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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LANCASHIRE, DAVID — David Lancashire, a Canadian hired by The Associated Press in 1956 to become the first North American reporter to cover Mao Zedong's China and defy a U.S. travel ban, has died. He was 76.

Lancashire died Monday, Sept. 10, 2007, in Toronto of a heart attack, his family said Thursday.

Going to China for the AP, he spent six weeks traveling more than 5,000 miles through what was then known in the West as "Red China" and produced a lengthy series of stories on life behind the "Bamboo Curtain."

It was the first reporting from China by a North American journalist since the communist takeover in 1949 and it created a sensation.
The State Department had refused AP permission to send an American correspondent to China and threatened serious sanctions. AP's board of directors then sent Lancashire, arguing that Americans had a right to learn through their own news organizations about conditions in China.

Over the following 20 years, Lancashire reported for AP from trouble spots across Asia and the Middle East, covering the communist insurgency in Laos, a Kurdish revolt in Iraq, the Mideast war of 1973 and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Lancashire left the AP in 1976 to join the Globe and Mail of Toronto as a feature writer and editor. He retired in 1994.

LANGFORD, DAVID L., — David L. Langford, a reporter and editor who shepherded graceful prose to the wire in four decades at The Associated Press and United Press International, died October 12, 2004 at an assisted care facility in Tupelo, Miss. He was 69.

Langford was diagnosed with cancer shortly after his retirement from the AP last year.

"Dave brought infectious enthusiasm and a distinctive touch to everything from writing weather roundups to creating the AP's first travel package," said Mike Silverman, AP vice president and managing editor. "He was the quintessential wire service man, happiest when he was right on deadline."

Born in Montgomery, Ala., and raised in Water Valley, Miss., Langford was editor of Mississippi State's newspaper, The Reflector. He worked as an editor and reporter for the Birmingham News and The Huntsville News, and covered the civil rights movement.

Thirty years later, he would write about those days in Birmingham, when "a torrent of public outrage rejuvenated Martin Luther King Jr.'s flagging civil rights movement like a thunderstorm on a parched cotton field."

Langford joined UPI in 1967, eventually rising to the position of senior editor. He covered the Apollo space program, the opening of Walt Disney World and other stories, but he was renowned for his way with roundups — stories quilted together from contributions from all over.

"The thing that I will always remember about him was what an elegant and beautiful writer he was," said Ron Cohen, who was the news service's managing editor. "He had the uncanny ability to pick out the most important stuff and weave it together in a seamless fabric."

He brought that writer's touch to the AP in 1978, first working on the news service's national desk, and then as assistant editor for AP Newsfeatures. In his last assignment, he created the AP's weekly travel package — a fitting achievement for a man who counted globe-trotting among his passions, dating back to his days in the U.S. Air Force.

Though he had lived in the North for decades, he never lost his deep drawl, and he was a fixture at the annual Mississippi Day celebration in New York's Central Park. He would drag his Yankee friends along, and one of them won the fried chicken contest, two years running.

Upon his retirement, he moved to Tupelo, both to be near his family and to be home again.

He is survived by his son Charlie, editor of the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal in Tupelo; his daughter, Patricia, of Chicago; his brother, James F. Langford of Tupelo; and by four grandchildren.

LANE, ROGER — a longtime journalist who later worked for three Michigan Supreme Court chief justices, Dec. 30, 2004, in Lansing, Mich., of a stroke. He was 87.

Lane started his career with The Associated Press in 1945 after serving for five years during World War II. Lane worked for the AP in Chicago and Springfield, Ill., before moving to the Minneapolis bureau in 1954. In 1956, he became the correspondent in Lansing, then joined the AP business desk in New York in 1960.

In 1965, Lane returned to Lansing as chief of the Detroit Free Press' capital bureau.

Lane was asked by Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas Giles Kavanagh to become his executive assistant in 1976. He also worked for Chief Justices Mary Coleman and John W. Fitzgerald until retiring in the early 1980s.

During his time at the court, Lane pursued a law degree at Cooley Law School in Lansing, graduating at age 63.

He created oral histories on 12 living former justices, doing the interviewing and transcribing himself. He was an original member of the Michigan Supreme Court Historical Society and eventually became its director.



