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

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BAKER, JIM — Baker, 64, night city editor of The Beaumont (Texas) Enterprise, March 8, 2004 in Beaumont of complications from prostate cancer.

Baker had a lengthy career that included stints at three Texas newspapers and The Associated Press. He also spent more than a decade in political consulting and public relations in Austin.

He spent the last five years at the Beaumont daily, where he was employee of the year in 2003.

"Jim could be gruff and blunt and stubborn, but no one questioned that he knew what he was talking about or that he cared very much about people and journalism," said Timothy M. Kelly, Enterprise editor.

Baker was an editor in Columbus, Ga., before joining the AP as a reporter and editor in Atlanta.

He transferred to Dallas as assistant bureau chief in 1972, then worked as city editor at the Dallas Times Herald and Austin American-Statesman and covered the capital for Cox Newspapers.

BALDWIN, DONALD K. — who as editor of the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times in the 1960s built the newspaper's circulation and prestige and later became the first president of the Poynter Institute, died Aug. 7, 2006 in St. Petersburg of complications from heart surgery. He was 88.

Baldwin presided over the Times newsroom from 1958-72 and saw the newspaper win its first Pulitzer Prize, in 1964 for reporting that led to the ouster of the state Turnpike Authority chairman and a reorganization of Florida's auditing and bonding practices.

Baldwin was working as the news editor for The Associated Press bureau in Tokyo, in charge of the wire service's reporting from Japan, Korea and Okinawa, when he was hired by the Times. And although the Times reported Aug. 8 that a falling out with then-chairman Nelson Poynter prompted his departure from the paper in 1972, three years later he became the first president of the school for journalists — now called the Poynter Institute — that Poynter created.

Baldwin joined the AP in Philadelphia in 1943 and worked in San Francisco and New York before transferring to Tokyo in 1957.


BALL, CLYDE C. — Former AP journalist Clyde C. Ball died in Sterling, Va., on Jan. 28, 2008. He was 86.

Retiree Charlie Monzella learned of the death of his one-time mentor in a call from Ball's wife, Bette. Monzella still clearly remembers working with Ball in AP West Virginia in the 1950s.

"I met Clyde Ball the first day I started working for the AP in 1953 in Huntington, W. Va.," Monzella recalls. "The correspondent there at the time, Dick Boyd, told me, 'Clyde will teach you everything you need to know.' From that introduction on, I learned that I could count on Clyde to steer me in the right direction. He was an excellent writer and a wonderful mentor. Clyde was always willing to spend time helping a fresh-out-of-college, green-as-grass kid like me. I've appreciated that ever since."

You can read the Feb. 10, 2008 Washington Post obituary on Ball at http://tinyurl.com/2bpx6j


BARBIERI, MARA — head of administration for the AP Rome bureau for nearly a decade, died June 8, 2002. She was 56. During her stewardship, Barbieri coordinated the growth of AP Italy, especially the development of its domestic photo service and its expansion into the television era.

"Mara appeared unassuming and modest, but under her soft-spoken character, there was a creative professional who astonished many with her hidden talents and her quiet advice to many AP staffers and to executives with her savvy business acumen," said Dennis Redmont, chief of bureau in Rome, of his operations coordinator. "She was an icon in Italy's media world, known widely just as Mara, which she preferred to her longer name Maria Antonietta."

Barbieri helped organize 18 photo exhibits commemorating AP's 150th anniversary from Sicilly up to the Dolomites, and implemented the program of an AP Board of Directors meeting in 1993 which included a papal audience.

BARNARD, WILLIAM C. (Bill) — a retired Associated Press newsman who covered the war in Korea and later became Texas chief of bureau and an AP membership executive, has died at age 88. Barnard died in a hospital in Berkley, Calif. on May 25, 2002.

"He was an amazing personality, the kind of person you met and five minutes later you were telling him your life story," said nephew Bill Barnard, an AP sports writer.

Born in Corpus Christi, Texas, he was the son of Dr. and Mrs. William Barnard and attended then Texas A&I College in Kingsville where he played trumpet in local bands and honed his writing. He began his newspaper career with the Corpus Christi Caller-Times after graduation. His interview style and flair for bringing local news to life won notice from editors and the affection of the readers.

Barnard was one of the first reporters on the scene in Texas City in 1947 when the ship Grand Camp, carrying ammonium nitrate fertilizer, caught fire in the harbor and exploded. Fire spread to a chemical plant and then to nearby refineries, and more than 600 people died.

Barnard got what he considered his biggest scoop in 1945. Audie Murphy, the most decorated American combat soldier in World War II, was only 20 when he was released from the armed services in San Antonio.

Bands, a crowd and Army officials gathered for a big welcome. But Murphy, a shy man, was overwhelmed and slipped into the crowd.

Barnard found himself standing next to the young soldier, and recalled him asking, "Mr. Barnard, do you have a car? I don't want to get involved in all of this, I just want to go home. Can I can ride with you?"

Barnard realized he had a huge story in the passenger seat when he set off for Farmersville, in northeast Texas, after informing the AP of his plan and evading the world media. The pair spent many hours together while Murphy told his story and the reporter listened. That incident remains AP legend.

In 1950, Barnard was sent to AP's Tokyo bureau as an editor. He relayed daily coverage of the war in Korea but requested assignments closer to the fighting. He was sent to Korea where he reported on the daily lives of young men of the Army and Marines.

While covering a violent demonstration in Korea his face was doused with acid. A fast-thinking AP photographer dunked his head repeatedly in a bucket of water, probably saving his life.

He returned home in 1954 and became chief of bureau in Dallas. In 1962 he joined the news cooperative's membership department in the New York, and in 1971 became a general membership executive for the western states, based in San Carlos, Calif. He held the post until he retired in 1984.

Mike Cochran, former AP writer, best-selling author and now reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, remembers Barnard.

"When Barnard hired me in the spring of 1960, I was the youngest pup in the Dallas bureau by 11 years. So I was hardly a force to be reckoned with by a bureau chief — any bureau chief. Much of what I learned about Bill came from Texas members, who loved him. Really. They adored him. More than anyone, it was Bill who created the foundation for the great rapport that exists even today between the AP and its Texas members. APME meetings were like family reunions, and remain pretty much the same more than 40 years later. And the Texas broadcast meetings weren't a whole lot different."

"Some of the Texas members were so fond of Barnard that they assembled a scrapbook of his wartime AP stories and presented it to him when he returned. And he was a great writer, I was told. Others can address that better than I, but they used to laugh about how he'd be sent out on a hard news story and come back with a tender-hearted feature that would bring tears to your eyes and readers to newspaper front pages around the world.

"In summation, I can say without equivocation that Bill Barnard was the perfect role model for AP and its historic focus on member relations."

Barnard is survived by a son, Cornell Barnard of Oakland, a daughter, Diana Barnard of San Francisco; two brothers, Dr. James Barnard and Dr. Cornell Barnard, both of Corpus Christi.

