 primary and general election campaigns, including Ford's 1976 election bid died on December 24 of cancer in McLean, VA.
Donald L. Hollowell - (87) Civil rights attorney who once helped to free Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. from jail; worked to desegregate Atlanta's public schools in the 1950s and '60s; credited with helping to desegregate the University of Georgia; his firm worked to desegregate Augusta's buses and Macon's schools, and won a landmark case requiring Atlanta's Grady Memorial Hospital to admit black doctors and dentists to its staff; in 1966, accepted an appointment from President Johnson as first regional director of the new Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which monitors workplace discrimination; remained at the EEOC as regional attorney until 1985; the city of Atlanta named a road after him in 1998; died of heart failure in Atlanta, Dec. 27, 2004.
Heorhiy Kirpa - (58) Ukrainian transport minister and supporter of presidential election loser Viktor Yanukovych, who was accused of allocating busses to bring supporters of Yanukovych (whose previous win had been turned over and a new election orded, which he lost) to vote at multiple polling stations, was found dead in his home on December 27 with a gun nearby-a suspected suicide (that is under investigation) a day after the second election which declared Viktor Yushchenko the president.
Roger Lane - (87) Journalist turned assistant to three Michigan supreme court justices, who created oral histories on 12 living former judges by doing the interviewing and transcribing by himself, who was one of the original members of the Michigan Supreme Court Historical Society and later the director, died of a stroke in Lansing, Michigan on December 30, 2004.
Rear Adm. Sheldon Kinney - (86) Highly decorated retired naval officer who commanded fighting vessels in WWII, the Korean War, and Vietnam, who won the Navy Cross for sinking three German U-boats and a Presidential Unit Citation, and who later trained future seafarers as President of the State University of NY Maritime College and of the World Maritime University in Sweden, died of cancer in Annapolis, MD on December 11, 2004.
Sir Anthony Meyer, 3rd Baronet- (84) Former British Conservative Member of Parliament for North West Clwyd, whose challenge to Margaret Thatcher paved the way for the leadership election of 1990 that brought about her downfall (he epitomized everything about the old-style Conservative Party that Thatcher most disliked), but whose leadership challenge was widely ridiculed and ended his parliamentary career, died in England on December 24, 2004.
Jane Gray Muskie - (77) Widow of Senator Edwin Muskie (D-ME) who seemed to cry when defending his wife during his 1972 run for the democratic nomination for president-an incident that likely derailed the Senator's run and his eventual loss, who was defending statements made by William Loeb, a newspaper editor, that accused him of making ethnic slurs and his wife of using "colorful language" on the campaign trail, and then was accused by conservatives of being too mentally unstable to handle the job, died of Alzheimer's Disease in Bethesda, Maryland on December 25.
Sam Papich - (90) Former liaison between the FBI and CIA; involved in the investigation of the assassination of Pres. Kennedy; countered Japanese and Nazi spies in South America during WWII; later was legal attach" at the US Embassy in Brazil; supervised undercover agents in the pre-CIA days; sat at the table with then-FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and CIA directors Allen Dulles and Richard Helms; in '73, became director of the Governor's Organized Crime Prevention Council in NM; died in Albuquerque NM, Dec. 22, 2004
Samuel Roseberry - (106) Indiana man who lied about his age in 1917 so he could join the US Army and take part in WWI; won the National Order of the Legion of Honor - the French government's highest honor - in 1999; also was named a Sagamore of the Wabash in 2000 by Indiana Gov. Frank O'Bannon; ran a grocery store for 40 years, retiring in 1962; by recent estimates, fewer than 500 American WWI veterans remain; died in Anderson IN, Dec. 21, 2004
Ronald M. Sharpe - (64) Pennsylvania State Police commissioner from 1987 to 1991 and the first black to lead a state's police force in the United States, who was credited with making changes to help racial equality and established a canine drug enforcement team, died of cancer on December 21 in Menands, New York.
Tzvi Tzur - (81) Israeli Army's sixth chief of staff, who served briefly as a member of parliament after undertaking the role of assistant defense minister on the eve of the 1967 Mideast war, died of a heart attack in Jerusalem on December 28.

Society And Religion
James Hunter Blair - (78): Monarch of the glen of South Ayrshire (Scotland) who was known for his deep devotion to Scottish heritage and culture, who was the proprietor of his family castle-the Blairquhan estate, who, despite monitary concerns, spent 50 years restoring the castle (which is now used for weddings and movies), died of cancer on December 25, 2004.
Rev. Jacques Dupuis - (81) Jesuit theologian who was accused of heresy by the Vatican for his ideas on the plurality of religion expressed in his 1997 book "Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism," ideas that put forth the theory that 's alvation" could be possible through other, non-Christian religions, and that non-Christian religions played a vital role in Christian religions, but who had to work in the church's criticisms at the insistence of the Vatican, died of a brain hemorrhage in Rome on December 28, 2004.