LEERIGHT, J. ROBERT "BOB" — Bob Leeright, a former correspondent for The Associated Press whose news career spanned nearly 40 years, died March 2, 2007, at a Nebraska nursing home after a bout with pneumonia. He was 86.

Leeright joined the AP in 1947 in Boise, Idaho, then transferred to Denver and Cheyenne, Wyo. He returned to Boise in 1968 as correspondent and political reporter until his retirement in 1982.

While in college at the University of Idaho, Leeright was briefly kicked out of school for writing an editorial opposing the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. He was allowed to return after "a day or so," daughter Sherry Leeright said in a telephone interview Tuesday.

"But politics was his love," she said. "In Wyoming, he loved covering the Cowboy Congress, as he called it."

Daughter Robin Spoeneman echoed that comment.

"He loved politics. That was his love and that gave him the opportunity to interact with the statesmen," she said. "And he loved the AP."

Born in Rupert, Idaho, in 1920, Leeright was an avid Boston Red Sox fan and golfer. He earned bachelor's degrees in journalism and political science from the University of Idaho in 1942, and immediately went to work at the Twin Falls Times-News.

Leeright left journalism briefly to serve as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy from 1943-46. He returned to Twin Falls for about a year, but joined the AP in 1947.

The Idaho Press Club named him Idaho newsman of the year while he was in Boise.

Spoeneman said no funeral services were held, but a brief memorial was celebrated in Nebraska, after which his remains were cremated.

Leeright is survived by his wife of nearly 64 years, Helen, his two daughters, four grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

LEWINE, FRAN — Frances Lewine, a White House correspondent for The Associated Press during the administrations of six presidents, died Saturday, Jan. 19, 2008. She was 86. Here is the obit that moved Jan. 20 on the AP wire:

Jan. 20, 2008

Former AP White House correspondent Frances Lewine dies at 86

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Frances Lewine, a White House correspondent for The Associated Press during the administrations of six presidents, from Eisenhower to Carter, has died of a probable stroke. She was 86.

Lewine, who died Saturday, joined the Washington bureau of the AP in 1956 to cover general assignments, including White House social events and other activities of the first family. But despite her sometimes glamorous assignments, she often expressed frustration that she was relegated to social and family stories and sidebars while male colleagues covered the president.

Lewine's coverage of first families was deeply appreciated, however, by Luci Baines Johnson, daughter of President Lyndon Johnson.

"Fran was a part of my daily life from the time I moved into the White House until my father moved out. She was just part of my extended family," Johnson said. "She was there for all the big moments in my personal life from high school graduation, to my first day of university, to my marriage, through the 'baby watch' for my first born."

Johnson said that "when my son Lyndon was born, Fran joked about being one of his 'godmothers.' "

"Fran was a professional journalist of the highest caliber who didn't compromise the quality or accuracy of her story, but also didn't compromise common decency," Johnson said. "I loved her. I'll miss her."

Longtime White House correspondent Helen Thomas, now a columnist for Hearst Newspapers, described Lewine as "a great, great wire service reporter with the highest integrity."

"We were very competitive during the day," Thomas said, "but we were great friends during the evening."

Lewine became a leader among women journalists in the 1950s, '60s and '70s, protesting discrimination against women in jobs and assignments. She was president of The Women's National Press Club at a time when some major journalistic organizations excluded women or limited their participation. The efforts of Lewine and other reporters eventually led to such groups as the National Press Club and the Gridiron Club opening their membership to women.

"Fran Lewine was a pioneer for women in journalism and she stood up to the Washington 'media' establishment and helped open doors that had been open only to men," said Edith Lederer, chief AP correspondent at the United Nations. "She was passionate about freedom of the press, concerned about maintaining the highest journalistic standards in this era of new media -- and a wonderful friend."

Lewine left the AP in 1977 to join the Carter administration and became deputy director of public affairs for the Transportation Department. When President Carter left office in 1981, she moved to the fledgling Cable News Network as an assignment editor and field producer.

"Fran was one of my closest friends, a mentor, colleague, sister and a role model for what a great woman could accomplish in journalism," AP legal writer Linda Deutsch said. "She was truly a legend but so self-effacing you would never know how much of this country's history she had covered."

