Dr. Don Coldsmith (83) Kansas family physician who gained fame as the author of the Spanish Bit Saga novels about the Plains Indians, which chronicle the momentous changes in the lives of the Indians brought on by the introduction of the horse by Spanish explorers. Coldsmith suffered a stroke June 20 after attending the Western Writers of America conference in Oklahoma City. He died in Kansas City, Kansas on June 25, 2009.

Philip Simmons (97) South Carolina blacksmith who created hundreds of ornamental iron gates and fences in more than half a century at the forge. Simmons created more than 500 pieces; his work can be seen throughout Charleston, at the Smithsonian, and internationally. He won several awards, including the National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Order of the Palmetto, his state’s highest civilian award. He died in his sleep in Charleston, South Carolina on June 22, 2009.

Kitty Doolin (89) philanthropist widow of Frito-Lay Inc. cofounder C. E. Doolin. Kitty Doolin served for many years on the Frito-Lay board of directors. An advocate for the Meadows School for the Arts at Southern Methodist University, the Meadows Museum, the Dallas Arboretum, and the Dogwood Canyon Audubon Center in Cedar Hill, she died from complications related to a fall and surgery in Dallas, Texas on June 22, 2009.

Dr. Jerri Nielsen FitzGerald (57) physician who diagnosed and treated her own breast cancer before a dramatic rescue from the South Pole. FitzGerald was the only doctor at the National Science Foundation’s Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in winter 1999 when she discovered a lump in her breast. Extreme cold ruled out an immediate rescue, so with guidance from US-based doctors via the Internet, she performed a biopsy on herself with the help of staff, then treated herself with anticancer drugs delivered during a mid-July airdrop by a USAF plane under blackout, freezing conditions, until she could be rescued by the Air National Guard in October. She died in Southwick, Massachusetts on June 23, 2009.

Samuel M. Genensky (81) former Rand Corp. mathematician and inventor whose near-blindness led him to help others cope with limited eyesight and become more self-sufficient. Genensky was best known for developing a kind of closed-circuit TV that became the prototype for the video magnifiers sold worldwide today that enable people with severe visual impairments to read books, magazines, and other printed materials. He died of heart disease in Santa Monica, California on June 26, 2009.

Hans W. Liepmann (94) longtime physics professor and researcher at the California Institute of Technology who specialized in aerodynamics and fluid mechanics. Liepmann died in La Cañada Flintridge, California on June 24, 2009.

Robert B. Pamplin Sr. (97) former chairman of timber giant Georgia-Pacific Corp. Pamplin went to work as an accountant for Georgia-Pacific when he graduated from Virginia Tech in 1934 and worked his way up until his retirement in November ‘76, then joined his son to form the R. B. Pamplin Corp., a holding and investment company. He suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and died in Portland, Oregon on June 24, 2009.

James Baker Hall (74) former poet laureate (2001-03) of Kentucky. The University of Kentucky graduate was director of creative writing at the school for 25 years. He also taught at Stanford, New York University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Connecticut. He died in Lexington, Kentucky, his birthplace, on June 25, 2009.

Betty Allen (82) American mezzo soprano who overcame a turbulent girlhood to become an internationally known opera singer and later a prominent voice teacher and arts administrator. Allen was part of the first great wave of black singers to appear on the world’s premier stages in the postwar years. Active from the ‘50s to the ‘70s, she performed with the New York City Opera, the Metropolitan Opera, and the opera companies of Houston, Boston, San Francisco, Santa Fe, and Buenos Aires, among others. She died of kidney disease in Valhalla, New York on June 22, 2009.

John Callaway (72) Chicago public TV broadcaster long famed for his interviews and the background research he brought to them. Callaway, who won more than 60 broadcasting awards, including numerous local Emmys and a Peabody, was founder and longtime host of WTTW’s Chicago Tonight program. He died of a heart attack after growing faint in a store in Racine, Wisconsin on June 23, 2009.

Farrah Fawcett (62) Charlie’s Angels TV star whose brilliant smile and feathered blonde hair made her one of the reigning sex symbols of the ‘70s, although she later won acclaim for several serious dramatic roles and earned three Emmy and six Golden Globe nominations. Once married to actor Lee Majors, star of TV’s Six-Million-Dollar Man, Fawcett was later the longtime companion of actor Ryan O’Neal, with whom she had a son. She was diagnosed with anal cancer in late 2006; it spread to her liver in ‘07 and proved resistant to numerous medical treatments in Germany and California. She died in Los Angeles, California on June 25, 2009.

Mary Lou Forbes (83) longtime Washington Times commentary editor whose reporting on Virginia’s civil rights struggles won a Pulitzer Prize in 1959. Forbes died less than two weeks after collapsing and being diagnosed with cancer, in Alexandria, Virginia on June 27, 2009.

