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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GALE, JOHN — Gale, a former AP bureau chief who instilled a sense of principled journalism in his reporters over two decades, died June 23 in Amsterdam. He was 72.

Gale joined the AP in London in 1955. He was bureau chief in Copenhagen, Denmark, and Amsterdam, where he remained after his retirement in 1985. In 14 years as head of the Amsterdam bureau, Gale extended and modernized the AP's Dutch—language service.

Gale, born to a British father and American mother, was raised in Britain. When he was given the choice of joining either the U.S. or British army, Gale enlisted in the American forces in 1947. After his discharge, he worked on several American newspapers before returning to Britain to work on dailies.

As an AP reporter in London, he interviewed Winston Churchill shortly before the former prime minister's death in 1965. Although Lady Churchill responded to most questions, it was the last press encounter the wartime prime minister had.

Gale became bureau chief in Copenhagen in 1965 and moved to Amsterdam in 1971.

Survivors include his wife and three children.


GANGULY, DILIP — Dilip Ganguly's 21-year career at The Associated Press saw him report from Baghdad during the Gulf War, on the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide and on stories across South Asia. He died on Sunday, July 29, 2007. He was 57.

Ganguly, in a coma since suffering a brain hemorrhage on July 14, died in Calcutta, the eastern Indian city where he was based, said his son, Shonal Ganguly.

"Dilip loved being a journalist. His career had taken him around the world and he had shown repeatedly through his hard work and his earnestness just how good a journalist he could be," said Tim Sullivan, the AP's chief of bureau in New Delhi.

Among Ganguly's high-profile assignments -- and the one he was most proud of -- was covering Baghdad at the start of the 1991 Gulf War.

"The sky of the city of 'a thousand-and-one nights' looked as if someone had set off tens of thousands of firecrackers," he wrote in a dispatch about the night the U.S.-led coalition began bombing the city.

Louis D. Boccardi, then chief executive of the AP, praised Ganguly's "courageous and steady performance" in a note to Ganguly, who made it out of Iraq a few days later.

"Dilip's passion was getting the story in tough places," said John Daniszewski, AP's International Editor. "He was a person who lived and breathed the news, whether in Africa, the Middle East, or South Asia."

Ganguly was born in 1949 in Ranchi, in eastern India. After graduating from Ranchi University, he worked at newspapers, magazines and news agencies before joining the AP in New Delhi in 1986. AP assignments took him from the Himalayan mountains to the jungles of northeastern India and, soon enough, to Iraq.

In Baghdad, Saddam Hussein's government tapped his telephone. When Ganguly called his wife in India and started speaking Bengali, the line was cut because the government didn't have Bengali translators.

Ganguly returned to Iraq after the war. He later covered the aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan genocide and the war in Bosnia.
In 1997, Ganguly was named correspondent in Colombo, Sri Lanka. In April, he moved to Calcutta to bolster AP's coverage of India's emergence as a global power.

Ganguly was cremated Sunday in accordance with Hindu traditions. He is survived by his wife Nupur and two sons.

GARCIA, RODOLFO — Garcia, an AP reporter who covered Nicaragua's emergence out of civil war, a papal visit, volcanoes and floods, died March 11, 2000 in Managua. He was 58.

Garcia joined AP in Managua in 1986 after working for Radio Nicaragua, where he was director of shortwave broadcasts, and after helping found a local news agency, Agencia de Noticias Nueva Nicaragua.

For the AP, he reported on the war between the Sandinista government and Contra rebels, the Sandinistas' loss of power at the ballot box and Nicaragua's sometimes turbulent effort to put years of war behind it.

He also chronicled volcanic eruptions, the 1996 visit of Pope John Paul II and the ravages of Hurricane Mitch in 1998.

Survivors include his wife and four daughters.


GEIGER, BOB — who in nearly 40 years with The Associated Press covered the drought that ravaged the "dust bowl" in the 1930s, World War II combat and Washington politics, died Sept. 17, 2006, in Reno, Nev. He was 103.

Geiger, born and raised in Denver, joined the AP there in 1929. He also worked early in his career in Cheyenne, Wyo., and in Albuquerque, N.M.

In a 2002 interview, he wouldn't take full credit for having the some of the first stories to use the term "dust bowl." He said an editor added it to one of his many accounts of the historic Plains drought.

Also in the 1930s, he helped to expand the then-new AP Wirephoto service to Western states as photo features editor for the Rocky Mountain region. He later became part of AP's expanding Newsfeatures team as a Western features writer.

