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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MACNAB, GORDON G. — who spent 30 years with The Associated Press, many of them as its Oregon news editor, died Feb. 19, 2006, in Redmond, Wash., at age 99, four days short of his 100th birthday.

Frank Wetzel, former AP Oregon bureau chief, said Macnab was known for his integrity.

"He could be testy and demanding of others, but he demanded it of himself as well. He was just an outstanding newsman."

Macnab was born Feb. 23, 1906, in Rock Rapids, Iowa. He graduated from the University of Iowa. He joined the Oregon Journal in 1937 as a reporter, then worked as a copy editor before joining the AP in 1941.

During World War II, he served in the Army Air Corps in the Aleutians, and then was assigned to Pentagon intelligence publications. He was discharged as a captain and awarded the Legion of Merit.

He retired from the AP in 1971 and moved to Redmond, Wash., in 1997.

In 1940, he married Mary Louise "Molly" Thompson; she died in 2001.

Survivors include his son, Alexander; daughters, Laura LeVan and Jean Hanson; and two grandchildren.

MAESTRI, RENE — an Associated Press photographer who chronicled the triumphs and tragedies of the royal family of Monaco, has died in Paris. He was 80.

Maestri, who joined AP in 1958 and retired in 1983, died on Feb. 2, 2003 in Monaco, his family said.

Maestri covered Monaco's defining moment: the marriage of American actress Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier in 1956. He also helped document royal benchmarks that followed, including the births of their three children and Princess Caroline's wedding in 1978.

The photographer also covered the family's greatest tragedy, the death of Princess Grace after a car wreck on Sept. 14, 1982.

Maestri also was known as a specialist on the Formula One auto races in Monte Carlo. His photos of the crash of Italian driver Lorenzo Bandini at the 1967 Grand Prix were on the front pages of newspapers worldwide.

A funeral service was held Tuesday at the Sainte-Devote church in Monaco, along the route of the annual Grand Prix race.

Maestri is survived by a wife and two daughters.

MAIRANI, GUGLIELMO — who led the growth of AP's news and photo services in Italy's publishing capital after World War II, died June 8, 2001 in Milan. He was 87.

Mairani joined the AP in 1946, the first Italian correspondent for the news organization in the postwar period. In 1963, he was one of the first reporters to arrive at Longarone, in northeast Italy, where a tidal wave across the Vajont dam wiped out an entire village, killing hundreds of people.

His 28-year career with the AP covered office administration and contracts with AP subscribers to photography and news coverage.

Survivors include his wife and two sons.


MANN, ED — Retired Technology Manager Ed Mann Jr. died April 7, 2008 in Sandy, Utah at the age of 66. Mann first joined the AP as a technician in East Brunswick, N.J., in 1972. He was promoted to technical service manager in East Brunswick in 1983. In 1987 he was named project manager. He was appointed Director of Network Operations in New York Communications in 1988. Mann took a leave and returned to the AP in California in 1994 as a technician in Sacramento. He moved to the Cranbury Technical Center in New Jersey as a technician in 1998. In 2000, he was named chief of communications in Salt Lake City. In 2004 his title changed from COC to Services & Technology Manager. Later that year he went on long-term disability leave. The Rahway, N.J., native is survived by his wife, Barbara, sons and grandchildren.


MARKS, LEO D. — a newsman with The Associated Press for 32 years, died Jan. 9, 2007, in Kansas City. He was 91.

Marks was born in Omaha, Neb., and grew up in Tulsa, Okla. Upon graduation from the University of Oklahoma in 1937, he joined the Muskogee (Okla.) Daily Phoenix as a reporter and city editor before leaving for World War II service in the U.S. Army, where he was a captain in the European theater.

Upon returning from the war, he worked at newspapers in San Antonio and Omaha before joining the AP as a newsman in its Tulsa bureau in 1949.

Marks transferred to Oklahoma City and then to the Kansas City bureau in 1956, where he served as writer, editor and night supervisor until his retirement in 1981.

"Leo served the AP well in each of his assignments," said Paul Stevens, Central Region vice president for the news cooperative and former Kansas City chief of bureau. "He was well-known and respected among the newspaper and broadcast members the AP serves, and he helped train and develop a countless number of AP people who owe him much for their successful careers. He will be remembered fondly by all who knew him."

He was preceded in death by his wife, Geraldine. Survivors include a son and daughter-in-law, Ronald B. and Nancy Marks, Oshkosh, Wis.; a daughter and son-in-law, Ellen S. and Kip Rosner, Leawood, Kan.; four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

MARPLE, ELLIOT — a former AP newsman, correspondent for Business Week magazine and founder of Marple's Business Newsletter, died Dec. 17, 2001, age 93 in Mercer Island, Wash.

A native of Seattle, Marple worked for small newspapers in Massachusetts and for The AP in Boston, then moved to Washington during World War II to work at the Office of Price Administration, where he eventually became press chief. He returned to the Seattle area in 1947 and founded an independent news bureau to supply trade publications with business news from the Pacific Northwest.

In April 1949, he published the first edition of Marple's Business Roundup, later renamed as the newsletter. He sold the newsletter in 1980. In 1999 Marple wrote "Man-at-a-Typewriter Journalism," a book detailing the history of his own publication.

Survivors include two daughters, a sister and a brother.


MARTIN, JULIA — More than 100 people attended an April 8, 2008 memorial service at New York headquarters for Julia Martin, AP Archive's business development manager for North America. Martin died Wednesday, April 2, after a sudden illness. She was 36.

Her family flew in from Britain and was at her hospital bedside throughout the ordeal.

Martin managed business development for AP Archive’s New York office, which sells Associated Press Television News footage. She joined AP Archive in New York in July 2007 after spending more than eight years at ITN. In 2001, she left London for New York where she was instrumental in establishing ITN's U.S. footage sales office.

AP Vice President International Television Eric Braun wrote in a note to the staff about her death: "She will always be remembered as incredibly vibrant, very funny, warm, kind, feisty and full of life."

Survivors include her parents and sister.

MARTON, ENDRE — The Associated Press correspondent who provided the first eyewitness account of the bloody 1956 Hungarian uprising against communist rule, died Nov. 1, 2005, at the home of his daughter Kati in New York.  He was 95.

Marton's wife, Ilona, a longtime reporter for United Press who covered the Hungarian revolt with her husband, died last year at the age of 92.

As Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest on Oct. 25, 1956, Marton watched Russian troops fire into a crowd of demonstrators at Parliament Square, but his communications were cut off and he was unable to send what he later called "the story of my life."

A friend arranged access to a government telex machine, but it took hours to get an outside connection. He described the scene in his book, "The Forbidden Sky," published in 1971.

"The nighttime silence of the large room was suddenly broken when my machine sprang to life. I stared at it, waiting to see what would happen," he wrote. "And then, miraculously, the words appeared on the paper: 'Associated Press, Vienna.' I sat there, with trembling fingers, and punched back: 'AP, Budapest.' Back came the message: 'Endre ... is that really you?'"

His exclusive, front-page story, some 2,000 words long, appeared in newspapers around the world. It began this way: "Parliament Square in Budapest became a battlefield shortly after noon today when a Soviet tank opened fire on a few thousand peaceful demonstrators whose only weapons were Hungarian flags."

The revolt was crushed the following month when thousands of Soviet troops overran the country.

