Obituaries:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

ABELE, ALAN — who spent most of his AP career in Atlanta, died Nov. 20, 1995. He was 94.

Abele retired from AP in 1966 after 36 years working as a newsman and editor in Atlanta and Jacksonville, Fla. He served in the Marine Corps during World War II and was discharged as a major. He worked for the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and the Orlando Morning Sentinel before joining AP in 1930.


ABBOUD, KHAZEN — Abboud, a renowned Arab poet and a longtime translator and radio monitor for The Associated Press, died May 7, 2004 in Ballouneh, Lebanon after a lengthy illness, his family said. He was 80.

Abboud, who was born in Sakhnine, Palestine, joined the AP in Beirut, Lebanon, and transferred to the AP bureau in Nicosia, Cyprus, when a monitoring station was established there during Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war.

In addition to translating breaking news reports for AP staffers, he was a mainstay of the AP's Arabic Language Feature Service and composed several volumes of Arabic poems.

Abboud retired in 1994 after 35 years of AP service and returned to Lebanon with his wife, Helen, to live in Ballouneh, in the mountains north of Beirut.

ACHATZ (Jr.), WILLIAM F. — an AP photo editor who supervised coverage of the Korean War, Latin American revolutions and civil rights marches in Alabama, died April 25, 1999 in Pottstown, PA. He was 88.

"He was a down-to-earth, wonderful guy. He knew pictures," said Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Vathis, an AP photographer in Harrisburg who worked with Achatz for many years.

Vathis said during the Korean War Achatz was able to get photos of a North Korean prisoner-of-war camp by persuading North Korean officials to let a captured photographer continue plying his trade while he was held.

Achatz began working in journalism in 1931 at The Mercury in Pottstown. He covered crime and government for 10 years before joining the Marine Corps and serving in World War II.

Achatz was hired by the AP as a photographer in 1946 in Harrisburg. He soon moved to Philadelphia to become photo editor for Pennsylvania. Before retiring in 1976, Achatz secured a front-row seat to many of the defining moments of the late 20th century. But he said his biggest thrill came in covering two murders for The Mercury, both of which resulted in executions.

Survivors include his wife and a sister.

ADAIR, ROBIN — a technician who helped set up the first AP bureau in New Mexico, died Jan. 26, 1999 in Albuquerque. He was 97.

Adair's AP career spanned more than four decades. He joined AP in August 1924 after having been a telegrapher for Western Union. He worked in western Texas for 12 years until transferring to Albuquerque to set up AP's first New Mexico bureau. Adair retired in 1966 as traffic bureau chief, in charge of AP technicians in Albuquerque.

Survivors include two sons.

ADAMS, EDDIE — Adams, a photojournalist whose half-century of arresting work was defined by a single frame — a Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press photo of a communist guerrilla being executed in a Saigon street during the Vietnam War — died September 19, 2004 in New York. He was 71.

Adams died at his Manhattan home from complications of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease, said his assistant, Jessica Stuart. Diagnosed last May, he quickly lost his speech but remained alert and worked into his final days.

"Eddie Adams was an enormous talent and an inspiration to generations of AP photographers and staffers. His courage and creativity left a mark that will live forever," said AP President and CEO Tom Curley.

In addition to his photographs of 13 wars, Adams' images of politics, fashion and show business appeared on countless magazine covers and in newspapers around the world. His portraits of presidents ranged from Richard Nixon to President Bush, and those of world figures included Pope John Paul II, Deng Xiaoping, Anwar Sadat, Fidel Castro and Mikhail Gorbachev.

But fame — instant, enduring and discomforting — resulted from a single photo taken Feb. 1, 1968, the second day of the communists' Tet Offensive, in the embattled streets of Cholon, Saigon's Chinese quarter.

Drawn by gunfire, Adams and an NBC film crew watched South Vietnamese soldiers bring a handcuffed Viet Cong captive to a street corner, where they assumed he would be interrogated. Instead, South Vietnam's police chief, Lt. Col. Nguyen Ngoc Loan, strode up, wordlessly drew a pistol and shot the man in the head.