Remembering Bill Barnard — Among the many delightful leads Bill wrote in his AP career was one in Korea on Thanksgiving Day in, I believe, 1950. Frozen turkey was the easiest of all foods to get to front line areas to feed the troops in Korea considering the state of the roads, and the delivery systems of those days. Bill wrote this memorable lead: "The frontline troops in Korea had turkey for Thanksgiving. They would rather have had steak. They had turkey twice this week already." Always wished I'd thought of it. —Jim Becker, Honolulu

BILL BARNARD — Barnard, who covered five Olympics and the NBA for The Associated Press, died May 15, 2004, shortly after collapsing while playing tennis near his home in Waldwick, N.J. He was 54.

A Texas native, Barnard joined the AP staff in Dallas in 1972 and moved to the sports department in New York in 1977.

In 1980, he worked at the Summer Games in Moscow, and he covered the U.S. basketball Dream Team in 1992 at Barcelona. Barnard spent more than a decade as the AP's NBA writer before becoming a desk editor.

At his retirement party in 2002, one of several Texas-related gifts he received was an official Longhorns softball jersey, which he wore while pitching for the AP team. His wife, Janet, said Barnard will be buried with that jersey under his suit.

Barnard was raised in Corpus Christi, where his father was the mayor. He attended the University of Texas.

His uncle, William C. Barnard, was a longtime AP executive.

BARRON, MICHAEL E. — a supervising editor in AP's Atlanta bureau for four decades, April 28, 1999. He was 64.

Barron had been in charge of the AP's report for afternoon newspapers in Georgia since the late 1960s. Diagnosed with bone marrow cancer, he continued to work until the week before he died.

A Valdosta native and graduate of Emory University, Barron joined the AP in 1960 after two years as a reporter at The Valdosta Daily Times. He also worked as an editor at The Atlanta Constitution. Early in his AP career, Barron was assigned as Atlanta sports editor, covering, among other things, the Masters golf tournament. Golf was Barron's love.

In 1978 he wrote a first-person story about playing the Old Course at St. Andrews, Scotland. He worked the overnight shift in part because it allowed him to play 18 holes nearly every day. Barron was involved in countless national stories, from the civil rights movement to the Atlanta child slayings of the early 1980s to the 1996 Olympics.

Survivors include two aunts.

BAMBINO, JOSEPHINE — AP switchboard operator for 28 years, died July 19, 1996 of cancer. She was 69. She joined AP in New York in 1968.

BARTLETT, KAY — AP feature writer, died Aug. 20, 1998 in Bedford Hills, N.Y., after a long illness. She was 57.

In her 30-year AP career, Bartlett wrote about the famous, the curious and the just plain interesting. A variety of stories appeared under the Bartlett byline: profiles of G. Gordon Liddy and magician James Randi, pieces on arson and the disposable-diaper industry, features on Bosnian children and a mystery-writing nun.

"She had remarkable insight into people, with a fine sense of the ironies woven into many lives, and a keen ear for revealing quotes and telling anecdotes," said Managing Editor Darrell Christian.

A native of Cincinnati, Bartlett worked at the Worcester, Mass., Telegram & Gazette and joined AP in Miami in 1965. Three years later, she joined the Newsfeatures staff in New York. She remained there for the rest of her career.

In 1990 she wrote a first-person description of her own battle with chronic pain syndrome. "Two years and a couple of months ago, I lost control of my life," she wrote. "Pain took over. Now it regulates nearly every moment of my waking life, holding me captive to its savage dictates." Still, she concluded, "The one piece of advice I will never take is that I must quit fighting, that I must accept the pain. I will never give up. I will get rid of it."

She is survived by her longtime companion, Dave Goldberg, the AP's pro football writer, and by her brother, Joseph Bartlett Jr.

BAROLI, CARLOS — an editor for 25 years with the Spanish-language service of The Associated Press, Dec. 27, 2001 in New York at age 68.

Baroli was the Spanish service's specialist in science and medicine and an expert on the Spanish language. A native of Buenos Aires, Argentina, he studied medicine for four years and held a degree in radio and television broadcasting and production. Before joining the AP in 1976, Baroli was a broadcast and free-lance writer specializing in agriculture, science and international news.

Survivors include his wife.

BATES, MICHAEL N. — Wichita, Kan., correspondent since 1980, died July 3, 1996 of cancer. He was 44.

Bates was eulogized by Bill Hirschman of the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, who gave a moving tribute: "To describe Mike, you have to bring out those adjectives that editors hate: gentle, humane, compassionate, forthright, steadfast, modest, the hardest working man in journalism and just downright funny. ... This is a man who, when covering the aftermath of the Andover tornado, brought bottled water and snacks to the victims, not because it would get him in the good graces of potential interviewees, but simply because it was the right thing to do."

Bates covered central and western Kansas, specializing in agricultural reporting. Bates was a native of Wichita and attended Wichita State University. He joined AP in Oklahoma City in 1977 after working for newspapers in Kansas and Oklahoma. While in Oklahoma City, Bates covered the Karen Silkwood trial.

Bates was president of the Kansas chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists at the time of his death, and this spring's annual Gridiron program was dedicated to him.

He wrote and performed cowboy poetry and was among artists whose work was featured in "Prairie Poetry, Cowboy Verse in Kansas," published in 1995. Bates served as president of the Kansas Farm Writers and Broadcasters Association in 1989.

BEALE, LUCRECE HUDGINS — 90, who wrote a fanciful Christmas column for The Associated Press for many years in the mid-20th century, Oct. 6, 2004 at her home in Washington of complications from lymphoma.

Known as Lu, Mrs. Beale was the widow of William L. Beale Jr., who was news editor of the AP's Washington bureau when she arrived in 1941. He was chief of bureau from 1949 until his retirement 20 years later. William Beale died in 2002.

Born in Portsmouth, Va., Lu Beale began her journalism career in Massachusetts as a feature writer with the Boston Sunday Post in 1937. She joined the AP at its New York headquarters, and from there moved to Washington.

She published her first Christmas story on Dec. 7, 1942. Each story moved in 17 chapters, from Dec. 7-Dec. 24, and became a 27-year tradition.

The stories generally involved problems that faced Santa Claus as he tried to meet his Christmas Eve deadline.

BEALE, WILLIAM L. (Jr.) — chief of The Associated Press' Washington bureau for two decades, died October 27, 2002. He was 97. Beale died of natural causes at a Maryland nursing home.

Beale, whose birthday was Tuesday, began his journalism career in Knoxville, Tenn., before returning to the District of Columbia, his hometown, to work on the old United States Daily.

He joined the AP, the world's largest newsgathering organization, in 1930, where he would stay until retirement four decades later.

Beale covered the Bonus March in 1932 and the famous 100-day session of Congress, during which President Roosevelt began to set up the New Deal. He also covered the 1934 U.S.-Soviet negotiations that led to United States' recognition of the Soviets.

Beale attended 18 national political conventions and directed the AP's coverage of 12.

In 1936, he was named news editor in Washington after covering the presidential campaign of Republican Alf Landon.

His service as news editor spanned World War II and Beale personally covered the 1944 war conference in Quebec between Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, as well as the drafting of the United Nations charter in San Francisco in 1945.

In 1949, Beale was promoted to chief of bureau, putting him in charge of a staff of more than 100 in Washington, the AP's largest domestic office. He held the post until retirement some 20 years later in 1969.

Beale continued to live in Washington with his wife, Lucrece, who was an AP reporter in Washington until they wed.

He was a member of the Gridiron Club, a Washington media institution, the National Press Club, and Sigma Delta Chi, the news fraternity.

