Year In Review: The Obituaries Of February 2015
SACRAMENTO (CBS13/AP) — As we approach the end of the year, we're taking a look back at some of the lives lost during 2015.
Each weekday between now and New Year's Day, CBS13 will be remembering one person who died each day this year. They range from athletes to war heroes, to local names to Hollywood luminaries. February's list includes a Yuba City man who was the oldest survivor on the USS Arizona, a man who changed the way the sport of football is seen, and the only man to toss Wilt Chamberlain from an NBA game.
FEB. 1
Ann Mara, 85
New York Giants co-owner John Mara announced his mother's death on Super Bowl Sunday.
Ann Mara was a prominent philanthropist who supported educational organizations. Mara also helped children with cancer through the Ronald McDonald House of New York.
Married to former Giants owner Wellington Mara in 1954 after a chance meeting in a Roman Catholic church, Ann Mara attended almost every Giants home and away game. She was a fierce defender of the team.
Sometimes referred to as "The First Lady of Football," also let her sons know how she felt. Three of them work in the Giants' front office. Along with John, Chris is the senior vice president of player evaluation and Frank is the vice president of community relations.
She used to like to remind John Mara that "you're an employee.'"
FEB. 2
Frank Borghi, 89
The goalkeeper in the United States' 1-0 upset victory over England in the 1950 World Cup also served in the U.S. military in Europe in World War II and earned a Bronze Star and Purple Heart.
The U.S. lost its 1950 World Cup opener to Spain 3-1 after leading through 80 minutes and was a huge underdog against England, a world power, going into the game at Belo Horizonte, Brazil, on June 29, 1950
Joe Gaetjens' 38th-minute header put the U.S. ahead, and Borghi withstood all of England's shots. He was carried off the field by his teammates.
"I'll never forget it," Borghi said during a 2002 interview with The Associated Press. "But if we had played them again the next day, they'd probably beat us 10-0."
His most memorable save came in about the 80th minute, after Charlie Colombo fouled Stanley Mortensen just outside the American penalty area.
Off the free kick, Billy Mullen bounced a downward header, and Borghi lunged to his right and reached back to palm away the ball. Defender Harry Keough cleared it.
FEB. 3
Charlie Sifford, 92
Charlie Sifford only wanted a chance to play and broke the color barrier in golf as the first black PGA Tour member.
A proud man who endured racial taunts and threats, Sifford set modest goals and achieved more than he imagined.
Sifford challenged the Caucasian-only clause and the PGA rescinded it in 1961. He won the Greater Hartford Open in 1967 and the Los Angeles Open in 1969. He also won the 1975 Senior PGA Championship, five years before the Champions Tour was created.
His career was fully recognized in 2004 when he became the first black inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame. Last November, President Barack Obama presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer are the only other golfers who received that honor.
FEB. 4
Joseph Langdell, 100
A tally maintained by the USS Arizona Reunion Association, for which Retired Navy Lt. Cmdr. Joseph Langdell had served as president, identified him as not only the oldest Arizona survivor, but the last surviving officer from the naval ship that lost 1,177 men – nearly four-fifths of its crew – when it was bombed on Dec. 7, 1941.
Langdell was an ensign on an assignment that had him sleeping on a military base adjacent to the ship in Honolulu on the morning Pearl Harbor was attacked. He spent the following hours and days trying to rescue shipmates from the burning water, preparing for another possible air assault and leading the survivors tasked with removing the remains of the dead from the partially sunken ship, his son said.
The reunion association says there are now eight remaining survivors.
FEB. 5
Anne Moody, 74
On May 28, 1963, Anne Moody was among the students from historically black Tougaloo College who staged a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter in downtown Jackson, Mississippi. A white mob attacked the integrated group of peaceful students, dousing them with ketchup, mustard and sugar and beating one of the men.
A photograph from the sit-in shows Moody sitting stoically at the five-and-dime counter with food on her head. Moody's eyes are downcast as a man pours more food on one of her fellow students, Joan Trumpauer.
Moody wrote in her 1968 memoir that "all hell broke loose" after she and two other black students, Memphis Norman and Pearlena Lewis, prayed at the lunch counter.
"A man rushed forward, threw Memphis from his seat, and slapped my face," Moody wrote. "Then another man who worked in the store threw me against an adjoining counter."
The Jackson sit-in occurred more than three years after a more famous one in Greensboro, North Carolina. The one in Jackson happened just after the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision that legalized sit-ins. But, Jackson police provided little protection to the protesters as about 300 whites screamed at and jostled them.
FEB. 6
Norm Drucker, 94
The NBA referee's most famous call came in 1962 when he called a second technical foul on Wilt Chamberlain, then with the Philadelphia Warriors. The ejection was the only one of the Hall of Fame center's career.