Adams caught the instant of death in a photo that made front pages around the world. It would became one of the Vietnam's War's most indelible images, shocking the American public and used by critics to dispute official claims that the war was being won.

In later years, Adams found himself so defined — and haunted — by the picture that he would not display it at his studio. He also felt it unfairly maligned Loan, who lived in Virginia after the war and died in 1989.

"The guy was a hero," Adams said, recalling Loan's explanation that the man he executed was a Viet Cong captain, responsible for murdering the family of Loan's closest aide a few hours earlier.

"Sometimes a picture can be misleading because it does not tell the whole story," Adams said in an interview for a 1972 AP photo book. "I don't say what he did was right, but he was fighting a war and he was up against some pretty bad people."
Adams won a 1969 Pulitzer Prize for the Saigon execution picture, among the more than 500 honors he received in his career, including a 1978 Robert Capa Award and three George Polk Memorial Awards for war coverage.

Born on June 12, 1933, in New Kensington, Pa., Adams served as a Marine Corps combat photographer in the Korean War and became one of the nation's top photojournalists with newspapers, the AP from 1962-72 and again from 1976-80, and with Time-Life, Parade magazine and other publications.

A crafter of images, Adams also cultivated his own _ a prickly personality with a studied flamboyance that included a black wardrobe, a neck scarf and a wide-brimmed porkpie hat.

Parade chairman Walter Anderson, a longtime friend, called Adams "eclectic, incomparable, cantankerous," and skilled at "capturing tension" in his photos.

Adams had no social or political agenda, but was at heart "a hard-news photographer, always sharply focused on the picture that tells the story," said Hal Buell, AP's former executive photo editor.

"He was also a perfectionist who would go to the mat over anything he saw in the editing that he felt detracted from the story _ but he was most critical of himself, for opportunities missed or not up to the high standards he set," Buell said.

Once, after making a portrait of comedian Jimmy Durante, Adams discovered the tip of Durante's trademark "schnozzola" was out of focus, and lugged his gear back to do the job over. "Durante saw him coming," recalled Buell, "and said, `You screwed up, huh, kid?'"

Adams' latest project included a video profile featured on Jerry Lewis' annual 24-hour Labor Day Telethon to raise money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association _ an event that Adams himself once regularly photographed.

"I'm touched by the courage and strength he's shown in facing ALS," Lewis said.

Although his photo from Saigon endured as his most powerful image, Adams was more proud of a photo of boat people fleeing postwar Vietnam that helped spur Congress and the Carter White House to admit 200,000 Vietnamese refugees to the United States.

In 1988, he founded the Eddie Adams Workshop "Barnstorm," an annual gathering at his farm near Jeffersonville, N.Y., where established professionals and promising newcomers could take part in photo shoots, lectures and instructional clinics. More than 100 teachers and 100 students attend the event each October.

Stuart, the director of the workshop for several years, said its programs would continue.

Adams is survived by his wife of 15 years, Alyssa, and a son, August; three children by a previous marriage, Susan Ann Sinclair and Edward Adams II, both of Atlanta, and Amy Marie Adams, of New Jersey; his 100-year-old mother, Adelaide Adams, and four sisters.
Photos of Eddie Adams

ADKINSON, AUSTIN ROBERTS — Austin Roberts Adkinson, 83, a former Associated Press newsman and newspaper editor, died Jan. 10 in a retirement community in Harrisonburg, Va., after battling multiple cancers.

Adkinson worked as a reporter and editor for AP from 1947 to 1958 in Columbia, S.C.; Charlotte, N.C.; and Washington, D.C.

Before joining AP, he was an editor for The Fulton (Ky.) Daily Leader and The Paris (Tenn.) Post-Intelligencer.

He worked as information director for the Tennessee Municipal League in Nashville from 1958 to 1970. The organization represents the interests of local governments in the state.

In Nashville, he also was active in the Middle Tennessee Professional Chapter of Sigma Delta Chi (now the Society of Professional Journalists), serving as president in 1970.

The Carrollton, Ky., native retired in 1992 as executive director of the Life Underwriters Political Action Committee, which he helped found for the National Association of Life Underwriters in Washington, D.C.