Kenneth (Kent) Forkey (25) aspiring stage and screen actor who appeared in several commercials and feature films, including leading character roles in a handful of independent films such as Heartless, Tormented Purple, Self-Portrait, Walking Thoughts, Nectar, and Remote. Forkey’s theatrical credits also included stage productions such as Beyond Therapy, Women & Wallace, The Imaginary Invalid, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo & Juliet, Hamlet, The Butler Did It, Welcome to the Moon, and Red Coat. He was killed when the taxi in which he was a passenger slammed into a parked truck on the Long Island Expressway in New York City on June 23, 2009.

Lorena Gale (51) Canadian stage, TV, and film actress, director, and award-winning playwright whose play, Angelique, the story of executed slave Marie-Joseph Angelique, was the winner of the 1995 deMaurier National Playwriting Competition in Canada. Gale had appeared in several feature-length movies such as Fantastic Four, The Chronicles of Riddick, and The Exorcism of Emily Rose, and made guest appearances on several TV programs including The X-Files, Smallville, Kingdom Hospital, and most recently as Priestess Elosha on the SciFi Channel series Battlestar Galactica. She died of cancer in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada on June 21, 2009.

Morton Gottlieb (88) Broadway producer whose credits included four plays nominated for best-play Tonys, one of which, Sleuth, was the winner in 1971. It ran for three years and was made into a 1972 movie starring Michael Caine and Sir Laurence Olivier. Gottlieb died in Englewood, New Jersey on June 25, 2009.

Hanne Hiob (86) German actress, a daughter of playwright Bertolt Brecht (d. 1956). Hiob played the title roles in her father’s plays Saint Joan of the Stockyards and Señora Carrar’s Rifles, among other parts, until her retirement in 1976. She died in Munich, Germany, her birthplace, on June 23, 2009.

Michael Jackson (50) child star turned King of Pop whose musical genius was overshadowed by a bizarre lifestyle and sex scandals. Jackson’s preference for the company of children, his high-pitched speaking voice, and numerous plastic surgeries earned him the nickname “Wacko Jacko.” In 2005 he was acquitted on charges of child molestation. Although his lifetime record sales tally was believed to be around 750 million, he left behind a mountain of debt. A series of comeback concerts planned for London in July was expected to make millions and help his financial situation. He was taken ill at home in the Holmby Hills section of Los Angeles, and his personal physician tried to resuscitate him but could not. He was taken by paramedics to the hospital in full cardiac arrest, where doctors worked for more than an hour to try to revive him before pronouncing him dead at 2:26 p.m. PDT in Los Angeles, California on June 25, 2009.

Update: On Aug. 7, officials said that hours before his death, Jackson’s physician, Las Vegas cardiologist Dr. Conrad Murray, administered multiple sedatives—benzodiazepines—along with a powerful anesthetic—propofol, normally given only before surgery—which the pop star used to sleep. It’s a safe combination if done properly, potentially lethal if not. On Aug. 24, Jackson’s death was officially ruled a homicide.

Ed McMahon (86) fixture on US late-night TV for 30 years (1962-92) as announcer and sidekick for Johnny Carson (d. 2005) on NBC’s The Tonight Show. McMahon was host of several shows over the years, including The Kraft Music Hall (1968) and the amateur talent contest Star Search, whose competitors included Justin Timberlake, Usher, LeAnn Rimes, Adam Sandler, and Rosie O’Donnell. McMahon was a longtime cohost of the Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Association Telethon, a Labor Day weekend institution, and was cohost with Dick Clark of TV’s Bloopers & Practical Jokes. He broke his neck in a fall in March 2007 and battled a series of financial problems as his injuries prevented him from working. He had bone cancer, among other illnesses, and had been hospitalized for several weeks. He died in Los Angeles, California on June 23, 2009.

Bela Mukherjee (89) Bengali singer and widow of Indian classical singer-composer Hemanta Kumar Mukhopadhyay. Mukherjee had sung popular songs in the Bengali movie Kashinath (1943), with traditional music by award-winning Hindu film composer Pankaj Mullick, but she did not actively pursue her musical career after marriage. She died in Kolkata, India on June 25, 2009.

Fayette Pinkney (61) original member of the singing group the Three Degrees who lent her voice to the ‘70s hits “When Will I See You Again?” and “TSOP” (“The Sound of Philadelphia”), the theme song of the TV show Soul Train. Pinkney died of acute respiratory failure in Lansdale, Pennsylvania on June 27, 2009.

Hilde (Yasmine) Rens (37) Belgian singer and TV presenter, known professionally in the country’s high-profile celebrity circles by the stage name Yasmine, who recorded and sang Leonard Cohen songs translated into Dutch and released nine studio albums at the peak of her early music career in the ‘90s. Rens committed suicide by hanging, in Kontich, Belgium on June 25, 2009.

Sky Saxon (60s) lead singer and founder of the ‘60s band Seeds, who had a Top-40 hit in 1967 with “Pushin’ Too Hard.” Saxon had recently moved to Austin, where he played with his new band, Shapes Have Fangs. He had been planning to perform this summer with the California ‘66 Revue, a tour featuring a lineup of California bands from the ‘60s. He died in Austin, Texas on June 25, 2009.