"After 15 years under the heel first of Nazi Germany and then Communist Russia, Hungary got a whiff of intoxicating freedom in late October," Marton wrote.

"Then came Sunday, Nov. 4. Budapest was awakened by the roaring of guns. By authoritative estimate, Russians had moved 4,600 tanks and between 180,000 and 200,000 men into Hungary to crush the revolution. Against this might, Hungary had nine divisions of 90,000 men or less, equipped with obsolete weapons, and kids, some with guns."

Marton and his wife worked side by side as news agency competitors. In 1948, they covered the sensational show trial of Joseph Cardinal Mindzenty, head of the Roman Catholic Church in Hungary, and former Foreign Minister Laszlo Rajk.

Both Martons were imprisoned before the revolution. In 1955, they were accused of spying for the United States and were convicted by a secret military court. He was sentenced to six years imprisonment, she to three.

Both were released the following year, just in time to cover one of the iconic moments of the Cold War.

In January 1957, Marton received warnings he might be arrested again and he, his wife and their two daughters were given refuge in the U.S. Embassy and secretly smuggled to Austria.

The family moved to the United States, where Marton served for many years as the AP's diplomatic correspondent in Washington. The same year, he and his wife shared the George Polk Award, presented annually for outstanding reporting in the public interest.

Marton was born in Budapest on Oct. 29, 1910. He attended Budapest University, where he earned an undergraduate degree in 1932 and a graduate degree in economics four years later. He married Ilona Nyilas in 1943.

MASON, DAVID — David Mason, who reported for The Associated Press on the Suez crisis, Charles de Gaulle's rise to power and the Vietnam war in a 37-year career, died June 24, 2007, following a long illness, his son said. He was 85.

Mason, who had been in declining health from a variety of ailments, died at the Manor Care Home in Taunton, southwestern England, on a Sunday, said David Mason Jr.

"The most remarkable thing, looking back on the parts of the world that I know and know of, is the number of permanent conflicts and confrontations that exist and will probably exist forever," Mason told the magazine of his alma mater, McAllister College, St. Paul, Minnesota, in a 2000 interview. "You end up judging countries by the number of people who are violently killed," he added.

Mason began his career in journalism at age 13 setting type at the Northern Light newspaper in Williams, Minnesota.

In World War II he was a still and motion picture photographer with the First Combat Camera Unit based in Bari, Italy, and flew a score of combat missions over northern Italy, southern France and the Balkans.

Returning to his studies, he worked for the St. Paul Pioneer Press as a police reporter while completing a bachelor degree in 1946.

The following year he joined The Associated Press in Fargo, North Dakota, transferred to Minneapolis in 1950, then began his career as a foreign correspondent in London in 1954. He was assigned to Paris the following year.

He covered the Anglo-French invasion of the Suez Canal Zone in 1956, and de Gaulle's rise in 1958. De Gaulle, Mason reflected in retirement, was "the only honest politician I ever ran into."
Mason also covered the Belgian Congo's struggle to gain independence in 1960.

During the Vietnam War, he moved to Saigon in 1968 and was appointed chief of bureau there in 1969.

"In 1970, Dave became suspicious of two Americans who suddenly showed up claiming to be news correspondents but didn't pass his 'smell test,'" said Richard Pyle, who succeeded Mason as Saigon bureau chief in 1970.

"He confronted them and managed to expose them as frauds, allegedly planted by the U.S. Command to keep tabs on the Saigon press corps. Details of what this was all about never became clear other than it was a hare-brained idea by some unknown officials -- and not the first one," Pyle recalled.

Mason collided with the AP's general manager, Wes Gallagher, in 1970 after editors in New York refused to use a report of looting and raping by U.S. troops.

Facing a staff rebellion, Mason informed Gallagher that there was a crisis of confidence in the bureau, and Gallagher relented.
"It was a display of journalistic forthrightness and skillful diplomacy by David Mason," Pyle said.

Gallagher later said he regretted his initial decision to kill the report. "I just did it on the spur of the moment and I shouldn't have," he said.

Mason was appointed chief of bureau in Moscow in 1970, reporting on the Brezhnev era, then moved to London with the same title in 1977.

In 1980, he returned to reporting as chief European correspondent, covering NATO and the diplomatic beat until retiring in 1987.

"Dave was quiet-spoken but witty and wise, the sort of gentleman journalist who did our profession proud," said former AP staffer Mort Rosenblum, who worked with Mason in France and Vietnam.

"As an editor, he always got the best work possible out of every reporter he dealt with because he understood the humanity and reality in every story that crossed his desk."

"Dave Mason was the quiet professional who always demonstrated high standards and earned the trust of diplomatic and other sources," said Myron Belkind, who succeeded Mason as chief of bureau in London.

Mason is survived by his son and a granddaughter. His first marriage ended in divorce; his second wife, former French diplomat Andree-Paule Cuerlet, died in 1991.

MAZZARELLA, EVELYN — Ms. Mazzarella spent her AP career as a bookkeeper in the accounting department in New York. She died Aug. 27, 2003 at her home in Deerfield Beach, Fla., where she lived since retiring. She was 87.

During her working career Ms. Mazzarella lived in Forest Hills, N.Y., and maintained a vacation home on Long Island. She and her sister, Josephine, and Brother, Emil, all made their retirement home in Deerfield Beach. A relative said the sister died about seven years ago and the brother died about three years ago.

A cousin, Joseph Rago of Langhorne, PA., said Ms. Mazzarella suffered from macular degeneration in later life.

“This truly was most unfortunate because she then could not enjoy her newspaper and TV, especially the news programs,” he wrote. “She also had osteoarthritis and hearing loss but her memory was fantastic. She could give you dates of historical events, family history, etc., as if it was yesterday.”

He said Ms. Mazzarella loved her family. “They had good years in their retirement in Florida,” he added. “In the early years of retirement in Florida they would vacation in North Carolina.”

MCCLAIN JOHN D. — a longtime Associated Press editor and reporter in Washington who personified multitasking before the word became fashionable, died Dec. 25, 2005, in his home in Lake Ozark, Mo., of cancer. He was 67.

McClain had retired from the Washington bureau in 1998 and moved to the Midwest, concluding a wire service career that started in St. Louis and lasted nearly 40 years.

McClain was an avid fisherman -- an appropriate hobby for a man renowned in AP's Washington office for his patience, alertness and disciplined work style. As assignment editor, his news coverage decisions formed a sort of daily dance card for dozens of journalists.

"John McClain was an amazingly well-organized editor who schooled a generation of journalists who came to Washington with stars in their eyes," said Washington chief of bureau Sandy Johnson. "He was the original multitasker, juggling a staff of 100 and a never-ending flood of news in AP's busiest bureau."

McClain graduated from Quincy College in Illinois and in 1958 took a job with the Quincy Herald-Whig. From there he moved to the St. Louis Globe-Democrat and joined the AP there three years later.

He transferred in 1967 to the Washington bureau, where an uncle, Ovid Martin, was a longtime AP farm editor.

McClain played a key role in helping to modernize the handling of news copy in 1969, creating a "universal desk" now known as a "general desk," where editors file news stories to the wire. McClain also took his organizational talents to many national political conventions, establishing an on-the-road assignment desk.

"In classic McClain fashion, John delayed his departure so several colleagues could take a Christmas-week break with their school-age children," then-Chief of Bureau Jonathan P. Wolman said in announcing McClain's retirement in January 1998.