AGUILAR, ELOY O. — who was the face of The Associated Press in much of Latin America for more than a quarter-century, died Friday, Jan. 30, 2009. He was 72. "I worked more than 40 years for the AP," the award-winning journalist told a packed banquet hall celebrating his retirement in 2006. "I love this company for what it represents professionally and for the sense of camaraderie among my colleagues that always made you do your best." Read his AP obit, written by Niko Price, below.

01/30/2009

Longtime AP bureau chief Eloy Aguilar dies at 72

By NIKO PRICE
Associated Press Writer

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Eloy O. Aguilar, an award-winning Associated Press bureau chief who mentored a generation of journalists in Mexico and Central America as he covered civil wars, disasters and political upheaval, collapsed and died Friday. He was 72.

Aguilar was the face of AP in much of Latin America for more than a quarter-century, enthusiastically leading efforts for press freedom and the improvement of journalistic standards in both English and Spanish. His wisdom and his generosity kept many journalists safe amid dangerous guerrilla warfare in the 1980s in Central America.

"Eloy embodied the very best of the AP, leading by example with hard work, impeccable journalism and unflagging kindness," said Tom Curley, AP's president and chief executive. "He was a beloved colleague who will be missed."

When a devastating earthquake hit Mexico City in 1985 and destroyed the AP office, Aguilar set up a command center in his damaged apartment. With one working phone, he sent reporters and photographers into the streets, then chartered a Learjet to deliver a computer full of stories and a bag full of film to Texas, giving the world the first comprehensive account of the disaster that killed some 10,000 people.

Aguilar was legendary for getting the news out. In Nicaragua, he convinced a 20-something government censor that AP stories — unlike others — didn't need to be checked. In El Salvador, days after the military expelled him, Aguilar returned and persuaded an officer — over a bottle of whiskey — to reconsider.

When the United States invaded Panama in 1989, Aguilar had gotten a tip from a military source and was in place to alert the first bombs falling from a pay phone. An editor asked Aguilar what the source was; he held up the phone so the explosions could be heard.

Born Jan. 5, 1937, on the banks of the Rio Grande, Aguilar was a product of the U.S.-Mexico border. He grew up in Texas and began his journalism career at the Brownsville Herald in the late 1950s after serving in the U.S. Army.

Aguilar traveled to Venezuela in 1961 to work for the Caracas Daily Journal and string for U.S. publications, and joined the AP there in 1965. He transferred to Puerto Rico a year later, then to Mexico in 1969.

In 1972 he transferred to Dallas, rising to state editor while earning his master's degree in Hispanic Studies from the University of Dallas. In 1977, Aguilar returned to Puerto Rico as Chief of Caribbean Services, covering coups in the Dominican Republic, the debate over Puerto Rican statehood and a rebellion in tiny Aguila, population 6,000.

In 1979, he returned to Mexico City as bureau chief for Mexico, Central America and Panama, a position he held for more than 25 years before retiring. One of his key accomplishments was helping to negotiate the reopening of the AP's Havana bureau in early 1999 after a three-decade absense.

In 2000, Aguilar received Columbia University's Maria Moors Cabot Prize, the oldest international award in journalism, in recognition of a lifetime of contributions to inter-American understanding. He wrote in both Spanish and English and switched effortlessly between Latin American and U.S. cultures.

"I worked more than 40 years for the AP," Aguilar told a packed banquet hall celebrating his retirement in 2006. "I love this company for what it represents professionally and for the sense of camaraderie among my colleagues that always made you do your best."

But Aguilar couldn't stay still for long, and in recent years directed the news agency of the Mexican newspaper El Universal.

Known for his thick mustache and mischievous grin — often accompanied by a salty tale — Aguilar loved encouraging young journalists and mentored scores of them, many of whom went on to become Latin American publishers and AP managers.

Aguilar died while on his way to address a conference of U.S. journalism school deans, when he collapsed and hit his head.

"Eloy is a journalistic legend whose values and principles should nurture reporters forever," said Edgar Fonseca, director of the Costa Rican newspaper Al Dia.