Volunteering for combat reporting duty during World War II, Geiger spent nearly a year covering the war in the Pacific.

Following the war, Geiger was transferred to Washington, where he spent 23 years writing features and handling a variety of other news assignments during the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson administrations. He retired in 1968.

GESCHKE, LES — who worked for The Associated Press for a half century before retiring from the technical staff, died April 9, 2005, in Chesterfield, MO., He was 84.

A memorial service was held April 12 in Chesterfield. "The service went perfect," said a son, Steve Geschke, of Wildwood, MO. "My dad would have been proud. We were all proud. He was buried at Jefferson Barracks Memorial with a military salute."

Lester George Geschke wrote about his career in an autobiographical letter provided by the family called "My 50 Years with The AP." Here are some excerpts:

"As I previously reported, I began service with the AP on September 30, 1937. Progression of positions: Printer Attendant, Operator Attendant, Wire Photo Operator, Part time Photographer, Technician and Technical Service Manager. I was promoted to Traffic Bureau Chief of the St. Louis, AP Office May 5, 1960."

"In 1965, I was promoted to Wire Photo Operations Supervisor in New York with responsibilities to see Wire Photo Operations in New York and the U.S. ran successfully."

"May 1965. I was promoted to the engineering staff of the new AP Technical Center established in St. Louis."

"In August 1972, The AP decided to move the Tech Center from St. Louis to East Brunswick, New Jersey."

" ... in San Diego ... my Technicians territory was within a triangular field that stretched from Tijuana, Mexico north up the coast 130 miles to Coast Mesa, Ca., and from the Pacific Ocean east 150 miles to El Centro, then south across the border in Mexicali, Mexico, and back 150 miles to San Diego."

"On retiring in 1987 the AP gave me a great retirement party at Jack Murphy Stadium in two luxury field boxes my son Jim obtained from Charger owner Alex Spanos. Jim went all-out to coordinate the affair. At least 50 of my AP friends from all over the country, including the AP's Vice President of the Traffic department John Reid attended. My good friend Virgil Bradshaw was the MC. I modestly told the AP people in New York, it was the biggest retirement party the AP ever gave. It was held during a Padre-Dodger game in which 27,000 attended."

"All in all, my time with the Associated Press was a great experience. I received a liberal education, got to travel extensively throughout the United States and other parts of the World, never missed a day's work even during the depression and had the pleasure of working with many interesting and famous people."

Read the edited family-written obituary below.

GESCHKE, LESTER GEORGE, 84. Lester George Geschke passed away April 9, 2005, in Chesterfield, MO., after a long illness.

Born in Afton, MO., on Oct. 27, 1920, Lester moved to San Diego, Calif., in 1972, where he lived for 31 years before returning to the St. Louis area in 2003. His professional career spanned 50 years with the Associated Press (AP) wire service, where he distinguished himself as a photographer, wirephoto operator, traffic bureau chief and technical service manager before retiring in 1987. He and his wife Dorothy celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary in 2004.

Lester attended O'Fallon Elementary School, Blair School and two years at Central High School in St. Louis. His first job was as a copy boy for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1935. He joined the AP two years later.

During World War II, Lester joined the Signal Corps in December 1942, and eventually transferred to the United States Air Force in 1943, where he took basic training at Jefferson Barricks, MO., and Wichita Falls, Texas. He was then transferred to Las Vegas Air Force Base in Las Vegas, Nevada, serving as a B17 Ball Turret Instructor. While stationed in Las Vegas, he and Dorothy were married on Sept. 9, 1944. He was honorably discharged in December 1945 and returned to work with the AP in St. Louis.

With the AP, Lester traveled the country, particularly after his promotion to the newly formed AP Technical Center in 1965. As a media professional he covered dozens of memorable news and sporting events and worked with many notable newsmen. He covered former President Harry Truman's return to Independence, MO., after leaving the presidency, and was a member of the AP staff covering the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, N.J. In October 1965, he ascended the St. Louis Gateway Arch on an outside scaffolding to photograph the final centerpiece of the structure being set in place. He was friends with photographers Murray Becker (Hindenburg disaster) and Joe Rosenthal (flag raising at Iwo Jima), and worked with Hall of Fame baseball writers Bob Broeg (St. Louis Post Dispatch), Bob Burns (St. Louis Globe Democrat) and Phil Collier (San Diego Union).

A lifelong baseball fan, he covered many St. Louis Cardinal and St. Louis Browns games as well as several All-Star Games and World Series. Lester was in attendance for Game 7 of the 1946 World Series when St. Louis Cardinal Enos Slaughter made his famous dash around the bases. In his later years he became an avid fan of the San Diego Padres and outfielder Tony Gwynn.