McCOY, GEORGE M. — an AP field technician who worked in nine different AP offices during his 40-year career, died in Kentucky Feb. 25. 2001 after a battle with cancer. He was 63.

McCoy retired in December 2000. Since 1976, McCoy had been based at the Messenger-Inquirer in Owensboro, Ky., maintaining AP equipment at newspapers and broadcast stations in western Kentucky and southern Indiana. McCoy, who was born in Vincennes, Ind., began his career as an copy boy in the AP's Louisville bureau in 1960.

His AP work took him to New Orleans; Albuquerque, N.M.; Indianapolis; Columbus, Ohio; and two stints each in New York and St. Louis. He was an Air Force veteran of the Korean War.

He is survived by his wife, Deborah Young McCoy, three daughters, two stepchildren, a sister, and 11 grandchildren. Contributions in McCoy's name may be made to the American Cancer Society or the Hospice Association, both in Owensboro.

McDONALD, NORMAN S. — CWA retiree died Nov. 7, 2003.

McGRATH, DOROTHEA LOUISE LYLE — who worked for The Associated Press in Dallas and was a longtime reporter and editor for The Dallas Morning News, died July 6, 2005, in Redmond, Wash., of congestive heart failure. She was 86.

"Dorothea was a trailblazer for women working in newsrooms at Texas newspapers," said Bill Evans, retired executive managing editor of the News. "She retained her love for journalism throughout her life. I am honored to have known her."

McGrath joined the Wichita Falls Record-News after she earned a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin in 1939. She first worked part time but soon began working full time on the women's news desk.

During World War II, she was asked to train women hired to fill jobs left at the newspaper as men went to war. She then covered hard news.

The AP hired McGrath in 1943. She began her AP career reducing reams of stories spewing from eight Teletype machines into three daily reports for Dallas-area newspapers. She was on duty for several big stories, including the death of President Franklin Roosevelt and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

She joined the News in 1946 and began covering labor issues. She worked until shortly before her daughter's birth in 1956.

She was a top assistant for Dallas Mayor J. Erik Jonsson from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, when she returned to the News as a copy editor for the newspaper's Sunday magazines. She retired in 1981.


McHALE, ED — a retired Associated Press reporter and editor who anchored the wire service's news desk in New Orleans for 21 years, has died. He was 70.

McHale died Aug. 22, 2007, at Louisiana's Our Lady of the Lake Medical Center in Baton Rouge from complications of treatment for lung cancer, former colleagues said.

McHale was known for his acerbic wit, as well as his writing and editing speed. He honed his skills during a career that also included stints in the Marine Corps, at two Mississippi newspapers, in public relations jobs and as a writer, editor and sales executive during nine years with United Press International. McHale joined the AP in 1979.

Born Edward Martin McHale on Jan. 13, 1937, in Chicago, he was raised in Hammond, La., and attended high school at St. Paul's School in Covington, La., and Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wis. He lived in New Orleans until last year, when he moved to Hammond.

McKENZIE, VALERIE — a photo technician for The Associated Press who had a hand in distributing the famed picture of Marines raising a flag on Iwo Jima during World War II, Oct. 31 in Chesapeake, Va., of brain cancer. She was 82.

She was working in the wire service's Washington bureau when the Iwo Jima picture by Joe Rosenthal came in, her son, Robert Wayne Driskell, told The Star-Ledger of Newark. The photo, taken Feb. 23, 1945, won a Pulitzer Prize and became the model for the Marine Corps War Memorial.

At that time, newspapers did not receive photos by computer and satellites. Technicians in Washington and other major bureaus would receive a negative transmitted by wire, then make prints that would be taken to newspapers by messenger or mail, said Hal Buell, the AP's retired head of photography.

McKenzie began working for the AP in late 1944 on temporary assignments, and became a full-time employee in 1948, also working in Newark, New York and Omaha, Neb. She retired in 1988.

McKIBBEN, H. LEROY (Herbie) — An efficient and helpful operator, McKibben was 92 when he died May 30, 2001, in Union City, GA.

He began work with AP Jan. 1, 1930 as a Morse operator and stayed 45 years, retiring in Atlanta when computers took over the work of automatic operators.

Survivors include three daughters, eight grandchildren, eight great grandchildren and one great-great grandchild.


McKINLEY, DOUGLAS WEBSTER (Webb) — Former Associated Press news executive Webb McKinley died Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2008, at his Georgia home on Jekyll Island. He was 90.

Read the Feb. 28 AP obituary below.

JEKYLL ISLAND, Ga. (AP) -- Webb McKinley, a former Associated Press foreign correspondent and news executive, has died of complications from a stroke, his family said Wednesday. He was 90.

McKinley died Tuesday at his home on Jekyll Island, daughter Judy McKinley said.

"He was larger than life," she said. "He was one of the only Western journalists who had access to the Shah of Iran and the king of Jordan."

McKinley had a 35-year career with the AP starting in the Detroit bureau in 1948 before becoming a foreign correspondent in the Rome bureau in 1953.

He later moved to the Istanbul bureau in 1957 and became chief of Middle East services in Beirut in 1960. McKinley returned to the U.S. in 1965 when he was named the AP's World Services news editor based in New York.

During his service overseas, Douglas Webster McKinley interviewed the Shah of Iran, King Hussein of Jordan, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia and Anwar Sadat of Egypt. He also interviewed actresses Sophia Loren and Katherine Hepburn and two-time Tour de France winner Fausto Coppi of Italy.

McKinley was born in Bay City, Mich., on May 26, 1917. He became a major in the Army at age 27 and took part in the D-Day Normandy invasion on June 6, 1944.

Richard Pyle, who was an AP correspondent in Vietnam during the war, worked with McKinley in New York.

"Webb was a physical fitness guy before a lot of people did that," Pyle recalled on Wednesday. "I remember he told me he ran several miles before breakfast every day. He was a pleasant laid-back but highly professional type guy who never got overly excited, even when news was breaking fast. He knew his way around the Middle East, I know that."

Pyle said he and McKinley were hired by Stan Swinton, a former AP vice president, because they were from his home state of Michigan.

Swinton liked to talk about the "Michigan Mafia" in AP, "of which he was self-appointed head," Pyle said.

"He was one of the coolest characters you could think of," said George McArthur, a retired AP foreign correspondent who worked with McKinley in the Middle East in the 1960s.

McKinley's wife, Martha, died in 1993 at age 69.

McKinley is survived by four daughters -- Judy of Montpelier, Vt., Martha Kissick and Jane McKinley of Falls Church, Va. and Mary McKinley of Ogden, Utah -- six grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

McKNIGHT, FELIX — McKnight, who as a young Associated Press reporter covered a 1937 school explosion that killed hundreds and went on to become co-publisher and editor of the Dallas Times Herald, died Feb. 7, 2004, in Dallas. He was 93.

McKnight was 26 and working in the AP's Dallas bureau when he got an urgent call from a correspondent about an explosion at New London school in East Texas near Overton. He sent a bulletin across the wire about the gas blast, which killed at least 293.

McKnight was among the first reporters on the scene along with his competitor from United Press, Walter Cronkite.

He was acting chief of the AP Dallas bureau when The Dallas Morning News hired him as a writer in 1941. McKnight rose to managing editor, leaving the newspaper after 16 years to become vice president and executive editor at the now-defunct Times Herald.