Aguilar is survived by his wife Lisette Carrasco, his son Edwin and his granddaughter Citlali. He was preceded in death by another son, Victor. He is to be buried in McAllen, Texas, a border town he called "The Holy City."

AIG, MARLENE R., — an award-winning journalist who covered politics, government and courts as AP's Westchester correspondent for 13 years, died of a brain aneurysm April 25, 1996. She was 43.

"She was a non-stop and sometimes frenzied bundle of activity, yet at the same time was one of the most thoughtful and contemplative people I've ever met," said Joyce Rosenberg, AP business editor and former city desk editor who worked with Aig. "Her mind could be occupied with tens or even hundreds of things, but she'd stop and wish you a happy birthday."

A Queens native who got her undergraduate degree from Queens College and earned Masters degrees from Columbia University and McGill University in Montreal, Aig joined AP in 1978 as a broadcast editor for the New York City bureau. She became Westchester correspondent in 1983 and won an award from the Westchester Women in Communications in 1989 for a series on the Yonkers housing discrimination battle.

ALDERMAN, JEFF — Alderman, an AP enterprise editor in the 1970s, died Nov. 15, 1999, in New York following a lengthy battle with cancer. He was 56.

While in college, Alderman worked at the daily Holyoke (Mass.) Transcript-Telegram. After serving in the Army, he joined AP in Boston and moved to the General Desk in 1968. He left in 1970 to do free-lance writing and work for the News Election Service, which oversaw the gathering of votes for AP and other national news media, including ABC. He returned to the AP in 1973 and was named energy editor, overseeing coverage of the worldwide crisis during the Middle East oil embargo. From 1974 to 1977, he was enterprise editor in New York. He left to join ABC News, working at the network for more than two decades. He was director of ABC's pioneering polling operation, doing groundbreaking work on election exit polls and tracking surveys.

He is survived by his wife, Joanne, and two daughters.

ALI, ARIF — Arif Ali, London-based regional product director for Europe, Middle East and Africa for The Associated Press, died of cancer at his home Thursday, Jan. 31, 2008. He was 46.

Ali was honored in 2007 with a $10,000 Gramling Award for overseeing the creation and implementation of new AP services including AP Headline.

"Arif had been battling with cancer for a long time and during that time and numerous hospital visits, he never stopped working," said AP Vice President Nick Evansky.

"His professionalism, commitment, enthusiasm for the AP, its customers and his job never wavered. His most recent success was the launch of the new Arabic language service just a few weeks ago," Evansky said.

"Arif had been seriously ill for some time, but had bravely been continuing his work," Mark Atkins, AP's director of Global Internal Support, said in a message to the London staff. "His fortitude was an example to us all."

Born June 21, 1961 in Pakistan, Ali joined AP London in October 1982 as a technical engineer.

He was project manager for AP Server, 1995-2003; project manager for AP Photo Archive, 1995-1999; director of photo technology, 1999-2003 and product manger for eAP and eDistribute, 2003-2004.

Retired London Chief of Bureau Myron Belkind, in a letter supporting Ali's Gramling nomination, noted his role in developing the Leaf electronic photo desk.

"Arif proved to be a vital member of the sales team because he always convinced subscribers that he would be available to answer their questions and respond to any problems at any hour of the day or night," Belkind wrote.

"Clients wanted a high level of comfort from AP before purchasing a Leaf Desk, and Arif provided that comfort."

Ali is survived by his wife, Hina. A funeral service was held Thursday in Slough, west of London.

ALTGENS, JAMES W. (Ike) — Altgens, who documented President Kennedy's assasination for AP, died Dec. 12, 1995. He was 76.

Altgens was taking pictures of the Kennedy motorcade at Dealey Plaza in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, when the president was shot. He raced to a telephone and provided the first word to AP editors that Kennedy had been struck by gunfire and seriously wounded.

He also took the famous photo of Mrs. Kennedy on her hands and knees on the trunk of the car and an agent climbing onto the rear bumper.

Altgens later testified before the Warren Commission, the panel that concluded Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in firing the bullets from the nearby Texas Schoolbook Depository building. He worked for AP for more than 40 years, from 1938 to 1979.