Lewine was born Jan. 20, 1921, in New York City and grew up in Far Rockaway, Long Island, in an extended family household that included her first cousin Richard Feynman, who later won the Nobel Prize in physics. Upon graduation from Hunter College, where she edited the college newspaper, she worked as a reporter for the Plainfield, N.J., Courier-News and the Newark, N.J., bureau of The AP before moving to the AP's Washington bureau.

She was also a member of Executive Women in Government and the Society of Professional Journalists. She was elected to the Washington Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame and to the Hunter College Hall of Fame, and was awarded the Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism last October.

Deutsch said Lewine had undergone surgery two weeks ago to correct a blocked carotid artery. She died at home of a probable stroke, according to a coroner's preliminary ruling, and was found by friends.

She had planned to celebrate her 87th birthday on Sunday at Charles Town Races in West Virginia, where friends had arranged to have a race named in her honor.

Funeral arrangements were pending.

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Feb. 23, 2008

Frances Lewine remembered as trailblazer for women in journalism


WASHINGTON (AP) -- Frances Lewine, a White House correspondent who covered six presidencies for The Associated Press, was honored Saturday as a pioneer for women in journalism and as a leading advocate against discrimination in the newsroom.

Lewine, the first woman to be a full time-White House reporter for the AP, became a journalist "in a sexist era when women wrote for the social page -- almost never the front page," said Edith Lederer, AP's chief correspondent at the United Nations, in a tribute to Lewine at the National Press Club. Lewine, who was 86, died Jan. 19 after an apparent stroke.

A close friend to Lewine, Lederer remembered that Lewine covered glamorous jobs, from White House dinners to chasing Jackie Kennedy through the Greek Islands. She gained a reputation as a persistent reporter who "knew how to ask those probing questions," Lederer said.

"But 'hard news' in those days was left to men," Lederer said. "AP never treated her on an equal basis with the male White House correspondents -- and that, she said, energized her to become a leader in the movement of women journalists in the 1950s, '60s and '70s."

Helen Thomas, a longtime White House correspondent for UPI and now a columnist at Hearst Newspapers, said she and Lewine fought together to get women admitted through the Gridiron Club and the National Press Club. Lewine's memorial service was held in the National Press Club ballroom, where women were once banned.

"We covered the White House as big rivals, AP and UPI," Thomas said. They were competitors by day and friends at night. "Despite our friendship, the story was the thing."

Lewine left the AP in 1977 to join the Carter administration and became deputy director of public affairs for the Transportation Department. When President Carter left office in 1981, she moved to the fledgling Cable News Network as an assignment editor and field producer.

But she hadn't forgotten her treatment in the newsroom.
In 1973, a class-action lawsuit by eight female employees, including Lewine, and the Wire Service Guild, a union local, charged discrimination by AP. A report submitted by AP to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that year said only 2.2 percent of its 1,430 professional staff and technicians were black. No blacks were among its 220 executives.

Five years later, the EEOC found "reasonable cause to believe" that AP was violating the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The lawsuit was settled out of court. AP agreed to provide $2 million in relief and to establish an affirmative action program to increase the number of blacks, Hispanics, and women in news, editorial and photography positions.

AP's executive editor, Kathleen Carroll, said in a statement: "We can't ignore her persistence and her insistence that the 'boys only club' needed busting up."

"Fran spent too much of her AP career in evening finery covering the softer side and the social side of the White House. And pushing every minute to change the rules until they were fair," Carroll said.

AP legal writer Linda Deutsch remembered that Lewine, who mentored young reporters through the Journalism and Women Symposium, blazed the way for women's journalism careers today.

"At the yearly JAWS gatherings in rustic resorts, Fran pitched in to mentor young women journalists and lead them through the thicket of problems they might encounter. In many ways she had made their careers possible," Deutsch said. "She rode horseback and swam with them and, amazingly, she never grew old."

She was also a member of Executive Women in Government and the Society of Professional Journalists. She was elected to the Washington Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame and to the Hunter College Hall of Fame, and was awarded the Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism last October.

CNN has created an internship in Lewine's name. The family is creating a foundation to support journalism in the vein that Lewine produced. Contributions can be made to the Frances Lewine fund at http://www.wpcf.org.