Lester also was a skilled amateur baseball and softball player. He played in St. Louis area Municipal Baseball Leagues for many years, and later was a member of a highly successful fast pitch softball team in Glasgow Village in North St. Louis. Perhaps his biggest thrill was hitting a line single off Hall of Famer Dizzy Dean at Sportsman's Park in a Sportswriters vs. Sportscasters promotional game.

GEYELIN, PHILIP — Geyelin, the Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist who helped turn The Washington Post editorial page against the Vietnam War, died Jan. 9, 2004, in Washington of an apparent heart attack. He was 80.

Geyelin started his career with The Associated Press in the mid-1940s and then spent 20 years with The Wall Street Journal before joining the Post in 1967 as deputy editor of the editorial page.

That year, after editor Russ Wiggins left the paper, Geyelin took over the editorial page. Wiggins and Geyelin had engaged in heated discussions about Vietnam, which Wiggins supported.

Geyelin, a World War II veteran, was staunchly opposed to the Vietnam War.

Washington Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt said Jan. 10 that Geyelin was an important part of the newspaper's history.

"He was a very sophisticated observer of foreign affairs," Hiatt said.

Geyelin won the Pulitzer in 1970 for his anti-war editorials.

In her memoir "Personal History," former Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham wrote about one of her conversations with Geyelin on the war.

"We agreed that the Post ought to work its way out of the very supportive editorial position it had taken, but that we couldn't be precipitous," she said. "He (Geyelin) used the image that changing our policy was like turning a great vessel around — you first had to slow down before you could start to turn."

Geyelin left the Post in 1979 and was replaced with Meg Greenfield, a close friend of Graham's.

Longtime friend and former Washington bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, Jack Nelson, remembered Geyelin as a soft-spoken and modest man.

"He knew a lot of people around town and he knew a lot of important people because of the position he held at the Post, but he was never one with real self-importance himself," Nelson said.

GIBSON, JOHN — a retired editor for The Associated Press in Chicago who covered Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1966 march through the suburb of Cicero, died June 19, 2005, in Crete, Ill., after a stroke. He was 88.

Gibson, a native of Danville, began his career after high school at the Danville Tribune, where his father was a city editor. He joined the AP in Louisville, Ky., in 1943, and worked as a correspondent for the news cooperative in Lexington before moving to the Chicago bureau in 1958.

In 1966, Gibson watched as King and other civil rights activists were pelted by stones during a march in Cicero.

"He came home very touched by the march," son Tom Gibson said. "He was really surprised and a little disappointed by the animosity that was shown because the march itself was peaceful and the people on the streets weren't."

Gibson later became an editor who packaged stories from the main news, sports and financial wires for smaller newspapers in Illinois.

He retired in 1979.

GILBRETH, FRANK — Gilbreth, best-selling author of "Cheaper by the Dozen," longtime columnist for The (Charleston) Post and Courier and a one-time AP staffer, died on Feb. 18, 2001 in Charleston, SC. He was 89.

Gilbreth was well known in Charleston for his column, "Doing the Charleston," which he wrote from the late 1940s to 1993 under the pen name Ashley Cooper. He also helped direct the newspaper's growth as assistant publisher of The Post and Courier and vice president of Evening Post Publishing Co.

In 1949, Gilbreth and his sister, Ernestine Gilbreth Carey, collaborated in writing "Cheaper by the Dozen," the story of growing up in a family of 12 children with efficiency expert parents. It was a best seller, as was its sequel, "Belles on their Toes." Both were made into movies.

He worked as a reporter for the New York Herald Tribune before moving to The News and Courier in 1934. He also worked for the AP, first in Raleigh, N.C., then in New York City.

Survivors include seven brothers and sisters.

GLOVER, WILLIAM (BILL) — a retired editor and drama critic for The Associated Press, died December 20, 2002 after a long illness. He was 91.

In his 18 years as the AP's drama critic, from 1960 to 1978, Glover covered more than 3,000 openings on and off-Broadway. He reviewed theater in 28 states and 20 countries, in cities as far-flung as Tahlequah, Okla., and Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

During a time when first-night drama critics raced back to their desks to write reviews on deadline, Glover acquired a reputation for his agile exits from the theater the moment the curtain came down. Cue magazine once dubbed him "the Nureyev of the aisle."

