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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KAMM, HERB — Kamm, a former newspaper editor in New York and Cleveland who covered events ranging from the funeral of Franklin D. Roosevelt to the World Series, died in Avila Beach, Calif. on September 25, 2002. He was 85.

Kamm, who had been diagnosed with leukemia just eight days earlier, died at his home on California's central coast.

Kamm worked for organizations from the New York World Journal Tribune to the Cleveland Press to The Associated Press during a journalism career that spanned more than half a century.

After leaving newspaper management, Kamm became an influential teacher and mentor at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, and wrote editorials for The Tribune newspaper there while serving on its editorial board.

Throughout his career, Kamm had relentless energy for his work and an ability to relate to everyone who worked for him, said Louis D. Boccardi, president and chief executive officer of The Associated Press.

"His mind raced constantly to the next story, the next peg, the next development, always finding the next plateau," said Boccardi, who once worked for Kamm. "Wherever he went — New York, Cleveland, then California — he got to know everybody. That was his way."

Kamm was executive editor of the New York World Journal Tribune from 1966 to 1967. When that paper folded, he became an editorial consultant for the Scripps Howard Newspapers group.

He joined the Cleveland Press in 1969, serving as an associate editor and editorial-page editor before being named editor in January 1980. He stepped down two years later after reaching retirement age, but continued to write a column until the paper folded in June 1982.

He later served as editorial director at WJKW-TV, a CBS affiliate in Cleveland.

Kamm began his career at age 17, covering sports for the Asbury Park Press in New Jersey. He worked for The Associated Press in Newark, New Jersey, then in 1943 went to work for the New York World-Telegram & Sun, becoming managing editor in 1963.

That paper merged with the New York Herald Tribune and Journal-American to become the New York World Journal Tribune.

Many things about the media have changed since then, Kamm said in a 2001 interview, but one thing remains true: "Whether you write or broadcast, the name of the game is to get the facts, get them straight and transmit them to the reader, listener and viewer in language that has color and style."

Kamm was born in 1917 in Long Branch, New Jersey. He is survived by his wife Phyllis, their three sons, six grandchildren and one great grandson.

KANE, EDWIN J. — a broadcaster who spent the final 24 years of his career with the AP Radio Network in Washington, Oct. 19, 2000 in Reston, VA. He was 76.

During a 39-year career, Kane interviewed Presidents Nixon and Johnson and covered the national political conventions. Kane was news director and anchorman at WNBF-TV, Binghamton, N.Y., from 1960 through 1963, and then moved to WPRO-TV in Providence, R.I., where as anchorman he won the Alfred P. Sloan Award for a yearlong series on automobile safety that he wrote and produced. He anchored newscasts on ABC Radio starting in 1967 before joining the AP network as anchorman for hourly newscasts from 1974 to 1980. After retiring, Kane co-produced and announced "Home Front" for AP radio until 1998.

Survivors include three daughters.

KAPLAN, SEYMOUR — helped AP move into the computer age in the early 1960s. He joined AP in 1943 as a stock tabulator in the New York bureau. By 1961 he was well positioned to become one of the original programmers when the news service began developing computer programs for its stock lists. Kaplan retired in December, 1991, ending a 48-year AP career. He was 75 when he died Oct. 31, 2001 in Orest Hills, N.Y.

"He was always very devoted to the AP," said his wife, Natalie. "He always worked in the New York office except for occasional educational trips to other offices or computer companies for business reasons." Other survivors include one sister, Geraldine Weinrub of Margate, FL.

KAUFMAN, GEORGE — While he was AP bureau chief in Havana, George Kaufman ran afoul of Fidel Castro's secret police twice, soon after the communist leader overthrew the Batista regime. The first time in 1960, he and his wife, Marta, landed in a Cuban jail. They never knew why they were arrested — or released a week later. But George quickly arranged for his wife and two young sons to fly to Miami. He stayed behind, trying to function as the AP man in Cuba while his mother took over housekeeping duties.

A couple of months later, his mother tipped him off in a phone conversation that all was not right at home. Instead of going home for lunch Kaufman took asylum in the Argentine embassy in Havana. He learned later that Castro's secret G2 police were waiting at his house for him. They were not interested in his mother, then in her mid 70s.

Their oldest son, Jorge Kaufman of Nashua, N.H., told of his father's life in Cuba. He said it took about six weeks for the ambassador to arrange a commercial flight to take his father to Miami.

"Under conditions at that time," Kaufman said, "it was necessary for the ambassador to personally drive Dad to the steps of the plane and watch until he was on board."

George Kaufman was born in the Canary Islands and moved with his parents to Havana as a child. He joined The AP there in 1939. Kaufman died at his retirement home in Florida, Feb. 26, 2001. He was 91.