McKnight was named co-publisher and editor of the Times Herald in 1967 and became vice chairman of the board in 1973. He continued to serve the paper as a consultant after his retirement in 1988.

McLEMORE, IVY EARL — McLemore a Teletype operator, traffic manager and proofreader for The Associated Press for 42 years, has died at age 84 after a 35-year battle with cancer.

McLemore died March 12, 2003 in a Jasper, Texas convalescent home.

He was diagnosed with cancer of the colon in 1968, He underwent three operations over the years, but ultimately the cancer spread, said his son, Ivy Bernard McLemore of Houston, former executive sports editor of the Houston Post.

An AP official once called McLemore "the quickest and most accurate Teletype operator the AP had ever come across," his son told the Houston Chronicle.

McLemore was never a reporter or editor, but McLemore was praised over the years for a keen eye for errors and omissions in news stories; often, he helped reporters improve their writing.

"He didn't write himself, but he knew excellent copy, and he was a great one for factual detail," his son said.

Born in Jasper, McLemore grew up in the family home, which dated from 1888. After graduating from Jasper High School in 1936, McLemore landed a job in the mail room of the Beaumont Enterprise. Shortly thereafter, the AP hired him as a Teletype operator and wire clerk.

In 1940 he began working for the AP in Houston. He was there on Dec. 7, 1941, when Japanese planes bombed Pearl Harbor. During World War II, he served in the U.S. Army Air Corps as an air traffic controller. While stationed in Pampa, McLemore survived the crash of an Air Corps training plane. He later served in France and Italy.

McLemore witnessed the transformation of news writing from manual typewriters to electric typewriters and ultimately to computers.

Beginning in the 1950s, McLemore serviced AP Teletypes in offices of newspapers and radio and TV stations and other clients in the Houston area.

After he retired in 1979, McLemore returned to Jasper, where he lived and farmed on 12 acres, growing tomatoes, okra, sugar cane, strawberries and other crops. He won prizes and awards at county and state fairs for his tomatoes, his son said.

Besides his son, McLemore is survived by two sisters, Irma Brauninger of Beaumont and Marie Hicks of Jasper; three brothers, John D. McLemore of Kemp, Tommie McLemore of Bartlett, Tenn., and Bobbie McLemore of Jasper.

His former wife, Carmen Albacete McLemore, died in 1995.

McNICOLL, DONALD McKAY — "Mac" McNicoll, who was a writer and editor for The Associated Press in London for more than three decades, died Monday, Feb. 25, 2008, in London.

Retired AP London journalist Graham Heathcote shares this remembrance: "My own memories of McNicoll: He was a brilliant journalist, a master of English grammar and style, who grew up in the hard school between the two great wars when you could be sacked for a spelling mistake. He never lost his temper. Men and women he took on owed their careers and livelihoods to him. He was a teacher, a guide, an adviser, loyal friend and unforgettable."

Read the obituary Heathcote wrote:

LONDON -- Donald McKay McNicoll, writer and editor for Associated Press in London for 33 years, died Monday, Feb. 25, 2008, at age 93.

McNicoll, a Scot from Dundee, played an important role introducing new technology so that the London bureau became the first in Fleet Street -- the center of the London newspaper industry -- to use computers in a smooth transition from teleprinters in the early 1970s.

McNicoll had a 72-year career in journalism. He joined the AP in 1946 and soon became editor of the U.K. desk which supplied the news agency's worldwide news service to British subscribers. He later headed London's world service desk where he remained until retirement in 1979.

McNicoll, always known as 'Mac' to colleagues and friends, was a wheelchair invalid after a stroke in 2000. He was a resident of the Royal Star and Garter Home for Disabled Ex-Servicemen and Women at Richmond, Surrey. He died in St. Mary's Hospital, Paddington, after being moved there earlier this month when his condition declined.

"His mind remained clear to the end and he understood everything despite being unable to speak. He died peacefully, " said his son Gavin.

Horst Faas, AP's twice Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer and its former European photo editor, said: "McNicoll was the one person whom I always found extremely keen to know about and help with everything that was going on.

"I saw him in negotiations with the management about introducing new technology in which AP was the first mover in Fleet Street. He could see the inevitability of it and he helped to avoid a walkout by the technicians, " Faas said.

"Mac was disarmingly witty and never lost control or showed anger. After his stroke and despite his struggle to communicate he was so lively that he seemed to be having a conversation with you. I saw him regularly whenever I visited London after I retired and he came to the launch of the AP history book 'Breaking News' which his wife Anna read to him, more than 450 pages of it, " Faas recalled.

McNicoll was born in December 1914. His father was a sapper fighting on the Western Front from the first to the last day of World War I and in civilian life a tailor and regimental tailor for the Black Watch, the Scottish kilted regiment.

The newsman was named after his mother's father, Donald McKay, who was one of Lord Roberts' band of Highlanders in the Second Afghan War when they marched to victory against Ayub Khan from Kabul to Kandahar in 1881.

Juvenile polo put the young McNicoll in leg irons as a child, leaving him with a pronounced limp for the rest of his life. But he cycled to strengthen his withered legs and managed up to 140 miles in a day cycling across Scotland with a friend.

He managed to use the exercise bike at the Star and Garter Home while listening to tapes of Lance Armstrong's book, 'It's Not About the Bike.'

His limp did not prevent McNicoll volunteering for World War II and he served six years in the Royal Army Medical Corps in England.

His journalism career began with the big Dundee publisher of newspapers, journals and comic books, D.C.Thomson. He was a reporter on its People's Journal as well as an agony aunt and astrologer as Madame Zygmaa. He then worked for national newspapers, including the Daily Herald and Reynolds News.

A vivid picture of McNicoll at work -- and a rare one in accounts of the profession -- was drawn by the late South African journalist and anti-apartheid activist Donald Woods in his 1980 autobiography, "Asking for Trouble."

In London to gain experience, Woods sought a job with AP and had what he called a " harrowing interview " with McNicoll in the busy London newsroom.

Woods wrote: " McNicoll seemed to be doing several things at once, mentally subediting running copy from a teletype machine on to his typewriter while answering questions from a succession of journalists about lead points in various reports. Three or four of the journalists waited in line for such guidance, which McNicoll gave out of the corner of his mouth without looking up from his typing or his reading of the telex. It was impressive to watch.

"Presently he looked up and noticed me, then said he had no vacancies but would try me out for possible future reference."

Woods wrote that on finding out that he was 24 and without journalistic experience in Britain, McNicoll announced to everyone in hearing that he must be a genius to consider himself ready to join AP.

Exclaiming, "I'll soon find out! " he plucked from a used-copy spike a thick handful of cable stories and told Woods to subedit them in exactly one hour: "Tight, mind! Not one unnecessary word."

Woods wrote: "He could not have been serious -- there were more than fifty cable stories in the pile. So when he wasn't looking I respiked half of them and got down to work on the rest. They were a mixture -- one was about President Sukarno of Indonesia, one was about a new David Niven film and some were on sport.

"I did the tightest subbing job I could, going over each item to reduce the number of words without sacrificing hard news facts, and at the end of the hour I had worked through the reduced pile. What happened then was unnerving.

"He took my subbed cables, picked up a red pencil and, while continuing to answer queries from various staff men who advanced to his desk went through my copy with the red pencil, flying over the pages, leaving savage gashes here, fresh paragraph marks there, tearing out and rewriting great swathes of words and working through the pile in fifteen minutes.