Survivors include his wife of 61 years, Lucrece Hudgins Beale; a son, David Taverner Beale, of New Hope, Pa.; a daughter, Mary Garven Beale, of Columbia, Md.; two granddaughters and a sister, Betty Beale Graeber, of Washington.

BEBOUT, BILL — a former AP newsman in Idaho, died Oct. 22, 2000 in Tillamook, OR. He was 64.

Bebout was respected for his resourcefulness. In 1961, while working for the AP in Boise, Idaho, Bebout was dispatched to Ketcham to cover funeral services for Ernest Hemingway. John Terry, a friend and former colleague, said Bebout arranged with the local telephone company to string a phone line out to the cemetery. "While other reporters were standing back taking notes, Bill was dictating copy to the AP in Salt Lake City," Terry said. "Bill was proud of that accomplishment."

Bebout spent 25 years as a journalist in Oregon. As the editorial page editor for the Statesman Journal in Salem, he won five first-place awards for writing and editing from the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association. He was also honored for his outstanding coverage of local government. Besides the Statesman Journal, he worked at the Capital Journal in Salem, The Register-Guard of Eugene, The Bulletin of Bend and the LaGrande Observer. In 1980, Bebout moved to Washington, D.C., to work for a U.S. Senate committee chaired by former Sen. Bob Packwood, R-Ore. Bebout returned to Oregon in 1983 as an assistant public utility commissioner. He retired in 1987.

Survivors include a foster son and seven stepchildren.

BECKLER, JOHN W. — a former AP congressional reporter in Washington, died at his home in San Clemente, CA, Jan. 13, 2002. He was 81.

Beckler worked for the AP 1959-75 when he left to become an aide to then-Rep. Jack B. Brooks, a Texas Democrat. A Milwaukee native, he graduated at the University of California in Los Angeles and was a weather observer for the old Army Air Corps in the Pacific Theater during World War II. He worked as a reporter for the Los Angeles Daily News and Los Angeles Times before taking the AP job in Los Angeles in 1959. His Washington assignments included the House Judiciary Committee's impeachment hearings for then President Richard M. Nixon in 1973-74.

Survivors include his wife, Avis; one daughter, three grandsons and a sister.

BEEDER, DAVID — Beeder, a former Associated Press bureau chief and longtime reporter and editor for the Omaha (Neb.) World-Herald, died Dec. 7, 1999 at age 69, while undergoing medical treatment for cancer in New York, NY.

A native of Dodge City, Kan., he was a journalist for 43 years. He also worked for the Albuquerque (N.M.) Tribune, Lindsay-Schaub Newspapers and Reuters. Beeder spent 26 years at the Omaha World-Herald as a political writer, business editor and Washington bureau chief. After retiring last year, he moved to Colorado Springs, Colo., and wrote a column for the paper.

He worked for the AP from 1955 to 1966 in Chicago and Centralia, Ill., and Helena, Mont., where he was the AP's bureau chief. Beeder was group editor of Lindsay-Shaub, based in Illinois and later acquired by Lee Newspapers of Davenport, Iowa. With Reuters, he was North American news editor and sales manager in New York.

Survivors include his wife, a son and a daughter.

BELCHER, VICKI — 56, whose mastery of the files enabled Associated Press reporters and editors to enrich their stories, died Aug. 25, 1996. She was the Washington bureau's chief librarian.

Vicki was stricken with cancer some years ago and continued to work until July. Bureau chief Jon Wolman said, "She left us breathless with her determination." She died when many of the bureau's staff were in Chicago for the Democratic National Convention.

A native of Peoria, Ill., Vicki joined the AP as a staff librarian in 1976. She was promoted to head librarian in 1983, overseeing a collection of AP stories so deep that other bureaus would call her when their own sources of background information fell short.

It was a quirky institution she ran in a corner of the Washington bureau, Jon said, and Vicki was stubborn about the logic — or illogic — of the file names. A newcomer to the bureau would be dumbfounded, if looking for a story about Watergate, to find nothing under the W's. Vicki would guide the new staffer to the P's. Watergate was filed under "political espionage."

A staff memorial for Vicki was held Sept. 5 in the bureau's conference room. Until a bureau remodeling last year, it was the corner of the office that housed the library. About 75 staffers joined Vicki's family and friends for the memorial service.

Jon Wolman read the tribute that News Editor Merrill Hartson delivered at Vicki's funeral (when much of the staff was in Chicago). Librarian David Goodfriend and Assignment Editor Jim Rowley also paid homage to their colleague.

BELL, BRIAN — a former foreign correspondent for The Associated Press who covered turmoil in Argentina, died of brain cancer Oct. 5, 2006, at his home in Virginia Beach, Va. He was 80.

He joined the Washington Evening Star in 1950 and moved to the AP in 1956. As a correspondent in Buenos Aires, he covered the aftermath of Eva Peron's death and the escape of her husband, Argentine President Juan Peron, to Paraguay after a military coup. He also covered Israel's capture of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in a Buenos Aires suburb in 1960.

That same year, Bell began a second career as a diplomat with the U.S. Information Service, working in Mexico, Pakistan, Iran, Bangladesh, Nigeria and Chile. He retired in 1987.

Bell served in the Navy during World War II and graduated from Washington and Lee University, where he was a star athlete, in 1949. He played football briefly with the Washington Redskins and the Detroit Lions.

BELL, NORMAN — AP's oldest living retiree, died April 15, 2001 in Santa Cruz, Calif. He was 101.

Bell joined the AP in San Francisco in 1932. He was appointed AP's Fresno correspondent in 1940 and during World War II was a war correspondent, first in the South Pacific and later in the North Pacific.

After the war Bell returned to California and was named AP's correspondent in San Diego. He retired in 1964.

On his 100th birthday, NBC-TV weatherman Willard Scott showed a photo of Bell on television and wished him a happy 100th birthday on the "Today" show.

He is survived by his niece Dorothy Ruby.

BENEDICT, HOWARD — Howard Benedict, who chronicled America's journey into space in three decades as the award-winning aerospace writer for The Associated Press, died April 25, 2005 at his home in Cocoa, Fla. He was 77.

In his 37-year career with the AP, Benedict covered more than 2,000 missile and rocket launches, including 65 human flights from Alan Shepard's historic "Light this candle!" ride in 1961 to the 34th shuttle mission in 1990.

Benedict had been ill in recent years, but that did not prevent him from continuing to work for the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation, which he headed for more than a decade, and writing the chapter on aviation and space exploration for an upcoming book on the history of the AP.

Benedict joined the AP in 1953 in Salt Lake City and became head of the news cooperative's office in Cape Canaveral in 1959. Two years later, the year Shepard became the first American in space, Benedict became the first AP reporter to be given the title "aerospace writer."

As the dean of space writing, Benedict developed terminology to explain the complex field of space travel to Americans in everyday English. For instance, he used "orbits" instead of the official "revs" or "revolutions" for circling the Earth, and introduced to the general public such early space terms as "retrofire," "multistage rockets" and "rendezvous," which referred to two spacecraft meeting in space.

The Challenger story earned Benedict the Associated Press Managing Editors award for AP deadline reporting in 1986, an honor he also had won in 1969 for his coverage of the Apollo moon flight program.