Metropolitan Anthony Gergiannakis - (69) Spiritual leader of the Greek Orthodox religion in California, who was the first bishop of the newly created Metropolis (or diocese) in 1979, and in his time increased the number of parishes from 47 to 68, helped build three monasteries in his territory, and was known as "the building bishop" for his projects and new ideas, died of cancer in San Francisco on December 25.
Ruth Etta Tantaquidgeon - (95) One of the two matriarchs of the Mohegan Native American tribe; along with her sister, Gladys, was a 10th-generation descendant of Uncas, the Mohegan sachem, or chief, who settled at Fort Shantok CT; Gladys (105) is now the last surviving full-blooded Mohegan; in the early '90s, Ruth organized a large collection of family memorabilia, which included correspondences and notices of births, funerals, graduations, marriages, military and tribal records; documents proved vital to the tribe's federal recognition effort; died in Uncasville CT, Dec. 22, 2004
Rev. Prof. Carsten Thiede - (52) New Testament scholar who dramatically re-dated the Gospels of Matthew and Mark; author of the worldwide best-seller The Jesus Papyrus (1996), cowritten with Matthew d'Ancona, which examined evidence of the earliest surviving New Testament writings and argued that those fragments of Mark and Matthew could be dated, using current forensic technology and traditional techniques, to approximately the year 60AD; was credited recently with the location of Emmaus, the ancient village mentioned in Luke 24; died following a heart attack in England, Dec. 14, 2004

Business and Science
Joseph C(harles) Arcos - (83) retired senior science adviser at the US Environmental Protection Agency and an expert on how chemicals cause cancer. Arcos wrote more than 160 papers in scientific magazines and wrote or edited 14 books,including 7-vol treatise, Chemical Induction of Cancer, which won the American Chemical Society's award for creative advances in environmental science and technology. Arcos joined the EPA to help implement the newly enacted Toxic Substances Control Act. Arcos' last major book, the social and political critique Voices of the Gathering Storm: The Web of Ecological-Societal Crisis, was published in the spring of 2005. Arcos died of cardiac arrest in Asheville, NC Dec. 31, 2004.
Julius Axelrod - (92) National Institutes of Health neuroscientist who -- along with two other scientists -- won the 1970 Nobel Prize in medicine for his work on how nerve cells communicate and affect behavior; their work on chemicals released by nerve endings formed the foundation for a host of new antidepressants in the class of Prozac and Zoloft; earlier in his career, he helped identify acetaminophen, the active ingredient in the pain reliever Tylenol; died Dec. 29, 2004.
Richard J. Barnet - (75) Kennedy administration official and a founder and co-director of the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies, one of the first research organizations in the country to address public policy from a left-wing vantage point (the group advocated social action and scholarship and has been involved in issues including civil rights, the Vietnam War, national security, fair trade and environmental justice campaigns), who was the author or coauthor of more than a dozen books and was a contributor to Harper's magazine, The Nation, and the Op-Ed page of the NY Times, and who served in the State Department and in the US Arms Control & Disarmament Agency, died on December 23 in Washington, DC of normal pressure hydrocephalus, a brain disorder.
Harold Benjamin - (80) Former attorney who, after his wife developed breast cancer, established the Wellness Community, a national network of support centers for cancer patients with the idea of raising patients" optimism and increasing their odds of recovery, whose centers today serve 30,000 people a year at 22 locations in the United States and one each in Tokyo and Tel Aviv, Israel and inspired "Gilda's Club", named for SNL comedian Gilda Radner, and who also and who wrote "The Wellness Community Guide to Fighting for Recovery From Cancer;" died on December 23 of complications from pulmonary fibrosis in Marina Del Rey, CA.
Dame Hilary Cropper - (63) Chairman and CEO of Xansa, a British computer services company, which was dedicated to giving women a start in the mainly male-dominated world of computers and technology by offering part-time and work-from-home opportunities, who was able to keep the computer business afloat for 17 years during some of the hardest years for IT companies by moving into filling the needs of larger companies that were outsourcing their IT jobs, and who was one of the highest paid women in Britain, died of ovarian cancer on December 26, 2004
Dr. Jonathan Drummond-Webb - (45) Pediatric heart surgeon at Arkansas Children's Hospital, where he had been chief of pediatric and congenital cardiac surgery for the last three years and was featured on national TV for his transplants and other cardiac surgery on children, whose accomplishments over 18 months in 2001 and early 2002 (830 surgeries with a 2% mortality rate) became the subject of a four-part ABC News documentary, who was an associate professor of surgery in the College of Medicine at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and said he competed in triathlons to keep himself in shape for surgery, committed suicide and was discovered on December 26 in Little Rock, AR, having recently suffered a sudden bout of depression.
Mel Gabler - (89) Conservative Texan textbook critic who, with his wife, reviewed public school textbooks for more than 40 years, poring over textbook publishers'offeris looking for factual errors and examples of what they deemed liberal bias, who founded a nonprofit Christian-focused group, Educational Research Analysts, to examine textbooks under consideration for adoption by the Texas State Board of Education and testified before state regulators on their contents, and who found hundreds of errors in 10 U.S. history books after publishers and the state had approved them, leading to a fine leveled on textbooks publishers of about $1 million, died on December 17 of a massive brain hemorrhage after a fall at his home in Tyler, TX.