FEB. 7
Dean Smith, 83
Dean Smith was more than simply a basketball coach.
Yes, the retired Hall of Famer left North Carolina as the winningest coach in men's history after capturing two national titles along with the 1976 Olympic gold medal and coaching some of the sport's biggest names, Michael Jordan among them.
But he also was an innovator who left a lasting influence on the sport, as well as someone known for his stand on civil rights driven by the belief that it was the right thing to do.
FEB. 8
Kenji Ekuan, 85
A witness to the devastation of the Hiroshima atomic bomb in World War II, Ekuan dedicated his life to becoming a creator. His most famous work is the design of the Kikkoman soy sauce bottle.
FEB. 9
Ed Sabol, 98
Working with his son, Steve, Sabol introduced a series of innovations taken for granted today: super slow-motion replays, blooper reels, reverse angle shots. They stuck microphones on coaches and players, set highlights to pop music and recorded pregame locker room speeches.
And one of their most important decisions was hiring John Facenda to narrate all this. He became known as the "Voice of God," reading lyrical descriptions in solemn tones.
He won the rights to chronicle the 1962 NFL championship for $3,000, changing the course of his film career and - very possibly - the league's fortunes.
FEB. 10
Deng Liqun, 99
A leading member of the Communist Party of China known for his propaganda work, Liqun was one of the most vocal in the leftist wing of his party leading up to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.
FEB. 11
Bob Simon, 73
Simon joined CBS News in 1967 as a reporter and assignment editor, covering campus unrest and inner-city riots, CBS said. He also worked in CBS' Tel Aviv bureau from 1977 to 1981 and in Washington, D.C., as its Department of State correspondent.
Simon's career in war reporting began in Vietnam, and he was on one of the last helicopters out of Saigon when the U.S. withdrew in 1975. At the outset of the Gulf War in January 1991, Simon was captured by Iraqi forces near the Saudi-Kuwaiti border. CBS said he and three other members of CBS News' coverage team spent 40 days in Iraqi prisons, an experience Simon wrote about in his book "Forty Days." Simon returned to Baghdad in January 1993 to cover the American bombing of Iraq.
Simon won numerous awards, including his fourth Peabody and an Emmy for his story from Central Africa on the world's only all-black symphony in 2012. Another story about an orchestra in Paraguay, one whose poor members constructed their instruments from trash, won him his 27th Emmy, perhaps the most held by a journalist for field reporting, CBS said.
FEB. 12
Ernest Sternglass, 91
His research helped lead to a sensitive television camera tube that captured low-light lunar action during the 1969 moon landing and U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong's historic first steps.
Sternglass also conducted pioneering work in digital X-ray imaging during a long tenure at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, according to Cornell University, where Sternglass attended school and where his papers are archived.
FEB. 13
Gary Owens, 80
Owens hosted thousands of radio programs in his long career, appeared in more than a dozen movies and on scores of TV shows, including Lucille Ball and Bob Hope specials. He also voiced hundreds of animated characters, was part of dozens of comedy albums and wrote books.
On "Laugh-In," the 1968-73 sketch show starring Dan Rowan and Dick Martin, Owens was shown on camera in a parody of an old-school announcer, with his hand cupped firmly over his ear. But his voice was always the real thing, rich and authoritative.
Owens' animation voiceover credits include "Space Ghost," ''Blue Falcon" and "Garfield and Friends" and "The Ren & Stimpy Show."
FEB. 14
Philip Levine, 87
The country's poet laureate in 2011-2012, Levine loved the earth and sky as much as any poet of nature, but he came to be identified with poems about work and workers, like "Buying and Selling" or "Saturday Sweeping," in which employees toil under a leaky roof and "blue hesitant light." In "What Work Is," the title piece of his celebrated 1991 collection, he offers a grim sketch of standing on line in the rain, hoping for a job:
This is about waiting,
shifting from one foot to another.
Feeling the light rain falling like mist
into your hair, blurring your vision
until you think you see your own brother
ahead of you, maybe ten places.
FEB. 15
George Attla, 81
Known as the "Huslia Hustler," was an unmatched sprint racing champion and one of Alaska's most decorated mushers.
Attla was widely considered the best sprint sled dog racer to ever compete.
He captivated fans with his underdog story. He suffered tuberculosis as a boy, spending much of his childhood in the hospital, where they straightened and fused his knee. He refused to let that keep him from racing competitively, instead turning it into his trademark.
Throughout his life, Attla faced down numerous setbacks to his health, always finding a way to get back on the sled.
He had open heart surgery in 2008, and he had hip replacement surgery in 2009.