Benedict wrote four books on space history, including "Moon Shot" in 1994, which he co-authored with Shepard and Deke Slayton, both Mercury astronauts now deceased, and fellow journalist Jay Barbree.

BERSANI, ANTHONY L. — Anthony L. Bersani, a veteran New Jersey newspaper editor known for his keen news judgment and biting wit, died April 17, 2006, after a four-year battle with cancer. He was 47.

Bersani, who worked at newspapers in Atlantic City, Asbury Park and East Brunswick and for The Associated Press news service, died at St. Peter's University Hospital in East Brunswick, N.J.

"If you talk to 100 people about Tony Bersani, 100 of them will comment about his humanity and his sense of humor," said attorney Daniel B. Carroll, a longtime friend. "He was a better person, a better man than most of us will ever be."

A native of Philadelphia, Bersani graduated from Delsea Regional High School in Franklin Township and obtained a bachelor's degree from Glassboro State University before starting his journalism career at The Press of Atlantic City.

He rose from stringer and freelance contributor to become an editor before joining the Asbury Park Press in 1985, where he served as deputy Sunday editor.

"What I loved best about being edited by Tony was the humor that he brought to what sometimes can be a painful process," said Jeffrey Gold, an AP reporter who worked under him at Asbury Park. "He always managed to find the light side."

Bersani was named managing editor of The Home News Tribune in East Brunswick in 1993.

He later worked for Beneficial Corp., Summit Bank and Dow Jones before going to work for AP as a news technology specialist at its Cranbury operation.

In 2001, he was diagnosed with carcinoid -- a rare form of cancer -- after an appendectomy, but continued to work, and also joined the East Brunswick Rescue Squad and became an emergency medical technician.

"He called it his mid-life crisis," Stacey Bersani, his wife of 10 years, said. "Instead of getting a Corvette, he wanted to help people."

Bersani, of East Brunswick, is survived by his wife, the couple's 8-year-old daughter, Angela; his mother, Pauline Bersani, of Elk Township; a brother, Angelo C. Bersani, Jr., of Orlando, Fla., and a sister, Carolyn Ferrucci, of Franklin Township.

BERNSTEIN, RALPH — Ralph Bernstein, who peppered coaches and players alike with tough questions for nearly a half-century while covering the Philadelphia sports scene for The Associated Press, has died. He was 85.

Bernstein died of cancer on Saturday, July 7, 2007, his daughter-in-law, Maureen Bernstein, told the AP the following Monday.

"He was ferocious and he made the AP's presence known at football fields, ballparks, basketball courts and hockey rinks in Philadelphia. And if the Nittany Lions were playing at home, Ralph was there," said AP sports editor Terry Taylor, who worked with Bernstein in the Philadelphia bureau from 1977-81.

"I'll bet you there wasn't a single person involved in sports in Pennsylvania and beyond who didn't know of Ralph Bernstein," she said.

Bernstein, who lived in Pembroke Pines, Fla., since retiring in February 1994 after more than 48 years at the AP, would have turned 86 on Thursday.

"No sportswriter in the history of Philly had a more widespread influence or presence," longtime Philadelphia Daily News sports columnist Bill Conlin told his newspaper. "He covered every Phillies spring-training and home game, every Eagles preseason and home game, every Sixers and Flyers home game, every Big 5 doubleheader, all the press conferences for hirings and firings, and everything in between."

Colleagues recalled Bernstein's hard-nosed questions sending the normally cool Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry stalking angrily from a stage, and prompting Philadelphia Phillies manager Danny Ozark to kick a trash can in the team clubhouse and threaten to punch him.

"Nobody -- and I mean nobody -- could grill someone in an interview the way he could," said Frank Bilovsky, retired sportswriter for the former Philadelphia Bulletin and longtime friend of Bernstein.

But after fielding a series of tame questions at news conference shortly after Bernstein's retirement, Philadelphia Eagles coach Rich Kotite groaned, "I miss Ralph."

"He refused to take 'no comment' for an answer," Conlin said. "But his questions were straight-ahead. He never set anybody up for a cheap shot. And when his story appeared, the quotes were accurate and in context."

Bernstein, a Philadelphia native, started as a stringer for the old Philadelphia Record while attending Temple University. After serving in the Army in World War II, he returned home and worked for United Press before joining the Associated Press.

In addition to his work for AP, Bernstein wrote books on Philadelphia A's pitcher Bobby Shantz, La Salle University coach Ken Loeffler and Phillies pitcher Jim Bunning.

He is survived by a son, Robert; a brother, Bernard; and two grandchildren.

Bernstein's first wife, Barbara, was stabbed to death in their suburban Jenkintown condominium on Dec. 29, 1982, while he was covering the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans. A former Philadelphia police officer was convicted in her murder.

Bernstein's second wife, the former Mary Ann Melincoff, died in 2003.

BIVONA, ALBERT — Bivona, an editorial retiree, died December 8, 2003.

BLACKMAN, SAMUEL G. — who began his Associated Press career breaking the story that Charles Lindbergh's baby had been kidnapped and ended it nearly 40 years later as the AP's top editor, died Oct. 5, 1995 at his retirement residence in Chevy Chase, Md. He was 90.

The Lindbergh baby's kidnapping was Blackman's first big story in a career of reporting and supervising coverage for the AP. His four decades in journalism spanned the era of the Great Depression to that of missions to the moon. He retired in 1969 after 11 years as AP's general news editor, then the wire service's top editorial job. As general news editor, he demanded accurate reporting and clear writing. He presided over the General Desk, the nerve center of AP headquarters in New York, in an era of clattering typewriters, ringing phones and teletype bells, the cacophony of news. Age did not dim his zest for news. When he turned 90 last October, Blackman wrote an account of life in a retirement home.

"Now, at 90, I find that old age for me began in my 80s,'' he wrote. "Steps got shorter, every chore took longer (most everything these days is a chore - even dressing), visits to doctors and hospitals became more numerous, bones more brittle. An afternoon nap is one of life's little pleasures.''

His words did not flow as they did when he was an active newspaperman, but he said he found solace in author E.B. White's observation that ``the aging mind has a bagful of nasty tricks, one of which is to tuck names and words away in crannies where they are not immediately available.''

"Sam loved news, thrived on it, doted on it,'' said Louis D. Boccardi, AP president and chief executive officer. ``His memory was daunting, his sense of what to keep an eye on was uncanny.''

As a reporter, Blackman covered some of the major events of his day, including the Morro Castle steamship fire, the crashes of the dirigibles Akron and Hindenburg and the kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby, one of the most sensational stories of its time. Researchers over the years often sought him out for his memory of the Lindbergh story.

Blackman was born in Port Jervis, N.Y., Oct. 22, 1904. He began his news career as a student stringer for The New York Times and several New Jersey newspapers to earn tuition money for Rutgers University, where he graduated in 1927 and later earned a master's degree in English. He worked for two New Jersey newspapers, the New Brunswick Home News and the Long Branch Record, where he met his future wife, fellow reporter Jeannette Finn Blackman. She died in 1993.

Blackman joined AP at its Trenton bureau in 1931. He moved to New York in 1941 as night city editor, then became bureau chief and, in 1958, was named general news editor. He orchestrated news coverage by AP's far-flung network of bureaus. He knew of no other place, he told an interviewer, where he would rather be.