"He handed the mutilated cables back to me wordlessly and turned back to his work and as I bent over them I saw that I was out of my depth. McNicoll had taken what I thought was rack-tight subbing and effortlessly tightened it by more than half, leaving out no essential element of any story and vastly improving the wording -- in particular, restructing introduction paragraphs with fresh news angles. It was an impressive display and I was awed by it."

McNicoll told Woods kindly that he was nowhere near ready for such a job and advised him to find work on a local paper, then a major regional, and then to try again for Fleet Street.

After working for a group of local newspaperss, Woods tried again with McNicoll four months later with the same result but with the cheering news that he had made a "grand improvement."

Two years later after much more experience he tried again and McNicoll said that he was ready to give him a job. But Woods replied that he was returning to South Africa the next day.

McNicoll said he understood, remarking: "You had to show me and you had to show yourself. Well, that's understandable. Good luck to you."

They shook hands and he left. "After McNicoll I felt I could face anyone in the newspaper world, " Woods wrote.

McNicoll regarded his reporting of Sir Winston Churchill's long and final illness, death and funeral in 1965 as his most significant reporting for AP and his stories under his byline apeared in some 8,000 national and regional newspapers throughout the world for weeks on end.

As AP's entertainments editor he often wrote stories about show business and enjoyed friendships with stars as diverse as Joan Collins and Twiggy the fashion model, The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Bing Crosby, Mama Cass and Rod Stewart.

McNicoll wrote the AP manual "News Agencies and the Law" which spelt out how to avoid libel suits over news, features and photographs.

McNicoll had a passion for teaching and lectured on journalism at a specialist London college. However, he never hired from its graduate pool but insisted on potential recruits getting pracical experience first.

When McNicoll retired from AP, Sir David English, then editor of the Daily Mail and later chairman of Associated Newspapers, led tributes, noting that of the editors in what was then still Fleet Street, more than half and half of their staff were " Mac's boys, " formed in the crucible of the AP newsroom under his tutelage.

For 20 years, McNicoll headed the National Union of Journalists' chapter at AP London, elected by his colleagues, and was faithful to their interests while preserving good relations with the management throughout.

In retirement, McNicoll wrote for newspapers and for specialist journals with a particular interest in the environment and forestry. With lifelong concern for his homeland he was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and a regular attender at the annual dinners on Jan. 25 to celebrate the life of the poet Robert Burns. The latest Burns Night was also McNicoll's last.

He is survived by his widow Anna and their son Gavin and son Ian by a previous marriage.

Following a private cremation a funeral service will be held on Saturday, March 8 at 12 noon at St. Columba's Church, Pont Street, London.

MEI, RICHARD — a photojournalist who worked for Connecticut newspapers and the AP for 25 years, died Jan. 22, 2001 in Hartford of a cerebral aneurysm. He was 52.

Mei began his career in 1975 as a staff photographer for the New Haven Journal Courier and the New Haven Register. He worked on the staff of the Journal Tribune of Biddeford, Maine, before becoming photo editor at The Advocate of Stamford in 1980.

From 1982 to 1990, Mei was a staff photographer for The Hartford Courant before turning to free-lance work. Mei also served as photo editor of the Record-Journal of Meriden from 1994-96.

Survivors include two sons, his mother, and a brother.

MENTO, PAUL — Some 200 relatives and friends crowded into a Brooklyn, N.Y., church on Feb. 29, 2008 for the funeral of former Associated Press Budget Director Paul Mento. Mento, 52, had spent 26 years at AP, all of them at the news cooperative's New York headquarters when it was still located at 50 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan. Retired AP President and CEO Louis D. Boccardi and retired AP Vice President Claude Erbsen attended the funeral mass.

Mento began his AP career as an audit clerk in the payroll department in 1978, working his way up to budget director in 1988. He received an MBA from Columbia University in 1995, and left the AP in 2004. At the time of his death he had been working for Citi group.

He was found dead in a Brooklyn hotel Feb. 25. The medical examiner ruled the death a suicide.

Boccardi told Cleartime Online that "Paul was a direct, no-nonsense kind of guy. A straight question brought a straight answer, delivered by deadline and without asterisks. He knew our finances inside out and, while not a journalist himself, he won everybody's confidence with his ability to understand, and help us deal with, the ups and downs. He was proud of his place in the AP, and he cared."

Mento’s long-time boss, retired AP Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Pat O’Brien, describes Mento as "an important part of reshaping AP's finance group. He wore many hats during his time at 50 Rock and he wore them all with distinction. He was my go-to guy at AP and a good friend for 25 years. I will miss him."

"Paul had a photographic memory for numbers," recalls Erbsen, "and an uncanny understanding for the cyclical nature of AP revenues and expenses. He was always willing to walk the proverbial extra mile to help bureau chiefs sort out budget issues. He firmly believed it was a part of New York’s mission to support the folks out in the field."

MERANDO, ARMAND — of Ecumenical Community, Susquehanna Twp., and formerly of Springfield, Delaware Co., died Monday, July 21, 2003 in Community Osteopathic Hospital in Harrisburg, PA.

He was a retired Communications Engineer for the Associated Press with 48 years of service and also retired as a school bus driver for the Springfield School District after 11 years.

A life member of St. Francis of Assisi Roman Catholic Church, Springfield. He was a member of the Springfield Athletic Association, Bowling League, and was an avid golfer.

His wife, Carmella, preceded him in death. Survivors include one son, Robert J. of East Lansing, MI; two brothers and five sisters.

Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated July 25 in St. Catherine Laboure Roman Catholic Church in Harrisburg,. Burial followed in Holy Cross Cemetery.

MERTENA, WILLIAM J. — a longtime AP reporter in Olympia, Seattle and Spokane, died Wash., Oct. in Olympia, Wash. He was 70.

Mertena covered state government and politics for the AP from 1966 until his retirement in 1987. He was part of the AP team that reported the May 18, 1980, eruption of Mount St. Helens.

Before coming to Washington state in 1963, he worked for the American Press in Lake Charles, La. A native of Frederick, Okla., he was a journalism graduate of the University of Oklahoma.

Survivors include his wife and four children.

MICHEEL, ANDREA — an Associated Press executive who played a key role for many years as head of personnel and administration for the news agency's operations in Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Eastern Europe, died Feb. 24, 2005, at her home in Walldorf outside Frankfurt, Germany. She was 61.

She helped organize AP's expansion in Germany following reunification of the country and nurtured hundreds of employees over a career that began in 1965 and was cut short by a stroke that left her in a coma in 2000.

After the Berlin Wall was torn down in 1989, Micheel established and equipped new AP offices in formerly communist-controlled eastern Germany at a time when personnel, useable office space and equipment were hard to find.

"Andy Micheel was one of AP's stars in Germany, an organizer, a negotiator, an administrator, who helped manage one of our biggest news operations with skill, good humor and great dedication," said Tom Curley, AP's president and chief executive officer. "She was the pillar on which six bureau chiefs over more than three decades relied to assure the smooth running of AP's news, photo and television coverage throughout central Europe."

MILAM, MARGARET HELEN — worked as an AP automatics/teletype operator about 40 years in West Virginia, Baltimore, New York, Columbus, OH and Atlanta before she retired. She moved after retiring to care for her ill mother, and later for her father, and continued to live in his house after he passed away. Ms. Milam died in Clearwater, Fla., Dec. 29, 2001. She was 82.