Former AP associates said contributions also may be made to a scholarship fund at the Journalism and Women Symposium, 3701 Drakeshire Drive, Modesto, Calif., 95356.

LEWIS, LAVERNE FRANK — Frank Lewis, who worked for The Associated Press for nearly 20 years, died July 13, 2004. He was 68.

Lewis joined the AP in 1962 as a copy boy in San Francisco and was later promoted to WirePhoto operator. He transferred to Minneapolis where he became an automatic operator, and served in AP's Denver bureau from 1967 to 1980 before retiring.

He went on to open a Mexican food restaurant in Ft. Lupton, Colorado and later worked at Cascade Homes and Longmont Turkey Processors. Lewis retired from the Neodata Corporation in 1992.

He is survived by his wife Margaret, son Kenny, daughter Patricia, and four grandchildren.

LILIENTHAL, GUENTHER — Lilienthal, editor in the AP's West Berlin bureau during the height of the Cold War, died in Berlin, June 11, 2002 one day before his 89th birthday.

Lilienthal joined the AP in 1960, one year before construction of the Berlin Wall, and retired in 1979. He was born in 1914 and told friends he lived through four different Berlins: the Berlin of the Weimar Republic, the Berlin of the Nazi years, the divided Berlin of the Cold War and finally the new capital city of a reunited Germany.

Lilienthal studied English and French as a young man and as a result was hired in 1938 by a service of the Air Ministry of Hermann Goering which monitored foreign news and provided German-language digests. He held the job in Berlin until 1945 and after the end of World War II, became an editor with the Russian-controlled Berlin Radio.

He left the radio position in 1949 because of the pro-Communist politics involved, and joined the staff of the new and independent "Tagesspiegel" newspaper in Berlin as an editor. He later worked as a researcher for the United States military headquarters in West Berlin before joining The Associated Press.

He is survived by a son and a stepdaughter.

LITTLE, HERBERT C. — Little, a 38-year veteran of The Associated Press who was hailed as a "giant among West Virginia scribes" when he retired in 1985, died December 7, 2002.

Little, 82, died at home, said his wife, Frances. Little broke his hip this summer when he fell in a parking lot and had been hospitalized almost continually since.

Little was born in Parkersburg, and was graduated from Marietta College. He was a U.S. Army veteran and joined the AP Sept. 29, 1946, remaining with the news cooperative in West Virginia until his retirement in 1985.

During his tenure he served as reporter, state editor and news editor in Charleston and correspondent in Bluefield, but he is best remembered as the AP's statehouse reporter.

The West Virginia House of Delegates once passed a resolution praising Little's "literary skill, journalistic flare, tender sensibilities and keen insight."

The Society of Professional Journalists named him West Virginia Newsman of the Year in 1985.

Upon his retirement, colleague Charles Monzella wrote: "The people of West Virginia have come to regard the Herb Little byline as a hallmark of excellence."

"You helped enlighten a generation of readers," Monzella said.

AP Vice President Wick Temple called Little "a giant among West Virginia scribes."

A memorial service will be held at Christ Church United Methodist in Charleston at 2 p.m. on Dec. 15, with a reception following.

Besides his wife, Little is survived by one daughter and three grandchildren. Another daughter died previously. Memorials may be made to the church or the organization of one's choice.

LOPEZ, VICENTE F. — a longtime editor and writer for the Spanish language news service, died Feb. 2, 2002 after complications from surgery. He was 56.

Lopez joined AP in 1967 and worked for years as a leading editor of the news agency's Spanish service in Buenos Aires. He covered many tumultuous periods in Argentina, including the 1976-83 military dictatorship, the 1982 Falklands Islands War and the return of this South American nation to democracy in the 1980s.

"For more than three decades, Vicente's professionalism, integrity and dedication have enriched the AP's news report with clear insights into the complexities of Argentine life and politics," said Claude E. Erbsen, Vice President and Director of AP World Services.

A native of Buenos Aires, Lopez studied at a leading school of journalism, the Escuela Argentina de Periodismo. He began his career at an Argentine news agency, Saporiti, and later worked at El Cronista Comercial, and La Nacion, both prominent Buenos Aires newspapers. Lopez is survived by his wife, Mirta Rodriguez, and their two children, Gustavo and Valeria.