He leaves two daughters, Carolyn B. Jacoby of Bound Brook, N.J., and Ann Blackman Putzel, a former AP reporter and now a correspondent for Time magazine in Washington, six grandchildren and five great grandchildren.

BLAKE, MICHAEL — Blake, whose 34-year career with The Associated Press took him from broadcast operations to the digital age, has died.

Blake was 72 and died at home in East Rutherford, N.J., December 17, 2003. The cause of death was not known, said a nephew, Steven M. Rabi, of Albuquerque, N.M.

He had lived in East Rutherford since 1987, moving from Passaic, where he was born, Rabi said.

Blake had talents for "getting to the heart of a complicated story, and getting news copy out quickly," said Joseph Persek, an editor at AP Multimedia, the last department Blake worked at before retiring in 2001.

After graduating from Passaic High School and Fairleigh Dickinson University, Blake began his journalism career in 1953 at the Herald News of Passaic; the newspaper is now in West Paterson.

Blake worked at The Wall News in Middletown, N.Y., from 1957-58, and at WLNA radio in Peekskill, N.Y., from 1958-67, before joining The AP in New York City in 1967, records show.

He worked as the overnight supervisor on the broadcast desk, a post he also later held in multimedia, Persek said.

From broadcast, Blake went to the specials desk in 1983, and to multimedia in 1995.

His duties at multimedia included selecting AP stories and preparing them for computer databases, Persek said.

In addition to Rabi, Blake is survived by two other nephews, Thomas W. Rabi and Nicholas B. Rabi, both of Toms River, and a grandnephew and three grandnieces.

BODINI, SPARTACO — a former AP staff photographer who covered wars in Vietnam and Algeria, died July 25, 2000 in Mont-de-Marsan in southwestern France after a long illness.

Bodini was born in Italy in July 1926. He joined the AP in Paris as a messenger in March 1952. He became a photographer in 1961 at the height of the Algerian war. His first assignment was Oran, then considered the most dangerous city in Algeria. He stayed there for a year. He later covered wars in Congo, Cyprus and Vietnam. He also handled coverage of numerous Tour de France cycling races. Bodini worked for the AP until 1978.

BOLTON, ROBERT EDWARD — retired AP Traffic bureau chief, died Oct. 23, 1998. He was 85. Bolton died after a brief illness on Cape Cod, Mass., where he had moved in 1996 after living in Wilton, Conn. for 42 years.

Bolton began his newspaper career in the early 1930s in the composing room of The Commercial Appeal in Memphis. He joined the AP there as a Teletype operator in 1935 and later transferred to Knoxville, then Little Rock before returning to Memphis.

In 1939 he moved to New York where he continued his work with AP in communications technology. In 1946, he was appointed traffic bureau chief in New Haven, Conn., a position he held until 1970, when the AP began installing computer terminals in its domestic bureaus. As regionalization coordinator, Bolton supervised the installation of a regional computer filing system in Atlanta. He also trained staff in other bureaus in the operation of the computer terminals, known as CRTs, and was part of the AP's communications team at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. He retired in 1983 on his 70th birthday.

Bolton married AP feature writer Vivian Brown in 1948. She died in 1978. He is survived by his son, Anthony, and two grandchildren.

BONI, WILLAM F. — a decorated World War II correspondent for the AP, died Sept.15, 1995. He was 85.

Boni was awarded a Purple Heart after he was wounded by Japanese shell fragments while in a landing craft off New Guinea. His book, "Want to Be a War Correspondent? Here's How...," which recounted his wartime experiences, was published this year by Rainbow Books.

Boni became a sports writer at AP in 1937 and became AP's domestic military editor in 1942. Later that year, he went to Australia as an AP correspondent. He also covered battles in China, Burma, India and Europe. After the war, Boni established the AP's bureau in Amsterdam, then left to become sports editor for the military newspaper Stars and Stripes in 1946.

BONNER, MILLER H. — a former Associated Press correspondent who later co-founded an Austin public relations firm, died in a traffic accident in Marble Falls, Texas on March 17, 2003. He was 52.

Bonner was driving Saturday on Highway 71 between Austin and his home in Marble Falls when an oncoming car crossed the center line and struck him head-on. He was pronounced dead at the scene, a dispatcher with the Department of Public Safety said.

The Blossom native graduated from Texas Tech in 1974 with a bachelor's degree in journalism.

He began his career as a sportswriter and columnist for the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal and the San Antonio Express-News. He later joined The Associated Press, working at the news cooperative's Rio Grande Valley and Washington bureaus.

He left the AP in 1978 to work for IBM. He spent the next 10 years with IBM, taking a short time off to work as press secretary to former U.S. Rep. Kent Hance.

He moved to Austin in 1988 to become director of communications for Sematech, an Austin-based semiconductor research consortium.

In 1998, Miller co-founded The Alliant Group, a public relations firm, where he served as chief executive until his death.

"As a founder of our company, he leaves a legacy not only of professionalism but also genuine humanity. We will miss his sense of humor and his special way of looking at business and life," Alliant president and co-founder Steve Eams said Sunday.

Bonner is survived by his wife, Karen, and two daughters, Stephanie and Valerie, his parents and a brother and a sister.

BOOHER, JACOB O. — Jake Booher, who worked for The Associated Press for 35 years and retired as a bureau chief in Ohio, has died at age 69.

He died March 27, 2007 at home in Maryville, Tenn. He had been hospitalized previously with congestive heart failure.

Booher joined the AP in Albuquerque, N.M., in 1964, worked on the national desk in New York and was news editor in Salt Lake City. He became bureau chief in Louisville, Ky., in 1976, and was appointed to the same post in Columbus in 1981. He retired in 1999.

"Jake lived a full life and saw his sons grow into men that he was proud of," said John Lumpkin, AP vice president for U.S. Newspaper Markets and a fellow bureau chief with Booher for almost three decades. "He was a devoted husband. If he didn't also have a great career as a journalist, those two facts would justify a heavenly reward."

Booher, a graduate of the University of Tennessee, worked for the Knoxville News-Sentinel before joining AP.

"Jake was an ace high newsman and a real credit to the AP," said Ed Heminger, chairman of the board of the Findlay Publishing Co. and a former AP board member.

Booher was born Sept. 20, 1937, in Birmingham, Ala., and served in the U.S. Army for three years.

Survivors include sons Joel, of Canal Winchester, and Neil of Yuma, Ariz.; his mother, Sue Smith, of Maryville; sister, Ginger Smith, of Dana, N.C.; and brothers, David, of Davis, Calif., and Robert, of Maryville. His wife Mary died in 1996.

BOREA, ROBERTO — Borea, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer who produced thousands of compelling pictures during a 30-year career with The Associated Press, died Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2003. He was 51.

Borea died at his home in Catonsville, MD from stomach cancer.

Borea made his mark as AP's Baltimore photographer, covering everyone from Pope John Paul II to Cal Ripken while maintaining a steady eye on breaking news. But Borea also received assignments that sent him around the world, primarily because of his unyielding work ethic, his skill on deadline and his uncanny ability to get the perfect images to define an event.

"He always made you better when you were around him," said Gene Sweeney Jr., a photographer for The (Baltimore) Sun. "You knew that if you weren't on your game, he was going to beat you."