Glover's reviews were concise and to the point. If he liked a show, you found out in the opening paragraph. "An exuberantly winning musical, `Mame,' opened tonight to well-earned cheers at Broadway's Winter Garden Theater," he wrote in 1966.

Glover began his journalism career at the Asbury Park (N.J.) Press, where he was city editor from 1935 to 1939. He joined the AP's Newark bureau in 1939, and in 1941 came to the AP in New York as news editor of a mailed feature service. After World War II, he returned to the AP as science editor for a year and then as editor of AP Newsfeatures until 1957.

It was at that time Glover began contributing Sunday theater columns and reviews for the AP wire, at the same time serving as news editor of the New York bureau. In 1960, he became the full-time drama critic, a position he held until his retirement.

Glover graduated from Rutgers University in New Jersey, and served in the U.S. Maritime Service from 1943-1945.

He was a member of the New York Drama Critics' Circle, as well as one of its presidents. For many years, he served on the nominating committee for the Tony Awards, both before and after his retirement from the AP.

Glover is survived by his wife, Virginia Holden Glover, and a sister, Grace Nye, of Pensacola, Fla.

No memorial service was planned.

GOSKE, ORNELIA POREA — a former AP newswoman who covered the wedding of actors Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart, died Sept. 19, 1999 at age 88, in a nursing home in Mayfield Heights, OH.

Writing under her maiden name, Cornelia E. Porea, she covered the Bacall-Bogart wedding in 1945.

She later taught in Parma, Ohio, schools for more than 20 years and eventually returned to writing articles for the old Cleveland Press and the suburban Sun weeklies.

She graduated from Kent State University, where she taught journalism for two years before becoming a reporter.

GOULD, LEE — whose three-decade career at The Associated Press took him from interviewing Sammy Davis Jr. in Las Vegas to editing breaking news from the nation's capital, died March 14, 2005 in Tucson, Ariz., where he moved had on extended disability leave. He was 59.

For years Gould was at his Washington desk by sunrise to shepherd the day's earliest news to the wire, against the tight deadlines of afternoon papers.

"He was one of the unsung heroes of the AP who just day in and day out do a great job without an awful lot of fanfare," said Reid Miller, a former Washington assistant bureau chief who worked with Gould in Washington and in Miami.

"He was one of the most calmly efficient editors I ever worked with," Miller said. "I don't know that I ever heard him raise his voice."

Gould joined the AP in December 1969 in Phoenix, then transferred to Las Vegas, where he covered the casinos and got to know big-name entertainers including Davis and Jimmy Durante.

After a stint in New York as an editor, Gould was named correspondent in charge of Pittsburgh. He liked to recall how, in giving him his promotion, an AP executive noted that he was the best-dressed among the editing crew _ leaving Gould to wonder whether it was his skills or his snappy wardrobe that impressed the bosses.

He also worked as a reporter and then news editor in Miami, and in 1978 came to Washington, where he directed congressional coverage for a time and delighted in sharing with visitors the ins and outs and history of the Capitol.

GRAHAM, DONALD J. — a retired technical supervisor for the AP, died April 10, 2001 in a Cape Coral, FL., hospital after a lengthy illness. He was 69.

A native of Buffalo, NY, Graham had lived in Florida since 1993. The Air Force veteran worked for the AP for 39 years and was a communications technical supervisor. He was based in the Buffalo office for most of his career, and spent six years based in Albany.

He took a long-term disability retirement in 1989. Graham enjoyed hunting, fishing and golfing and was a dedicated Buffalo Bills fan.

He and Dorothy Brundage were married in 1960. Survivors include his wife and daughter.

GRIMSLEY, WILL — Grimslely, who covered the spectrum of sports for four decades as a reporter, columnist and special correspondent for The Associated Press, is dead at age 88.

Grimsley's byline was one of the best known in sports as he reported from the world's biggest athletic events for nearly half a century, including 15 Olympics, 35 World Series and 25 Kentucky Derbies.

Grimsley, who retired in 1984, died October 31, 2002 of heart failure in East Meadow, N.Y. He was buried Monday.

Born in Monterey, Tenn., Grimsley was the son of a railroad engineer. He joined the sports staff of the Evening Tennessean at age 18 and became sports editor and columnist for the paper in 1935.

Grimsley was hired by the AP at Memphis in 1943 and transferred to New York as a sports writer in 1947. In 1969, he was named a special correspondent, one of just a handful of AP writers and the only one in sports to carry that title.