He and Marta had been married 51 years. Soon after he arrived in Miami, The AP assigned Kaufman to Key West, then an AP listening post for radio reports from Communist Cuba. After two years there he transferred, in October, 1963, to Mexico City where he remained until retirement in 1973. Jorge Kaufman said the family then relocated to the Boston area where his father began a second career in the business office of Boston City Hospital, retiring from that job in 1990, near his 80th birthday. Soon after, George and Marta moved to their retirement home in Florida.

Other survivors include another son, Eduardo, of Massachusetts, and six grandchildren.

KEEL, AUBREY — retired AP telegrapher, died June 25, 1999 at age 97, in Kansas City, MO.

AP employed 1,500 telegraphers over a span of eight decades and Keel was one of three still living. He was hired by the AP in 1926 in Lubbock, Texas. A 16-year AP veteran telegrapher, Keel first learned Morse Code in 1917 in his hometown of Goldthwaite, Texas.

As a telegrapher, he translated words into dots and dashes and transmitted them to another telegrapher on the other end of the wire, who translated the dots and dashes into words. When the Texas AP phased in the Teletype printer in 1928, Keel adapted to the new technology. He eventually became communications chief in Milwaukee, Des Moines and Los Angeles before retiring in 1966.

He continued to communicate with dots and dashes with retired telegraphers of his ham radio group, the Queen Bee Net. He also was up on the latest technology, working out of a home command center consisting of two computers, radio gear, a digital camera, a scanner and an antique telegraph key and sounder fitted with a Prince Albert tobacco can to alter the telegraph's pitch.

Last year President Lou Boccardi honored Keel at AP's 150th-anniversary exhibit opening at the Newseum in Arlington, Va. Keel demonstrated the telegraph there. He went on to repeat his Morse Code demonstrations at other AP 150th anniversary celebrations throughout the year.

Keel, who suffered from lymphoma, was cremated June 26. Survivors include a daughter, a son-in-law, and granddaughter, and several nieces and nephews.

KEEVER, JACK — Keever, who covered sports, the Legislature and the deadly shootout at the University of Texas tower during three decades with The Associated Press, died July 18, 2004 in Austin, Texas. He was 66.

Keever, who had cancer, died at his home, longtime friend Ernie Stromberger said. Keever joined the AP in Dallas in 1961 before transferring to Austin, where he remained until his retirement in 1992.

"Jack was a consummate professional. You could always count on him covering the story like it should be," said Denne Freeman, retired sports editor for the AP in Texas.

"He was a gentleman journalist and he never had anything bad to say about anybody," Freeman said. "He just did his job and he was a pleasure to be around. "

Freeman said the two teamed to cover a number of games. "It was like we had mental telepathy, He already knew the questions that needed to be asked about the game."

In addition to covering Charles Whitman's shooting spree in 1966 and covering the University of Texas Longhorns, Keever covered 15 legislative sessions, 11 governor's races and other political campaigns.

"When he would interview people, they wouldn't want to respond to his questions," former colleague Bo Byers said in a story in Monday's Austin American-Statesman. "He would just stick with it and really bear down on them to answer his questions and he usually got his answer."

Freeman said there were no questions left to be asked when reading one of Keever's stories because he had answered them all.

Keever began his journalism career as managing editor of the Daily Texan in 1959 and graduated from the University of Texas in 1960. After retiring from the AP, he returned to the classroom, teaching journalism at Austin Community College until 2000.

Keever also wrote several books. He was co-author of a biography of former Gov. John B. Connally called "Portrait in Power."

Keever is survived by his wife, Cynthia; a daughter, Erin; and a son, Graham.

KELLY, R. LOUDON — a 37-year AP veteran, died May 26, 2000 in a Denver-area nursing home. He was 94.

The Bisbee, Arizona native worked for the Denver Rocky Mountain News during the 1930s, where he was a film critic, crime beat reporter and sports reporter. Later he worked for the AP in Denver as news editor, and in Salt Lake City, where he was bureau chief. He left AP at age 65. His daughter, Sharon Pate of Denver, said: ."He was not nearly ready to retire, so he worked afterward as press liaison for the University of Denver athletic department for about five years."

In addition to his daughter, Kelly is survived by his wife, a son and four grandchildren.

KENNEDY, JOE JR. — followed in his father’s footsteps when he went to work for The AP in the 1930s as a telegrapher in Boston. In later years the fact he shared a family name with a U.S. President created a lighter moment. Joseph D. Kennedy Jr., of Reading, Mass. retired from The AP in 1981 and died March 17, 2003. He was 86.

Kennedy’s father, Joe Sr., marked his place in the history of news when he heard on his short-wave radio in April, 1912 about the rescue of survivors of the Titanic. He immediately notified the Boston bureau that there were survivors of the disaster at sea.

He transferred from telegrapher to night photo editor in Boston soon after the AP Wirephoto network was established in 1935. Over the years, he became an icon to members calling about pictures.