ANZUETO, ALFONSO — a correspondent for the AP during the difficult years of the civil war in Guatemala, died Oct. 28, 2000 after a short illness in Guatemala City. He was 70.

"For more than 30 years, Alfonso kept the world informed through The Associated Press on Guatemala's difficult path to democracy in the middle of civil wars, coups, and economic difficulties," said Eloy O. Aguilar, AP bureau chief for Mexico and Central America. "His career as a journalist is an example for the new generations of reporters in Guatemala," Aguilar said.

On several occasions, Anzueto was threatened by various groups involved in the 36-year conflict, which ended in 1994. Anzueto also worked for the Prensa Libre newspaper in Guatemala. He was a member of the Association of Journalists of Guatemala for 45 years and served as president of the organization at least four times. Anzueto retired at the beginning of this year. His family asked Aguilar to be a pallbearer.

Anzueto is survived by his widow Lily, daughter Roxana, a school teacher, and son Alfonso, a correspondent for ANSA, the Italian news agency.

ANDERSON, GODFREY H.P. — an AP war correspondent who was taken prisoner in North Africa during World War II, died April 20. 1999 in Austin, TX. He was 90.

Anderson, who was born in London, worked for the AP for 38 years. He was a writer and photo editor for the AP in his native country and later head of the news cooperative's photo bureau in Paris. He went on to serve as a war correspondent in Ethiopia, Egypt, Palestine, Syria and France and chief of bureau in Belgium.

In 1941, he was taken prisoner by German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's forces in Libya and held prisoner for three years in German camps in Libya, Italy and Germany. Anderson transferred to the AP's Dallas office in 1970, after his wife was offered a job with a Dallas newspaper. He became a U.S. citizen two years later.

Survivors include his wife, a son and a daughter

ANDERSON, WILLIAM B. — Veteran Associated Press newsman William B. Anderson, who was broadcast editor in the Seattle bureau for a short time before retiring in 1985, died Aug. 8, 2006 in Kennewick, Wash., after a long battle with heart problems, his family said. He was 82.

Anderson, a native of Yakima, joined the AP in 1943. He entered military service in 1944 and served in the Pacific, where he was awarded the Army Commendation Ribbon in 1946 for exceptionally meritorious service.

After his discharge in 1946, he served in the Nashville AP bureau for several years before being promoted to correspondent in charge of the Chattanooga bureau, a job he held for 10 years. He left the company to join the Chattanooga Free Press as assistant city editor, where his duties included coverage of the Tennessee Air National Guard.

Anderson rejoined the AP in 1967 in Atlanta. Shortly after the death of his first wife, Imogene Kennamer Anderson, he transferred to the Seattle bureau.

Anderson suffered a near-fatal heart attack in 2003 but recovered, his wife, Marjorie Mogseth Anderson, said.

She said her husband's body would be cremated and her son, Jason Mogseth, would climb Mount Rainier to scatter his ashes.

"Bill Anderson was one of a kind," said Lamar Matthews, retired assistant chief of the AP's Atlanta bureau. "He never ducked an assignment, no matter how difficult, and he handled them all well. He was totally dependable and conscientious."

Matthews said Anderson was especially good at training new AP staffers.

"He was patient, never failed to answer their questions and encouraged them to be the best. He was an exceptionally valuable part of the Atlanta operation."

In addition to his wife, Anderson is survived by a daughter, Linda Elizabeth (Betsy) Anderson of Roswell, Ga.; a son, William B. Jr., daughter-in-law, Jill, and grandson, Zachary, all of Huntsville, Ala.; and stepchildren Dean and Judy McKenzie of Anchorage, Alaska, Laura Mogseth of Boise, Idaho, Jason Mogseth of Missoula, Mont., and James Mogseth of Kennewick.


ANDRIANI, NICK — Retired Associated Press photo printer Nicholas P. Andriani died of cancer Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2008 in a Long Island, N.Y., hospital, his family said. He turned 50 in September 2007. Nick, as he was better known, joined the AP as a photo printer at New York headquarters in April 1985. He retired from the AP as a photo printer in 2007. Andriani, who lived with his family in Westbury, Long Island, is survived by his wife, Lisa, and two children, Lianne and Brian.