Eight years later, in 1977, "Grimsley's Sports World" made its debut as a five-day-a-week column that gave afternoon newspapers a versatile look at the world Grimsley occupied. Sometimes it was a mood piece, sometimes it was analytical, sometimes it was a profile of a sports personality.

"Will Grimsley was one of the stars of a golden era in American sports writing," said AP vice president Wick Temple, sports editor from 1973-80. "Hundreds of newspaper sports pages depended on Will's reporting of every major event. And when he turned to column writing, his analysis and comments earned him more ink certainly than any other sports writer because of AP's scope."

Grimsley specialized in golf, tennis, college football and the Olympics, and he regularly covered the Indianapolis 500, the Super Bowl, the Masters and Wimbledon.

He reported on the early career of Jack Nicklaus and Howard Cosell's start on "Monday Night Football."

He wrote a series on Cassius Clay's embracing the Muslim faith and taking the name Muhammad Ali, and he was with the champ when he refused to be inducted into the military in 1967.

Grimsley covered Ali's knockout of George Foreman at "The Rumble in the Jungle" in Zaire in 1974 and the defeat of Joe Frazier at the "Thrilla in Manila" a year later.

He traveled to Australia a dozen times for the Davis Cup and covered World Cup golf in Ireland, Australia, Japan, Mexico and Hawaii.

During the 1972 Munich Olympics, when Palestinian terrorists seized a group of Israeli athletes who were later killed, Grimsley was determined to find a way into the police command post.

He ran to his room and put on a blazer with an Olympic badge pinned to his breast pocket, according to Robert H. Johnson, who was AP sports editor from 1969-73.

"Then the 6-foot, 190-pound redhead, looking the very model of a pompous Olympic official, strode through the village gate and into the command post," Johnson recalled.

Although he didn't know German and didn't want to give himself away by speaking English aloud in his Tennessee accent, he was able to follow the police activities and phone them in a whisper to AP's Olympics bureau, Johnson said. His cover was blown and he was ejected from the post when a colleague, the late Jim Murray of the Los Angeles Times, spotted Grimsley and yelled, "Hey, Will, get me in!"

Grimsley's column quickly won wide acceptance because of his versatility.

"You walk a tightrope with water on both shoulders. After all, it's a big audience and a very critical one," he once said of column writing.

He did his share of breaking news, too. Sent to Mississippi to cover a sports event in 1964, he turned to reporting to write about the murder of three civil rights workers during the "Freedom Summer" that became the basis for the 1988 movie "Mississippi Burning."

In 1978, a year after beginning the column, Grimsley was voted Sports Writer of the Year by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association, an honor repeated in 1980, 1981 and 1983. Red Smith of The New York Times and Murray were the only other writers to win the award that often.

The year Grimsley retired, the Associated Press Sports Editors named an annual award for him to honor a body of work by an AP sports writer.

Grimsley served as president of the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association in 1985-86 and was president of the United States Golf Writers Association and United States Tennis Writers Association.

He wrote four books, "Golf — Its History, People and Events" (Prentice-Hall, 1966); "Tennis — Its History, People and Events" (Prentice-Hall, 1971); "Football — Greatest Moments of the Southwest Conference 1968"; and "101 Greatest Athletes of the Century" (Bonanza Books, 1987). He was supervising editor of two Associated Press books, "The History of American Sports" and "Sports Immortals" (Rutledge, 1971). In reviewing the tennis book, Fred Tupper of The New York Times called Grimsley, "perhaps the world's best sports reporter."

In 1987, Grimsley became the only wire service reporter to receive APSE's Red Smith Award for "extended meritorious service to sports journalism." He was its seventh winner, joining Smith, Murray, Shirley Povich, Fred Russell, Blackie Sherrod and Si Burick.

"This is sort of my last hurrah, the culmination of my whole career," Grimsley said in his acceptance speech. "And I feel really good about it."

Grimsley said he was distressed at the time about criticism of sports writing.

"I think some of the finest writing in the industry today is on the sports pages," he said. "I'm proud to be a sports writer."

Survivors include a daughter, Nellie B. Grimsley, and a son, William Kelly Grimsley.

Photos of Will Grimsley

GUNBY, PHILIP E. — onetime AP newsman and a former editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, died May 21, 2000 of pneumonia, in Tulsa, OK. He was 67.

Gunby was an AP reporter in Columbus, Ohio, from 1956 to 1964. In 1964, he was hired as an associate editor for the journal. He was later promoted to editor and director of medical news and humanities for the publication, where he remained until his retirement in 1997.

Following retirement, Gunby moved to Tulsa. He is survived by his wife, two sons and one daughter.