Retired Boston AP Photo Editor J. Walter Green said young Kennedy was the subject of a chapter in a 1940s book the late Oliver Gramling wrote about AP’s 100th anniversary.

"When I joined The AP in 1941, Joe was night photo editor," Green said. "When I left for military service in 1943, he was night photo editor. When I came back in 1945 he was night photo editor.

"I transferred to the foreign service in 1946 and when I came back from Rome four years later, he was night photo editor.

"In later years I became photo editor. I was, in effect, Joe’s boss, but even after I had the job for years, members still called in and asked for Joe.

"He was a legend there."

Green, now 85, said he was in the press cadre at Hyannis, Mass., when the late President John F. Kennedy went home for his first Thanksgiving as president. Green asked when the press could get a picture of the president carving a turkey.

"I was told the family would not have a turkey," Green said. "I relayed that to Boston. Then the president invited the press to his home for a pre Thanksgiving party.

"Before I left for the party, I got a message from Boston saying, ‘Who says the president is not going to have a turkey," and it was signed Joe Kennedy.

"That, of course, was the name of the President’s father, and I showed the message to Pierre Salinger, Kennedy’s press secretary. He said to show it to the president and I did, without comment, and he replied:

" ‘You tell him we’re still not going to have turkey.’"

Kennedy’s first wife of 55 years, Bertha Sanborn, preceded him in death. Survivors include his wife of seven years, Majorie Hammond, and two sons, John and Timothy Kennedy.

Services were held at a Reading funeral home and at graveside at Prospect Cemetery in Epping, N.H.

KENNEY, JOHN — John, honored twice as the Associated Press Broadcast Executive of the Year, died Feb. 6, 2004. Kenney was 55.

Kenney began his AP career in 1979 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In 1983 he transferred to Los Angeles, where he worked with radio and television news directors throughout the Western United States until his sales career ended in1992.

Kenney's sales to broadcast members set records. He was named AP's top broadcast salesperson in 1988 and 1990.

According to his family, Kenney died in Charlotte, N.C. of natural causes. He is survived by two sons.

Kenney was a native of Cleveland, Mississippi. His remains have been buried near those of his mother, in Drew, Mississippi.

KENNEY, MARY ELLEN — an administrative assistant for AP Ohio, died March 26, 2005, about two months after being diagnosed with cancer. She was 41.

Kenney had joined the Ohio staff in April 2003. She also had worked part time in AP's Photo Department in New York from April 2000 to September 2001.

She was employed by Barnes & Noble in Ohio and New York for 11 years in various administrative positions. While in New York, Kenney also attended the Institute of Culinary Education, where she received her Pastry/Baking Arts diploma, and studied photography at the Institute of Photography. Kenney had earned a bachelor's degree in Communications and a master's in English from Wright State University in Ohio.

A memorial service was held April 2 in Springfield, MO.

KNOBLOCK, CHARLES E. — an Associated Press photographer whose images captured presidents, celebrities, sports heroes and even frolicking polar bears during a 52-year career based in Chicago, died July 28, 2006. He was 89.

Charlie Knoblock, whose photos included a well-known one of fans spilling a cup of beer onto the head of a Chicago White Sox outfielder during the 1959 World Series, died at his home in Charlotte, N.C., where he moved from the Chicago area in 2003.

He joined the AP in 1934 and went on to photograph presidential candidates including Richard Nixon, Adlai Stevenson and Barry Goldwater and sports events including the Olympics, World Series and Kentucky Derby. He also covered the civil rights movement and racial unrest during the 1960s and the 1973 standoff between federal agents and Indian activists at Wounded Knee.

During World War II, he worked as an Army photographer in the Pacific.

In Chicago, Knoblock covered top stories of national or international interest, from the tumultuous 1968 Democratic convention to novelist Saul Bellow on the day he won the Nobel Prize to the Chicago Bulls' signing of a young player named Michael Jordan.

He also had a knack for feature photography at venues such as the Brookfield Zoo in suburban Chicago, where he made a widely used image of polar bears in a pool on a warm day, playing with an empty metal beer keg as if it were a beach ball.

Knoblock retired from the AP in 1986.

KROHN, BRADLEY — a former editor of the Texas Associated Press radio network, died April 11, 1999 after suffering a heart attack while working in the yard at his home in Hillsboro, Ore. He was 43.

Krohn joined AP in Broadcast Services in June 1982 as a newsman. He later took charge of the now defunct Texas AP Network in Dallas. After leaving AP in 1991, he had been employed at Intel, where he held positions in administrative support, communications, product marketing and customer support. Most recently, Krohn was Internet section leader in Intel Customer Support.

Memorial services were held April 14 at the home of Krohn and his wife, Deb Shannon, a former AP Dallas assistant chief of bureau.