ARROWSMITH, MARVIN L., — who covered Dwight Eisenhower's White House and directed Associated Press coverage of Washington in the days of Vietnam protest and Watergate scandal, died Oct. 5, 1995. He was 82.

"He was the single most respected reporter I've ever known,'' said Bob Clark of ABC News, a one-time competitor. ``Marv would never ever hype a story or slant a story. He dealt only in facts and he dealt with them 24 hours a day.''

Arrowsmith retired in 1977 as chief of the AP's Washington bureau. He lived in recent years at a retirement home in Signal Mountain, Tenn.

"The words 'dignified' and 'unflappable' are the first ones that come to mind but you wouldn't want to make the mistake of getting between Marv and a telephone when something big was happening,'' said Louis D. Boccardi, president and chief executive officer of The Associated Press. ``More than most, he combined all the instincts that make people good reporters with the style of a gentleman.''

Arrowsmith started working for the AP in Detroit in 1942 after a series of journalism-related jobs. In a letter to his bureau chief a year later, Arrowsmith expressed the hope that ``someday I might qualify to serve The Associated Press as a Chief of Bureau or in some other executive capacity.''

He worked in the Senate during the rise of Joseph McCarthy and often voiced his regret that the press did not go after the Wisconsin senator with greater vehemence during his communist-hunting days.

Arrowsmith often said his biggest story as a reporter was Eisenhower's heart attack in Denver in 1955. He traveled everywhere with Eisenhower and once mused that he could only dimly recall seeing the Taj Mahal because he was keeping his eye on the president.

Arrowsmith also covered the first year of John F. Kennedy's presidency. He was a former president of the White House Correspondents Association and a member of the Gridiron Club.

He was named AP's Washington bureau chief in 1969 after eight years as the bureau's first assistant bureau chief and news editor. As bureau chief, he directed a staff that then numbered 160.

Arrowsmith was born in Detroit on Aug. 8, 1913, and graduated from the University of Detroit in 1935. His journalistic career began in the eighth grade when a school athletic director, elated over an unexpected victory, asked him to write a piece about it for the parish paper.

"I did, it got printed and I had the virus — never able to shake it,'' Arrowsmith recalled later. Arrowsmith retired from the AP in 1977 and moved with his wife, Mary Frances, to Santa Fe, N.M. After her death in 1983, he moved to Tennessee.

He leaves six children, Lawrence, Robert, Thomas, David, John and Kathryn Rabiega, and six grandchildren. One son, Michael, died before him.

ASHCRAFT, EDITH REGINA HENRY — a retired Teletype operator for The Associated Press, died Friday, Sept. 26, 2008, in West Virginia. She was 91. Ashcraft joined the AP in 1953 and left the active rolls as an automatic operator in Charleston, W. Va., in 1971.

Read the Oct. 15 obituary for Ashcraft that appeared in the Charleston Daily Mail:

Edith R. Ashcraft

Edith R. Ashcraft, 91, of Charleston passed away on Sept. 26, 2008, at SunBridge of Dunbar after a long illness.

Edith was born Nov. 22, 1916, in Crossville, Ala., and was a daughter of the late Thomas and Annie Reynolds Henry. Her husband, George Lawrence Ashcraft, also preceded her in death.

She was a graduate of Cedartown High School, Rome, Ga., and received her bachelor's degree from Morris Harvey College. She was retired from the Associated Press and was a member of the Greater Charleston Pilot Club and the Friendship Force of Kanawha Valley. She was an elder at Elk Hills Presbyterian Church.

Edith is survived by her loving son, Thomas Ashcraft of Charleston.

Memorial service will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 16, at Elk Funeral Home, 2001 Pennsylvania Ave., Charleston, with Dr. Earl W. Cochran officiating. Private burial will be at a later date.

The family will receive friends one hour prior to the service at the funeral home.

Arrangements are in the care of Elk Funeral Home, Charleston.