She was a native of Charleston, W. Va., and got into teletype work at a Western Union office there where her father worked. She began working in the AP bureau there about 1940.

By 1945, she was working in the Baltimore bureau, where her brother, Frank, recalled visiting her while he was in the U.S. Navy. He said she took two or three short assignments to the New York office before transferring back to Charleston. From there she had a brief assignment in the Columbus bureau before transferring to Atlanta, where she was working when she retired in 1980.

Survivors include her brother, Frank Milam, Orlando, FL; two nieces and one nephew.

MILLER, JOY — Joy May Miller, a former women's editor for The Associated Press, died May 8, 2002 in Concord, Calif. She was 79. Miller died of a stroke while recuperating from a heart bypass she had in March, said her niece, Carole Miller of Pittsburg.

Miller was born on Nov. 20, 1922, in Oklahoma City. She graduated from the University of Kansas, and began working as an AP editor in Kansas City, Mo., in 1944. In 1953 she was transferred to the Newsfeatures desk in New York and was promoted to women's editor in 1960.

As editor, Miller tried to make reporting on women's issues more substantive. At that time, such coverage didn't stray far from women's clubs and weddings, along with cooking and homemaking tips.

"She really was a pioneer in trying to have the women's section be important and meaningful," said her longtime friend and colleague Mary Campbell, who worked with her in Newsfeatures.

Some of the interviews Miller brought to the section in her nine years as editor were artist Georgia O'Keeffe, the White House press secretary for Lady Bird Johnson, Liz Carpenter, and Madalyn Murray O'Hair, the atheist who won a suit against having prayers in public schools.

Miller was an opera fan, and was known for her love of animals. She cared for as many as 20 cats at a time while living in Manhattan, fed the birds and liked to leave out peanut butter sandwiches for the city's raccoons

"She was very much into the environment, and helping wild animals," her niece said.

Miller retired from the AP in 1969. She lived in New York until 1999, when she moved in with her niece in Pittsburg. She is survived by a brother, E.H. Miller of Atascadero, four nieces and many grand nieces and nephews.

MILLER, STEVE — Steve Miller, who served The Associated Press as chief of bureau in Germany during the tumultuous years of the Cold War, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Balkan wars and Germany's reunification, died July 23, 2005 in Athens, Ohio, of complications from cancer. He was 62.

Miller headed AP's operations in Germany for 17 years, longer than any other bureau chief, overseeing AP's biggest news operation outside the United States with administrative responsibility for Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Eastern Europe.

He also was managing director of The Associated Press GmbH, the subsidiary that distributes German-language AP news services, photos and other products in Germany, Europe's largest single media market, as well as in Switzerland, Austria and Luxembourg. Miller retired to his native Ohio in 2004.

"Steve was an inspirational leader because he was an exceptional individual," said Tom Curley, AP's president and chief executive officer. "Steve cared deeply about his people, The Associated Press and what it meant to journalism. He played a pivotal role in the development of the modern AP in Europe and forever will hold a place in our hearts."

"I feel very, very lucky to have worked for him," said Deborah Seward, now AP's international editor, whom Miller hired in Poland in 1988. "I know there are a lot of people like me broken up by this."

Miller first served in Germany in 1977 and, after holding a variety of senior positions in Europe, returned in 1986 as chief of bureau in Frankfurt. Miller moved the company's German headquarters to Berlin in 2001.

During his tenure, Miller upgraded distribution of AP's German-language services from landline to satellite delivery, expanded domestic news coverage in Germany and Switzerland, and introduced online news services via the Internet. He also led AP's expansion into formerly communist Eastern Europe.

Miller joined AP in 1966 in Columbus, his birthplace, after working briefly for United Press International in Pittsburgh, and, earlier, for the Logan (Ohio) Daily News, where his father, William S. Miller, was editor.

In 1968, Miller was appointed correspondent in Cleveland, where he covered the story of the polluted Cuyahoga River catching on fire in 1969 and the fatal shootings of four student protesters by Ohio National Guardsmen at Kent State University the following year. He transferred in 1971 to AP's headquarters in New York, where he was soon promoted to business news editor. He was named Berlin correspondent in 1977.

"I had joined the AP to be a foreign correspondent," Miller said. "So one day I just took all my chips upstairs to (then-AP President) Keith Fuller, cashed them in and was lucky enough to get Berlin," Miller said of his move to international reporting.

He was appointed East European correspondent based in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, now Serbia, in 1978, and then chief of bureau in Vienna, Austria, in 1979, covering the early years of John Paul II's papacy, Poland's Solidarity labor movement and the death of Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito in 1980. In 1982, he was named deputy marketing and business director for AP-Dow Jones in Europe and the Middle East based in London. He moved to Denmark in 1985 as chief of Scandinavian Services. His time there included the assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme. He was reassigned to Germany in 1986.

"For a journalist, it was, for once, perfect timing," Miller said. "The fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of communism in the east, war after war in Yugoslavia, German reunification, the German government's return to Berlin. I was here for things I never expected to see in my lifetime."

Miller was a graduate of Earlham College of Richmond, Ind., and attended a graduate program in journalism at Ohio State University.

Survivors include his wife, Eve, formerly editor of the syndication sales department of The New York Times.

MILLER, WILSON P. — worked 43 years for the AP, most of it in the Nashville technical office, before he retired in the 1970s. He died at his Nashville area home Nov. 20, 2001 after a brief illness. He was 88.

Miller's daughters noted that he died two days before Thanksgiving, the same day of the year his wife, Roberta Thomas Miller, died two years earlier. They had been married 67 years. Miller served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps during World War II.

He was active in the Masonic Order for many years and had held many major offices in his lodge. He was a former deacon of his Baptist church and had contributed many years of dedicated service in helping crippled and burned children. A well-known story-teller and writer of organizational newsletters, Miller was noted for his jovial nature and was never without an interesting or humorous anecdote.

Survivors include one sister, one brother, three daughters, nine grandchildren and 15 great grandchildren.

MILLINER, LOU — a retired New Orleans newsman, died April 4, 1999 after a brief illness. He was 88.

Milliner began his journalism career in 1935 in Little Rock for United Press, where copy was transmitted in Morse Code. He retired from the AP in 1977, not long after the introduction of computers into the newsroom. A graduate of the University of Illinois, Milliner served in the Army News Service and joined the AP in New York after World War II. He transferred to New Orleans in 1947.

Survivors of the Milliners include three children, Denis Milliner, Melissa M. Daggett, and Thomas Milliner, all of New Orleans, and seven grandchildren.

MILLS, GEORGE S. Sr., — Mills, a reporter, author and Iowa historian, died Oct. 20 in Des Moines. He was 97.

Mills was a reporter for The Des Moines Register for 30 years. Previously, he worked for the Marshalltown Times-Republican, the Iowa Daily Press Association and The Associated Press.

When he was 70, and five years retired from the Register, Mills began reporting for WHO-TV in Des Moines. He worked there until he was 77.

During Dwight Eisenhower's first campaign for president, Mills was with other reporters as Eisenhower had lunch with farmers in Minnesota. Security officials told reporters the lunch was off-limits to them.