A photo taken by Borea was among 20 by AP staff that won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. His picture showed the Clinton family -- Bill Clinton, his wife and daughter and their dog -- walking across the White House lawn to a helicopter en route to Martha's Vineyard after the president's televised confession of an affair with Monica Lewinsky. Many newspapers used the photo on the front page, including USA Today, the New York Post, the Chicago Tribune and The Dallas Morning News.

"He was a strong, quiet force, who would go anywhere and do anything to get a shot and never complain," said Fred Sweets, a senior AP photo editor who headed the Washington photo desk during the Clinton impeachment.

Borea, who was never one to boast about his work, deflected the credit upon receiving the award.

"It's a great group of people," he said. "I'm just happy to be a part of it."

Borea was born in Rome and grew up in New York. His father, Raimondo, was a freelance photographer.

Roberto Borea earned a bachelor's degree in journalism and history from New York University. He worked as a copy boy and proofreader for The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J., and as a staff photographer for The Journal News in Rockland, N.Y.

He started working for the AP in 1973 on the New York photo desk.

He took over the AP's photo operations in Philadelphia as editor in April 1982, where he supervised six staff photographers. It was there Borea began to shine as a sports photographer, covering the World University Games in Edmonton, Canada, the major league baseball playoffs, the 1984 Super Bowl and the National Hockey League playoffs.

Borea covered the 1988 Democratic National Convention. He spoke Italian and Spanish and covered the U.S. invasion in Panama in 1990, the Gulf War and the burning oil fields of Kuwait in 1991.

He became photo editor in Milwaukee in 1992. He also directed the AP photo crew covering track and field events at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain.

Borea came to Baltimore in August 1995 and immediately became a familiar face at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, where he coordinated coverage of Ripken breaking Lou Gehrig's record of playing in 2,130 consecutive baseball games. He also accompanied the team during its historic visit to Cuba in 1999.

"Roberto was just a nice person, the epitome of a true professional," said Bill Stetka, the Orioles' director of public relations. "He is the first person I call to get ideas on how to better accommodate the many photographers that work our games, because he understood the different needs of wire, daily paper and magazine photographers and could give very reasoned ideas.

"He always was looking for out-of-the-way locations to get a different shot of the game, usually from places we didn't normally allow. But I soon learned that if Roberto was asking, it was bound to turn out to be a great photo."

Various newspapers sought to hire Borea, but he made his career working for the AP.

"Roberto epitomized the meaning of photojournalist. He had good news judgment and a skillful eye behind a camera," said Denise Cabrera, the AP's chief of bureau in Baltimore. "He always had good ideas for illustrating stories and was always willing to go the extra mile to get the right shots."

Sweeney recalled the time Borea stayed on top of a hostage situation by moving in with a family on the same block for three days. As well as filing photos of what he saw, Borea called the AP office frequently to report what he heard outside.

Sweeney also remembers a gubernatorial inauguration on a cold January day that Borea covered in a dress shirt and tie.

"He wouldn't go inside for a minute because he was afraid he might miss getting the right picture," Sweeney said.

Borea is survived by his wife, Jeri Clausing; his mother, Phyllis, of New York City, and his sister, Carla Borea Brown of New York City.

BORISLAV, BOSKOVIC —an Associated Press correspondent for the former Yugoslavia from 1948 to 1982, died Oct. 8 in Belgrade,Serbia-Montenegro, of emphysema. Boskovic, who had a Ph.D. in law, wrote for AP at difficult times for Western media as President Josip Broz, Tito's communist authorities took up power after World War II. He was 87.

Boskovic was responsible for the coverage of Tito's rise to power, turbulent days of the dictator's split with the Soviet Union in 1948 and his death in 1980.

The original AP office was located at Hotel Moskva in downtown Belgrade.Instead of an office car, Boskovic in 1948 had a horse-drawn carriage and a coachman as a means of transportation.

BORTNICK, JOSEPH — a retired AP telegraph operator whose career spanned many of the major news events of the past century, died Oct. 16 in Kansas City, MO. He was 96.

Bortnick began his AP career in 1928 in Milwaukee and later worked in Chicago. After retiring from the AP in Kansas City in 1970, he accepted special assignments with the AP for about 10 years. He was called on many times to cover major news stories, including the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy and space launches. Born in Russia, Bortnick began work in the mid-1920s as a Morse code operator for the Union Pacific Railroad in Salt Lake City.

Survivors include three sons and a daughter.

BOTSFORD, PAUL — retired Philadelphia AP technician, was in the process of moving from Philadelphia, PA to this coastal peninsular village when he died unexpectedly Oct. 30, 2001 in Denton, MD. He was 82.

Botsford began working for AP in his home town of San Antonio, TX, and soon transferred to the New York communications staff. A few years later he transferred to Philadelphia where he remained until retiring. Georgianne Browning, a niece, said Botsford lived in a high rise apartment where it became difficult for him to care for his wife after she became ill. He had suffered back problems for some time and felt it would be easier to care for his wife in a small house he had owned here for some time. He became ill Oct. 16, was hospitalized for a short time, and returned home but was unable to continue caring for his wife.

Survivors include his wife, of Denton; one brother, George Botsford of San Antonio, and his niece, who lives at Leander, TX. Botsford is interred at a family plot in San Antonio.

BOWMAN, KEN — an technician who joined AP as a copy boy passed away at home on February 26, 2003 after being diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus in January. He was 63.

Born in Dallas, TX., on September 3, 1939, Bowman joined AP in December 1955. In April of 1958 he became a Wirephoto Operator and qualified for AP Technician in November of 1972.

He is survived by his wife Martel.

BOYLE, SAM — Samuel J. Boyle, a former longtime chief of bureau for AP in New York City, died Sunday, Feb.  3, 2008 at the age of 59. He'd had a long battle with lung cancer, his wife said in an e-mail. Read the Feb. 3 AP obit below:

Former AP New York bureau chief Sam Boyle, oversaw coverage of Sept. 11 attacks, dies at 59

By RICHARD PYLE
Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK (AP) -- Samuel J. Boyle, who in two decades as chief of The Associated Press' New York City bureau oversaw the news organization's coverage of high-profile events from elections and gangster trials to the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, died Sunday at age 59.

Boyle died at home after a long battle with lung cancer, his wife, Suzanne O'Brien, said in an e-mail. Just a few months ago, he relinquished his last role as an adjunct faculty member in Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, where he had taught for nearly two years.

Boyle was born Sept. 25, 1948, into a distinguished Philadelphia newspaper family. His father, Samuel, was a revered editor. His younger brother Bill died last Sept. 8, also of cancer, after a career that included editorships in Philadelphia and 21 years at New York's Daily News, where he was senior managing editor.

Boyle joined the AP in Newark, N.J., in 1971, transferred to the Philadelphia bureau a year later and over the next seven years moved from AP's business desk to the national desk at New York headquarters, and then to deputy sports editor, involved in Olympics and Super Bowl coverage.

In 1981, Boyle was appointed chief of bureau for West Virginia, and the following year he was named bureau chief in New York City, running a large staff whose dual mission is covering local news and explaining Gotham to the world.