Gale Storm (87) Texas-born actress whose wholesome appearance and perky personality made her one of early TV’s biggest stars on My Little Margie and The Gale Storm Show in the ‘50s. Storm appeared in several B westerns in the ‘40s with such stars as Roy Rogers, Eddie Albert, and Jackie Cooper. She died in Danville, California on June 27, 2009.

Kim Tae-ho (30) South Korean actor and model who made his TV debut as an entertainer in the KBS2-TV drama series You Are Not Alone and Blue Fish. Kim also starred in the feature-length movie Sex Is Zero 2 and was set to appear at a charity fashion show in August. He was killed in a motorcycle accident in Chuncheon, Gangwon Province, South Korea on June 26, 2009.

Bert Bank (94) Alabama broadcasting pioneer who started WTBC-AM & WUOA-FM in Tuscaloosa and the University of Alabama Football Network. A retired US Air Force major, Bank was captured by the Japanese in World War II and was a survivor of the Bataan Death March. He wrote about his experiences in Back from the Living Dead. Returning to his home state of Alabama in 1947, he founded the radio stations, then sold them in ‘85.

 He also served two terms in the Alabama statehouse and one in the state senate. He died in Tuscaloosa, Alabama on June 22, 2009.

Alec Gallup (81) chairman of the Gallup Poll, started in 1935 by his father, George S. Gallup Sr., and considered among the most trusted political polls in the US, despite its ‘48 mistake in picking New York Gov. Thomas Dewey to win the election over incumbent President Harry S. Truman. Alec Gallup died of a heart ailment in Princeton, New Jersey on June 22, 2009.

Sylvia Levin (91) Santa Monica woman who set a record for civic-mindedness by personally registering more than 47,000 Californians to vote. For 36 years, Levin spent six days a week signing up new voters outside businesses and post offices in Westside Los Angeles communities. She died of a stroke in Los Angeles, California on June 25, 2009.

Maj. Gen. David F. Wherley Jr. (62) retired commander of the District of Columbia Air National Guard, known for scrambling fighter jets over Washington during the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Wherley was also operations commander of the 113th Fighter Wing at Andrews Air Force Base, where he deployed military pilots with orders from then-Vice President Dick Cheney to protect the White House and take out any aircraft that threatened the Capitol City. Wherley and his wife Ann were among nine people killed in a Metro Transit train wreck in Washington, DC on June 22, 2009.

Ray S. Anderson (83) longtime Fuller Theological Seminary professor and author of academic and popular works. Anderson taught theology and ministry for more than 30 years at Fuller in Pasadena. He died of kidney failure in Fountain Valley, California on June 21, 2009.

Lanny Perry Barnes (49) Georgia man serving a life sentence without parole after he intentionally ran over a family outside a McDonald’s restaurant in Covington, Ga. on May 23, 2006, killing Avery Nicole King (2) and injuring her pregnant mother, her aunt, and two young cousins. Witnesses said Barnes smiled and laughed as he struck the family leaving the fast-food restaurant and ran over them several times in the parking lot, but no motive was ever established. He died of leukemia in prison in Augusta, Georgia on June 24, 2009.

Jerry Decter (85) Los Angeles community activist who with his wife Betty documented a series of allegations that pushed City Councilman Louis R. Nowell (d. July 2) to resign his post in the late ‘70s. In 1971, the Decters helped to defeat another city councilman, James B. Potter, and a housing development planned for their neighborhood in a canyon near Beverly Hills. Decter died of a heart attack in Los Angeles, California on June 24, 2009.

Harold W. Snider (61) advocate for the blind who helped to write legislation that expanded the civil rights of Americans with disabilities and led to the launching of NFB-Newsline, a free dial-to-listen newspaper and magazine service. Snider died of a heart attack in Rockville, Maryland on June 26, 2009.

Beth Smith (42) wife of four-time All-American PGA Tour champion Chris Smith, best known as the first-ever golfer on the Nike Tour (also known as the Nationwide Tour) to have been promoted in the PGA tournament within three seasons. Beth Smith was killed in a fiery car accident when her SUV collided with a Greyhound tour bus carrying a Canadian semipro football team. The accident seriously injured her two children, including her daughter Abigail (16), who was reportedly driving the car, along Interstate 69 near Angola, Indiana on June 21, 2009.

Ed Thomas (58) popular Iowa high school football coach who helped to launch several NFL careers. Named the NFL’s 2005 high school coach of the year, Thomas racked up a 292-84 record and two state titles in 37 seasons as a head coach—34 of them at Aplington-Parkersburg High School in a rural community of 1,800 residents 80 miles northeast of Des Moines. He was gunned down by a troubled former student and player, Mark Becker (24), now charged with murder, in Parkersburg, Iowa on June 24, 2009.