LUTFALLAH, ASWAN AHMED — Relatives and friends buried an AP Television News cameraman Dec. 13, 2006, a day after he was killed by insurgents while covering a clash in northern Iraq.

Aswan Ahmed Lutfallah, 35, was having his car repaired in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, on Dec. 12 when insurgents and police began fighting nearby and he rushed to cover the confrontation.

Insurgents spotted him filming and shot him to death, police Brig. Abdul-Karim Ahmed Khalaf said. They also took his camera equipment, cell phone and press ID card, according to police.

Lutfallah was buried according to Muslim tradition in Mosul.

He was the second employee of the news cooperative killed in the northern city in less than two years, and the third to die in Iraq since the Iraq war began in March 2003.

The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the attack and called on Iraqi authorities to "apprehend those responsible for the growing number of deadly attacks on the press and stop the cycle of impunity."

The New York-based advocacy group said 90 journalists and 37 media support workers have been killed in Iraq since the war started. Sixteen of those were killed in Ninevah province, in which Mosul is located, making it the second-most dangerous locale for journalists in the country, according to CPJ.

"This senseless murder once again demonstrates the ever present dangers facing news professionals in Iraq," said CPJ Middle East Program Coordinator Joel Campagna. Lutfallah "was targeted and killed simply for trying to provide the world with a glimpse of daily reality in Iraq."

Lutfallah had been employed by AP Television News as a cameraman in Mosul since 2005. He is survived by his wife, Alyaa Abdul-Karim Salim, a 6-year-old son and an infant daughter.

"Our hearts go out to Aswan's family and his Iraqi AP colleagues," said AP President and CEO Tom Curley. "The murder of yet another journalist underscores the particular dangers of this conflict and the sacrifices of those committed to reporting the story."

Lutfallah's death brings to 29 the number of those who have lost their lives on assignments for the AP since the news cooperative was founded in 1846.

On April 23, 2005, AP cameraman Saleh Ibrahim was killed after an explosion in Mosul that also wounded AP photographer Mohammed Ibrahim. In 2004, Ismail Taher Mohsin, a driver for the AP, was ambushed by gunmen and killed near his home in Baghdad.

LYTLE, HUGH — Lytle, whose teletype message provided The Associated Press and the world with the first account of the attack on Pearl Harbor, died on Aug. 16, 2002 in Novato, Calif. He was 100.

Lytle, the AP's Honolulu correspondent and a reserve Army officer, was awakened by the Army on Dec. 7, 1941 as Japanese planes bombed the U.S. fleet, according to his son, David Lytle.

He quickly left for his AP office at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, where he filed a brief account of the attack in progress, then reported for military duty with the Army.

Military censors clamped down shortly after Lytle's dispatch, and virtually no official accounts of the Japanese attack were sent from Hawaii until much later that Sunday.

"Hugh Lytle heard twin calls to duty as Associated Press correspondent and Army reserve officer. Before the day was over and censorship clamped down, the Army won. Lytle was in uniform and on active duty," the AP recalled in its 1941 annual report.

David Lytle said his father "felt it was important to get the story out, but also important to protect the country."

Lytle joined the Army's intelligence unit, and spent much of the war as a military censor on the island of Oahu, his son said. He later earned a Bronze Star for risking his life when he led the 10th Army Information and Historical Service on Okinawa, a covert project documenting American military strategies.

Lytle also served as the co-administrator of the Hawaiian territory with Harry Albright. In 1945, Lytle and Albright joined the Honolulu Advertiser as co-managing editors, where Lytle was known as a conservative voice as opinion page editor until the early 1960s.

"He certainly had high ideals. He had strong opinions about right and wrong and was not loathe to express them," said Albright's wife, Janet.

Lytle left the paper to become press secretary for Hawaii Gov. William Quinn, then retired in 1968 and moved to the island of Hawaii with his wife, Druzella "Drue" Lytle.

He is survived by his son, David, of Sea Ranch; a grandson, Douglas, who heads the Dow Jones news bureau in Prague, Czech Republic; and two great-grandchildren.