Mills went to the rear of the farmhouse, entered the kitchen, donned an apron and began helping with the dishes, all the time engaging the farm women in small talk. As they became accustomed to his presence, Mills worked his way close to the table where Eisenhower was eating and was able to pick up enough of what was being said to write an exclusive story.

Looking back on the incident later, Mills said, "I'd be shot for trying that now."

He also wrote seven books, including one about the history of The Des Moines Register and the Des Moines Tribune.

After he retired from the Register, Mills was appointed to a term on the State Historical Board.

Survivors include a daughter.

MINE, JOHN — spent his 35-year AP career with the broadcast department, starting at Baltimore, MD, in 1948 and moving to New York in 1959. Mine retired in 1983 and died Aug. 10, 2002 in Red Bank, N.J. He was 82.

His widow, Eileen, said John learned he had lung cancer about six months before his death. Other survivors include two sons, Jon of Bridgewater, N.J., and Mark, of Chapel Hill, N. C., four grandchildren and two great grandchildren.

MIRANDA, RICARDO — the AP correspondent in Guatemala, died July 26, 2001 in Guatemala City of a stroke. He was 33.

Before joining the AP last year, Miranda had worked for several local magazines, as well as the newspapers Siglo 21 and El Periodico and the news agency Reuters. He had also worked as a free-lance reporter for Time magazine and was president of the Guatemala Foreign Press Club. "Ricardo was a complete journalist with a great news sense, fast in pursuing a story and fair in reporting it," said Eloy Aguilar, AP chief of bureau for Mexico and Central America.

Survivors include three children.

MOLEON, ARY — who spent four decades covering diplomacy and politics in Washington, D.C., for the Latin American service of the Associated Press, died Tuesday, June 24, 2008, in Florida. He was 82. Read the June 26 AP story below.

Veteran AP journalist Ary Moleon dies at 82

By NESTOR IKEDA
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Ary Moleon, who spent four decades covering diplomacy and politics in Washington for The Associated Press' Latin American service, has died. He was 82.

Moleon died of natural causes Tuesday while he slept in his home in Broward County, Fla., according to his son, Fernando.

Moleon arrived in New York with his family in 1962 after a stint working in Colombia. He was hired by the AP and spent the next 40 years with the agency, almost all of that time in Washington.

"I worked with Ary for many years in the Washington bureau and always admired the style and persistence he brought to his reporting. He had complete command of the LPA (Latin American service) beat and pursued stories of interest to our Latin America clients with great gusto," former AP Vice President Jonathan Wolman said.

It was in Washington's diplomatic world -- particularly in the Organization of American States -- that Moleon gained recognition, developing sources as no one else could.

"He knew everyone in the OAS orbit, no mean feat because it was a surprisingly large orbit with an ever-changing constellation of characters," Wolman said.

An AP colleague, Merrill Hartson, described Moleon as something of a quixotic figure in Washington.

"Ary was an elegant dresser, a cigar aficionado, a man of good humor and even some self-deprecation who knew a good restaurant from a bad one and an ordinary work of art from a great one," said Hartson.

Moleon is survived by his wife, Gloria, and children Fernando, Gloria and Maria Pia.

The family said it was preparing to return Moleon's remains to the Argentine city where he was born, Bahia Blanca in Buenos Aires province.

MORABITO, MILLIE — who served for more than two decades as confidential secretary/administrative assistant in Broadcast News before becoming treasurer-manager of the AP Credit Union, died of complications from diabetes Nov. 5, 1999 in a New York hospital, one day short of her 71st birthday.

Morabito, a New York City native, joined AP in 1951 as a payroll clerk in New York Treasury. In December 1957 she transferred as a confidential secretary to Radio News, the department that wrote national news scripts for AP's broadcast members. She served as assistant to John Aspinwall, Jerry Trapp, Jim Hood and Rob Dalton during her quarter century in the New York Broadcast Department.

In July 1982, Morabito took early retirement not long after the announcement that the broadcast department would relocate to Washington, D.C. Soon after, she joined the AP Credit Union as treasurer-manager. She had been a charter member of the credit union since it began in the 1950s. She ran the credit union until her retirement in 1996.

Outside AP, Millie was a well-known, respected figure in the credit union movement. She was president of the Metropolitan District of the New York State Credit Union League from 1986 to1991 and a director of the league from 1992 to 1998.

Survivors include a brother and a sister.

MORGAN, PERRY — a former AP newsman and retired publisher of The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star who once headed news operations at parent Landmark Communications Inc., died Nov. 7, 1999 in Norfolk, Va. He was 72.

Morgan, a Georgia farm boy and World War II veteran, worked for the AP in Atlanta after graduating from the University of Georgia. He worked at several newspapers before becoming editor of The Charlotte (N.C.) News and the Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal. He came to Norfolk in 1973 as executive editor.

He retired in 1985 but continued to write a column. "Perry was a superb newspaperman — editor, writer and, above all, a developer of talent," said Frank Batten, chairman of the executive committee of Landmark's board and former chairman of the Associated Press board of directors.

Survivors include a son and a sister.

MORGANTHALER, JOHN — a 36-year veteran of The Associated Press who covered the Watergate trial of former Attorney General John Mitchell, has died. He was 78.

Morganthaler died in his sleep Jan. 31, 2000 at Mercy General Hospital in Sacramento after a lengthy illness. Morganthaler joined the AP in 1951 in Columbus, Ohio, following a four-year stint with The Modesto Bee.

He transferred in 1954 to Cleveland, where he covered the Dr. Sam Sheppard murder case, which inspired the "The Fugitive" film and TV series. Morganthaler moved to the AP's Sacramento bureau in 1957. In 1963, he joined the New York City bureau and covered numerous national stories, including Mitchell's conviction for Watergate-related crimes.

In 1975, Morganthaler returned to Sacramento to care for his ailing parents and an aunt. He covered the Legislature for the AP and wrote extensively on environmental and prison issues. Morganthaler retired in 1987.

He is survived by two nieces.

MOSLEY, SETH — helped cover the Hindenburg disaster for the AP, died Aug. 11, 2001 in Torrington, Conn. He was 92.

In March 1932, while a reporter for the New York Evening Journal, Moseley obtained an exclusive interview with Charles A. Lindbergh hours after the aviator's infant son was kidnapped from Lindbergh's Hopewell, N.J., home.

He also reported on the September 1934 shipboard fire that killed 134 people and set the S.S. Morro Castle adrift off the New Jersey coast. He joined the AP in New York the following year. In May 1937, Moseley was one of the reporters covering the landing of the dirigible Hindenburg flight from Germany to New Jersey, when it burned and crashed at Lakehurst, N.J.

After leaving journalism, Moseley worked in public relations in New York for more than 40 years. In 1982, he began writing a weekly column for the Torrington Register Citizen.

Moseley is survived by his second wife, Hilda, and two sons.

MOSES, GEORGE — George Moses, a longtime Minnesota bureau chief of The Associated Press known for calling John F. Kennedy the winner in the 1960 presidential race, died June 2, 2007 at his home in Montana, his daughter said. He was 91.

Moses died Saturday night in his sleep, three days after fracturing his hip in a fall, Sue Moses said.

During his two decades overseeing the AP in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota, Moses covered major stories, including the Beatles' 1965 concert at the old Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington.

In the hotly contested 1960 presidential race, Moses called Minnesota for Kennedy, putting him over the top in the AP's count of electoral votes and electing the Democrat over Republican Richard M. Nixon.