Over the next 21 years he supervised coverage of such headline events as the Bernard Goetz subway shootings, the rise and fall of mobster John Gotti, City Hall under mayors Ed Koch, David Dinkins and Rudolph Giuliani, the renovation of raunchy Times Square, the crash of TWA Flight 800 and the World Trade Center attacks in 1993 and 2001.

"Sam was an old-fashioned, hard-nosed newspaperman who thrived on the raucous, anything-can-happen atmosphere that makes New York City a unique place for news," said Mike Silverman, AP's senior managing editor. "But as much as he loved a big story, his allegiance first and foremost was to his staff."

When terrorist-hijacked jetliners destroyed the WTC's twin towers, Boyle managed the NYC bureau through its most tumultuous day ever, coordinating main stories and sidebars from staffers at desks and in the streets, even taking dictation by telephone. It was not the relaxed, somewhat diffident Boyle that his colleagues generally saw.

Boyle's penchant for hands-on reporting could be irrepressible on a major story.

"You knew when he was interested in a story, because Sam would suddenly pop out of his office -- loping across the newsroom, staring over your shoulder at the copy, inevitably dictating a few sentences as you sat banging on the keyboard," said Larry McShane, a former AP reporter, now at the Daily News.

Boyle also was known for backing his employees in disputes with officials and others. When a police officer tried to prevent an AP staffer with press credentials from entering City Hall because "I don't know you," Boyle wrote a strong letter of protest to then-Mayor Giuliani.

"Sam Boyle stood up for me, a junior reporter, and he did so without doubting my story for a moment," recalled the reporter, Timothy Williams, now with The New York Times.

Boyle, an early proponent of news cameras in courtrooms, also was honored by the New York City Press Club and the city's Deadline Club for his activities in Freedom of Information issues.
Boyle, an avid bicyclist and scuba diver, retired from the AP in 2004 and went to work at Columbia two years later, first as an editor in the school's Columbia News Service course and later teaching fundamental reporting and writing.

He was "a thoughtful, magnanimous teacher who combined tough love with just plain love" and quickly won the hearts of his students, "several of whom already have established significant careers," said professor David Klatell, chairman of International Studies at the journalism school.

With his wife, Boyle was active in animal rescue projects, finding homes for strays and adopting half a dozen dogs, including some older ones.

BRADLEY, JEFF — critic-at-large for The Denver Post and a former AP foreign correspondent, died March 22, 2000 of cancer in Denver, CO. He was 56.

Bradley began his newspaper career in 1966 at his hometown newspaper, the Springfield (Mass.) Union, where he received national recognition for his reporting on the treatment of the mentally ill. He served 20 years with the AP as a reporter and as news editor in London and bureau chief in Beijing and Toronto. In 1989 he joined The Denver Post as entertainment editor. Later he became a critic on subjects as diverse as the visual arts, jazz, opera and classical music, and a columnist.

Survivors include his wife and two children.

BRADSHAW, VIRGIL — Bradshaw, a former deputy director of The Associated Press' communications department who helped develop the news cooperative's LaserPhoto system during his 41-year career died Sept. 10, 2004, in Ramona, Calif., of congestive heart failure. He was 77.

Born in Hannibal, Mo., Virgil Bradshaw joined the AP in June 1944 in Kansas City, where his father worked as a teletype operator. He was inducted into the Navy a few months later and rejoined the AP in 1946 after serving in World War II.
He held a series of jobs and eventually ran communications in the AP's Kansas City, St. Louis and Indianapolis bureaus. He ended his career in New York, where he held the No. 2 position in the company's communications department for a decade.

Bradshaw was instrumental in developing AP's LaserPhoto system in the 1970s. LaserPhoto processed photos with heat instead of chemistry. It allowed higher-quality images to be transmitted faster to AP members.

Bradshaw and his first wife, Mary, moved to Ramona, east of San Diego, after he retired from the AP in 1985. She died in 1995.

Survivors include his second wife, Perdita, and eight children. His son, Patrick, is a third-generation AP employee who is chief of communications in Indianapolis.

BRAGG, JAMIE — a fixture on all-news radio in Washington for more than 25 years, died Oct. 8, 1995 of prostate cancer. He was 68.

Bragg retired in August from Washington's WTOP Radio after a 38-year career at the station. He joined WTOP in 1957 and served as a staff announcer, talk show host and most recently a news anchor before becoming ill late last year.

Survivors include his wife, two sons and a daughter.

BRANDT, WILLY — who joined the AP in Germany in 1936 and played a key role in building the agency's German-language news service after World War II, died March 22, 2001 after a brief illness. He was 90.

Brandt became head of the AP's photo operations in Berlin in 1936. The agency's operations in Germany were shut down by the Nazis when war was declared against the U.S. in 1941 and American employees interned. Brandt, a German, was appointed by the AP to protect the company's assets as best he could during the war.

Despite air raids, one of which destroyed the AP's Berlin bureau, and other difficulties, Brandt was able to preserve AP records, photos, news files and equipment until the end of the war. Soviet troops destroyed much of what he had saved, including some 70,000 glass photo negatives, when they reached the village southeast of Berlin where Brandt had hidden them. Most of the AP's film archives survived.

In 1950, Brandt rejoined the AP as sales manager in Frankfurt, which had become the headquarters of the AP's postwar operations. He played a crucial role in finding subscribers for the AP's newly-founded German-language news service.

The AP German Service is now the agency's largest overseas news operation, serving more than 200 media customers. It is Germany's second-largest news agency after the national agency Deutsche Presse Agentur.

Brandt, who lived in retirement in Wiesbaden since 1975, is survived by a daughter.

BRENNE, RONALD — an AP photo library researcher, died in New York Oct. 4 after a short illness. He was 59.

Brenne, a Vietnam veteran, had a long career in photo research starting in 1962 with United Press International. Before joining the AP he also worked as a senior researcher in New York for Bettmann Newsphotos and later Corbis Corporation. Brenne's experience and passionate interest in photos, artwork and history made him a popular and highly respected authority to clients as well as co-workers. In the course of his career he contributed research to many projects and exhibitions, including the Metropolitan Museum's 2001 Jacqueline Kennedy exhibit, a 2001 Marilyn Monroe exhibit for Nippon TV and 1999's Moment of Impact, the Emmy Award-winning television documentary on the Pulitzer Prize photos.

He is survived by a sister and brother.

BROSSIER, CLEMENT C. — who was chief of four AP bureaus, including Detroit for 17 years, died Nov. 23, 1996, in Inverness, Fla. He was 78.

A native of Orlando, Fla., Brossier joined AP as a newsman in New Orleans in 1947 after serving in the Coast Guard during World War II. He transferred to Jackson, Miss., then became chief of bureau in Little Rock, Ark., in 1952. He was named chief of bureau in Detroit in 1956. In 1977, he became chief of bureau in Honolulu. Five years later, he was named chief of bureau in Charleston, W.Va. He retired in 1984.

Brossier helped establish and acted as a trustee for the Gramling Awards, begun in 1994 to recognize excellence by AP employees. Brossier's widow, Betty, said the AP was a very large part of his life. "He lived and breathed The Associated Press," she said. "The people in it were his very devoted friends." Brossier's father, James C. Brossier, and uncle, Peschmann Brossier, were the former owners of the Evening Reporter Star newspaper in Orlando, which later became the Orlando Sentinel.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by a son, James C. Brossier, and a sister, Betty Jane Dion.