Edward St. George - (76) Chairman and co-owner of the Bahama Port Authority for 30 years, who in the 1950's was magistrate of Nassau for three years, and in 1969 was appointed alternate director of the port Authority, and in 1976, he took over management and helped bring many changes to the islands and Grand Bahama as the industrial center, died following heart valve replacement surgery in Houston, Texas on December 20.
Wang Junyao - (38) Business executive who started China's first private charter airline, who is known by most Chinese for his "Junyao Milk," a part of his dairy industry, died of intestinal cancer in Beijing, China on November 7.
John S. Laughlin - (86) Medical physicist and educator who helped pioneer the early use of radiation to fight and diagnose cancer, who in 1952 helped Sloane-Ketterling (formerly Memorial Hospital) get it's first betatron machine which he used to point a stream of high-energy particles at a tumor to shrink and destroy them, and who later used a cyclotron to develop a system to find cancer by injecting radioactive isotopes, died of leukemia in Manhattan, New York on December 11.
Dr. Sheldon Margen - (85) Nutritionalist who, in 1962, co-created "The Penthouse," one of the first research centers in the United States dedicated to researching nutrition and metabolism, who co-directed more than 20 human nutrition studies on a wide range of subjects-research that has been used to base the nutrition guidelines information on the packaging on packaged foods in the United States, and who helped create the minimum daily requirements for proteins and minerals, died of cancer in Berkeley, California on December 18.
Alexander Marshack - (86) Anthropological researcher who was the first to suggest that some stone-age artifacts could be calendars, which as a result suggested that pre-historic man was more clever than previously thought, who analyzed a series of notches and discovered that they were lunarly related, and whose research methods that included using microscopes and UV light are widely used today, died of heart failure on December 20 in Manhattan, New York.
Frank Meeks - (48) Owner of 60 Domino's Pizza franchise stores whose "Team Washington" often delivered to the White House, who was often in the public eye with his antics and creative promotions, included several non-scientific polls that said the top fake name used that year by people ordering pizza was Paris Hilton, the hotel heiress, the meter also found that the night of Saddam Hussein's capture was the biggest tipping night of the year and that the Washington Redskins order more pizza than any other NFL team, and who made the Washington area one of the strongest Domino's Pizza areas in the world, died of pneumonia in Washington, D.C. on November 9.
Sir Angus Ogilvy - (76) Banker who was married to Princess Alexandra (England's Queen Elizabeth's cousin) who was the first person to marry into the royal family that would refuse a peerage when he married in 1963, who was forced to resign from the board of Lornho, a British-own African mining and finance conglomerate led by Roland (Tiny) Rowland when it collapsed due to a scandal, and then, after being absolved of wrongdoing, devoted himself to charitable causes, died of cancer in London on December 26.
Prof. Frank Pantridge - (88) Irish cardiologist who, in 1965, developed the portable defibrillator, which has saved the lives of countless cardiac patients over the past 40 years; he was often called the "father of emergency medicine," and his Plan to place defibrillators in many locations outside of hospitals was rapidly adopted in America and elsewhere; died in England, Dec. 26, 2004.
A(lfred) J(oseph) Richard - (95) Tinkerer whose enthusiasm for new gadgets transformed P. C. Richard & Son from a simple hardware store into the country's largest family owned and operated seller of appliances and consumer electronics; for 60 years, sold New Yorkers the latest electric devices; in the early '30s, when housewives still scrubbed clothes on washboards, he sent salesmen door to door offering families $5 to try washing machines; in the '80s, the company offered cooking classes to demonstrate microwave ovens; P. C. Richard & Son now has 49 stores with annual sales of roughly $1 billion; as recently as November, he still helped to train new sales representatives, reviewed most advertising, and occasionally waited on customers; died of pneumonia in West Islip NY, Dec. 28, 2004.
Dr. William Aaron Silverman - (87) Pediatric physician who helped create care plans for premature infants and assisted parents in having a greater say in their babies’ care, who, in the 1950s, determined that the improper use of oxygen was blinding many children unnecessarily, who felt that, in that time, too little care was taken with premature children in regards to their quality of life in their future years, and who a strong advocate of clinical trials, died of renal failure in Greenbrae, California on December 16.
Robert E. Smith - (75) Noted pathologist and academic; founder of two Bay Area medical supply companies; wrote nearly 200 articles and co-wrote two books; founded Enzyme Systems Products Inc. in Dublin, CA, serving as company president until 1984, when he founded Prototek Research Laboratories Inc.; companies helped develop drugs to combat AIDS and other diseases; held 37 US and foreign patents; in January 2004, gave $500,000 to UCSF to endow a research chair; died of diabetes in Livermore CA, Dec. 16, 2004.