According to the AP's count, Kennedy had 261 electoral votes the morning after the election -- just shy of winning -- with California, Illinois and Minnesota too close to call, writer Jim Klobuchar recalled in a 1970 Minneapolis Star column on Moses.

"Moses supervised the browbeating of county auditors to wring out a few more votes," wrote Klobuchar, who was an AP staffer in the Minneapolis bureau at the time.

"But at this magical hour the Iron Range auditors emerged providentially from the open pits. The Rangers went for Kennedy like he might have been Frankie Yankovic's son. Moses telephoned AP's New York sanctuary. `We're going to elect Kennedy,' he said."

Once AP headquarters approved the call, Klobuchar wrote, "Moses sped it from my carriage return to the teletype two syllables at a time."

Born in Minot, N.D., Moses attended the University of Minnesota, where he won the annual Northwest Daily Press Association Scholarship as the outstanding junior in the journalism department from 1935-36.

Moses began his career at the Bismarck (N.D.) Tribune in 1937 and joined AP in Bismarck as a reporter in 1940. After joining the Army in World War II and rising to the rank of captain, he returned to the AP after being honorably discharged and became Bismarck correspondent for AP in 1946.

Moses transferred to the Minneapolis bureau in 1950 and was appointed bureau chief less than a month later. His hearing damaged by exposure to artillery fire in the military, a problem made worse by the noisy teletype printers used by AP then, Moses retired in 1970 to teach journalism at Macalester College in St. Paul. He chaired Macalester's journalism program until 1980, retiring to a home alongside a trout stream in Nye, in southwestern Montana.

"He forced you to love the language. He forced you to respect the language. And he gave you an awfully good appreciation of journalism. It was clearly more than just a job to him," Howard Sinker, state/enterprise editor at the Star Tribune who took classes from Moses in the 1970s, said.

As AP bureau chief, Moses -- a bald, paternal-looking man -- was known for his elegant writing style, his friendliness and openness to staffers and his sense of humor.

"I viewed him almost as a father figure. He was someone you could always go to to discuss anything, and he always listened," Minneapolis AP newswoman Karren Mills said.

Moses also kept his hand in writing, covering everything from the opening of the Guthrie Theater in 1963 to the Minnesota Twins' first game at Met Stadium in 1961. While visiting an AP member newspaper in southern Minnesota, Moses reported on a snowstorm in flawless style, Mills said.

The Minneapolis AP's staffer of the year award, begun in 1978, is named after Moses.

When Moses was bureau chief, the Minnesota AP editors association would pass a resolution at its annual meeting that would thank the AP staff and "thank God we have Moses to lead us out of the wilderness," retired AP newsman Gene Lahammer recalled.

Moses was preceded in death by his wife of 59 years, Lucile, who died in October 2006. Survivors include their four daughters and 13 grandchildren.

MUNDT, HERBERT G.— a retired Associated Press executive who began hiscareer tapping out Morse Code transmissions and then helped shepherd thenews industry into the Internet Age, died Jan. 23, 2005.

During an AP career that spanned nearly half a century, Mundt, 76, was known for his warmth and wit as much as for his technical skills.

He died of complications following a series of strokes and is survived by wife, Bobbie, daughter, Cheryl, son, Tim, six grandchildren and two great grandchildren. Visitation will be Wednesday from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. followed by services at Bethany Lutheran Church in Overland Park, Kan.

"Herb was fiercely dedicated to the AP, the newspaper and broadcast members he served, and the people who worked with him in our communications operation," said Paul Stevens, AP's Central Region vice president who worked with Mundt from 1984 to 1991 as Kansas City chief of bureau.

"But he did all this with a wry sense of humor. He had the knack of brightening everyone's day and didn't allow us to take ourselves, or our latest challenge, too seriously."

As a 15-year-old copy boy in his native Chicago in 1944, Mundt quickly earned a reputation as an incurable prankster with a gift for technology. He almost got fired one day for attaching firecrackers to the end of cigarettes and planting them in desk wells.

"Boy, did we keep that place hopping," he would later recall.

But instead of firing its puckish copy boy, AP promoted him. He became a wirephoto editor and later was brought to New York for executive training.

He spent the last 28 years of his career as chief of technical operations for Kansas and Missouri, helping AP and its newspaper and broadcast members keep abreast of the revolutionary changes sweeping through the telecommunications industry.

When Mundt first went to work, Teletype machines chugged along at 65 words per minute. But satellite transmissions had replaced Morse code by the time he retired in 1991 and high-speed printers were pumping out news and information at 9,000 words per minute.

Louis D. Boccardi, former president and chief executive officer of the AP, praised him upon retirement as "an anchor in a sea of AP change in Kansas City and the rest of AP for these many years."

"You've given yourself to that change because it meant a better AP," Boccardi said. "What more could a company ask from a key manager?"

Mundt admitted that keeping up with the changes was not always easy. But he constantly strove to keep it fun.

"AP was true family to Herb, almost like his own real family," Stevens said. "He leaves a legacy in today's AP, even 14 years after he retired, of people whose careers he started and nurtured and are today making their own mark on our cooperative."

One reason Mundt always embraced the AP family was the way AP embraced the Mundt family. He figured that he, his brothers, Len and Walt, and his sister, Erna, had compiled a combined service to AP of 145 years in the communication departments of several bureaus.

Mundt was also notorious for a collection of jokes, drawings and cartoons collected from friends and colleagues around the country.

"Herbie loved jokes," said Ralph Keibler, a retired technical communications manager for AP. He also said Mundt "probably hired more new employees than any other executive in the AP."

One of Mundt's favorite proteges was Brad Martin, who directs the Kansas City Network Operations Center, a linchpin in AP's global communications network.

"Herb was one of the funniest and warmest men I ever knew," Martin said. "He always started every conversation with a joke or a story. He had one for any occasion, and he had a gift of delivery."

To the many AP staff members he hired Mundt was a mentor in the truest sense, Martin said. "He was extremely proud of the many people he hired at AP and kept track of their careers over the years."

Martin said he recently came across his own personnel file from the early days when he worked for Mundt.

"I had no idea the grief I caused him," Martin said. "I apologized to him for being such a pain. His reply was to laugh and say, 'You were worth it.'"

MYERS, ROBERT — Bob Myers, who was an Associated Press bureau chief in San Francisco, Honolulu and Salt Lake City during a 15-year career with the news agency, has died. He was 76.

Myers died June 22, 2007 at a Los Angeles hospital from complications of kidney failure. He had been in and out of the hospital since Christmas, his wife, Lee, said July 10.

Myers was with The Associated Press from 1954 to 1969.
In Hawaii, he helped cover U.S. nuclear tests in the Pacific and the 1961 disappearance of Nelson Rockefeller's son Michael, who vanished during a trip to New Guinea and was declared dead in 1964.

Myers, the son of movie producer-director-writer Zion Myers, graduated with an English degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, where he was a sports editor on the Daily Bruin student newspaper.

He was drafted for the Korean War, serving with the military police in Korea and also working as an editor for the newspaper Stars and Stripes, his wife said.

At the time of his death he was living in Los Angeles and was president and owner of Los Angeles-based Myers/Smith Inc., a management firm for professional engineering societies.

In addition to his wife, survivors include a daughter, three sons and a sister.