BROWN, JUDITH W. — a former editor and publisher of The Herald of New Britain, Conn., and member of the AP board of directors since 1994, died Sept. 12 at her home in Kensington, CN., after a long battle with cancer. She was 72.

President Boccardi said Brown cared deeply about The AP. "We will miss that concern and support." Boccardi said you could count on Judy to ask, 'What does this mean to the members and to the staff?'"

BROWNSTONE, CECILY -- who wrote cookbooks and twice-a-week feature articles on food for The Associated Press for 39 years, died Aug. 29, 2005 in New York. She was 96.

Brownstone became interested in food at an early age and devoted most of her life to writing about it, becoming a leading figure in New York's circle of cookbook authors and restaurant critics and one of the nation's most widely published food writers.

Her close friends in the field included Irma Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker, authors of the "Joy of Cooking" books.

From 1947 until she retired in 1986, Brownstone wrote two columns on cuisine and five recipes a week for the AP, an estimated 14,200 articles.

She also was food editor of Parents magazine and child care editor of Family Circle magazine. Her own cookbooks included "Cecily Brownstone's Associated Press Cookbook" and "Classic Cakes and Other Great Cuisinart Desserts," co-authored with Carl Sontheimer, founder of the Cuisinart company.


BUCCIGROSSI, JOHN L. — who was part of AP's technical staff when he retired, died June 14, 2007. He was 77. Buccigrossi worked for the AP for 45 years, starting out in New York in 1950 in Photos and concluding his career in 1995 as a technician. He and his wife, Pat, moved in 1999 from Long Island, N.Y., to Largo, Fla. He is survived by his wife and three children.

BURROUGHS, HENRY — an award-winning photographer who chronicled three decades of news for AP, died Jan. 14, 2000 at his home in West River, MD. He was 81.

Known as "Hank," he joined the AP in 1944 and covered every president from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Gerald Ford. Burroughs' most memorable images include a photo of Richard Nixon standing at the window of the Oval Office just as his presidency was about to collapse and a photo of John F. Kennedy just moments before his assassination.

Born in 1918, he spent six years as a fashion and advertising photographer at The Washington Post before joining the AP. He retired in 1975, after 31 years with AP. Colleagues called him the "dean of the Washington photographers." He received the first AP Managing Editors Award for photographic excellence and in 1973 he was named "Photographer of the Year" by the White House News Photographers Association.

Burroughs is survived by a stepson, a stepdaughter, two sisters and his third wife, Margaret Wohlgemuth.

BYE, ERIK — a former news editor for The Associated Press and one of Norway's most beloved entertainers who garnered fans with his poetry, stories, songs and appearances on radio and television, died October 13, 2004 in Oslo, Norway. He was 78.

Bye died after a long illness, the nature of which wasn't disclosed. There was no information on survivors and funeral plans were pending.

Bye became a household name in Norway through his appearances on the state radio and television network NRK, often performing traditional sailor songs.

Born in New York City on March 1, 1926, to Norwegian opera singer Erik Ole Bye and Rooennaug Dahl, he moved back to the Nordic country in 1932. While a teenager during World War II, he was part of the Norwegian resistance against Nazi occupiers, but fled to neighboring Sweden before the end of the war.

Afterward, he returned to the United States to study, receiving a master's degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1953.

He returned to Norway, and worked as a journalist, including a stint as news editor for the AP bureau in Oslo from 1953-1955 and as a reporter for the British Broadcasting Corp. until 1958.

He joined state broadcaster NRK and worked there until he retired in 1996.

In reporting his death, NRK simply said "The Chief is Dead." Bye won more radio and broadcast awards than any other Norwegian broadcaster.

"Erik Bye was unique in the Norwegian media, he was also a kind and inspiring presence in NRK," said John G. Bernander, the director of NRK.

During his career, Bye wrote 14 books, and released 19 albums featuring his own songs as well as traditional music and Norwegian sea shanties. He also wrote poems, articles and was the first host of NRK's morning breakfast program when it started airing in 1983.

BUTLER, EDWARD T. — former AP deputy foreign editor, died Jan. 5, 1997 of bone cancer. He was 70. Ed retired in 1992 after two decades as assistant and then deputy foreign editor of the AP, positions in which he oversaw production of feature articles from AP bureaus worldwide.

``Ed helped raise a generation of AP foreign correspondents,'' said Tom Kent, international editor. ``He encouraged correspondents to look for good writing opportunities in the countries they covered, in daily life. He pressed them to go well beyond the political and economic stories that are the bread-and-butter of foreign reporters.''

A native of New Haven, Conn., Ed received a journalism degree from Boston University after serving with the U.S. Army from 1945 to 1946.

He went to work as a reporter for the New Haven Journal-Courier in 1951, moved to local radio station WAVZ later that year and joined the AP's New Haven bureau in 1952. In 1957, he transferred to the Foreign Desk in New York.

A year later he was assigned to Rio de Janeiro as a correspondent. In Brazil, he reported on a period of growing political tension that eventually ushered in 21 years of military rule.

He returned to New York in 1962 as a foreign news editor, was named assistant foreign editor in 1973 and deputy foreign editor in 1980. Ed conceived and edited the ``Byways'' series, periodic articles from out-of-the-way locations, and annually organized and edited AP's ``World Symposium'' package, looking ahead to likely developments in the new year.

He is survived by his widow, Freya, a former AP News Library and AP World Services Department staff member; two sons, Jeffrey and Mark; and a granddaughter and grandson.

BYRD, BENJAMIN LEE — a former AP writer and editor in the Washington bureau, died Nov. 1, 2004, in northern Virginia. He was 60.

Virginia's County of Prince William police department said that during the course of the night, which was the early morning of Nov. 1, Byrd got up to get a drink of water and collapsed. Authorities say a rescue unit responded to the Lake Ridge area of the county and transported Byrd to a hospital where he was pronounced dead at 5:54 a.m. The medical examiner ruled that Byrd's death came from natural causes.

Benjamin Lee Byrd was born Sept. 6, 1944 in Kansas where his father, a military officer, was stationed. He first worked for The AP part-time in Kansas and was hired as a full-time staffer in Salt Lake City in the early 1970s. After four years there he transferred to Washington, where he spent the next 20 years, leaving the company in September 1993. "He was easily one of the finest writers and editors Washington ever saw,'' said Reid Miller, who was Byrd's bureau chief in Salt Lake City and later the assistant chief of the Washington bureau. Byrd was respected among colleagues for his writing skills and versatility, and "as an editor, he consistently made a lot of lesser writers look far better than they were,'' Miller said. Covering the Seoul Olympics in 1988, Byrd wrote a profile of sprinter Ben Johnson that won the AP story of the year award from the Associated Press Sports Editors.

Once, while working the desk in Washington, Byrd learned from a colleague that Sen. Harry Byrd, D-Va., had introduced a bill to restore the U.S. citizenship of Confederate Civil War hero Robert E. Lee. Byrd rushed to Capitol Hill by taxi, interviewed the senator and wrote a story slugged "Byrd-Lee,'' above the byline, "By Lee Byrd.''

A memorial service -- attended by more than 20 of Byrd's former AP colleagues -- was held Feb. 20, 2005 in suburban Washington.