FEB. 16
Lorena Rojas, 44
The Mexico City-born actress began her career in the 1990s with "Alzcanzar una Estrella." She later had roles in "Azul Tequila," ''El Cuerpo del Deseo," and "Pecados Ajenos." Her most recent project was the series "Demente Criminal."
Her roles extended beyond soap operas to films such as "Corazones Rotos," ''Papa Soltero," ''Mas que Alcanzar una Estrella" and "El Triste Juego del Amor." In the theater, she acted in "Manos Quietas" and the musical "Aventurera."
FEB. 17
June Fairchild, 68
The actress appeared in more than a dozen movies including Cheech and Chong's drug movie "Up in Smoke" before real addictions left her homeless on Skid Row in Los Angeles
FEB. 18
Jerome Kersey, 52
The versatile small forward who helped the Portland Trail Blazers reach two NBA Finals and won a title with the San Antonio Spurs in 1999.
FEB. 19
Harris Wittels, 31
The originator of the phrase "humblebrag" on Twitter and an executive producer on Parks and Recreation succumbed to a heroin overdose.
FEB. 20
Ralph Nobles, 94
The nuclear physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project later led efforts to save thousands of acres of San Francisco Bay wetlands from development.
He and his brother were chosen to work on the Manhattan Project and the two moved to Los Alamos, New Mexico, where Robert Oppenheimer and other leading scientists of the 20th century built the world's first atomic bomb in concert with Enrico Fermi, Edward Teller and other researchers.
In 1981, Nobles and his wife sprang into action when Redwood City Council approved a development project on Bair Island, a 3,000-acre wetlands just north of the port of Redwood City. Nobles and his allies formed "Friends of Redwood City," collected signatures, and put the project on the ballot, where it was defeated by 47 votes in 1982.
In 2004, Nobles similarly led a fight to block plans by another developer to build a $1 billion complex of 17 condominium towers next to the property. Redwood City voters rejected it, too.
FEB. 21
Dr. John Willke, 89
The obstetrician helped shape the modern anti-abortion movement with ideas including a belief that a woman can resist conception from a sexual assault,
"There's no greater emotional trauma that can be experienced by a woman than an assault rape," Willke wrote in 1999 in the journal Christian Life Resources. "This can radically upset her possibility of ovulation, fertilization, implantation and even nurturing of a pregnancy."
But the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in 2012 said a woman who is raped "has no control over ovulation, fertilization or implantation of a fertilized egg" and that to "suggest otherwise contradicts basic biological truths."
FEB. 22
Ed Vogel, 66
Vogel, a member of the Nevada Newspaper Hall of Fame, covered every session of the Nevada Legislature from 1985 until his retirement. Between sessions, he covered state government and elections.
His newspaper colleagues agreed, saying the University of Michigan graduate was adept at asking tough questions of the governor and others.
But Vogel was as well known for his portrayals of Nevada's quirky characters as he was for holding Nevada's politicians accountable.
His subjects included the neon Vegas Vic cowboy in downtown Las Vegas; Ed "The Waver" Carlson, who greeted motorists while on foot across the country; another man who raised lobsters in the middle of the Nevada desert; and the cannon left behind in Nevada by an expedition led by 19th century explorer John Fremont.
FEB. 23
Ben Woolf, 34
The 4-foot-4 actor was a cast member on "American Horror Story" in its first season, in 2011, when he played a character called the Infantata. In the latest installment,: Freak Show," he appeared as Meep.
FEB. 24
Donald Keough, 88
Keough served as the company's president and chief operating officer from 1981 to 1993. He is credited with expanding Coca-Cola into a more global presence and remained a widely respected figure within the company even after his retirement.
During his tenure, however, Coca-Cola also introduced "New Coke" as it was fighting off efforts by PepsiCo to take market share. The new formula, which was sweeter and less acidic than the original version, was a disaster and prompted protests by fans and an onslaught of negative publicity.
FEB. 25
Kent Flanagan, 69
As bureau chief, Flanagan directed news coverage of several major stories in Tennessee, including personally covering in 2000 the state's first execution in more than 40 years. He was known not only for his sharp editing, keen news sense and quick word play with puns, but also for spotting and encouraging young talent. Flanagan was also instrumental in helping organize the first public records audit in Tennessee in 2004.
FEB. 26
Earl Lloyd, 86
He was a player and coach, an NBA champion and later a Hall of Famer. Within the basketball world, he's something much bigger. He was a pioneer as the first black player in NBA history,
Lloyd made his NBA debut in 1950 for the Washington Capitols, just before black players Sweetwater Clifton and Chuck Cooper played their first games.
Lloyd helped the Syracuse Nationals win the 1955 NBA title, joining teammate Jim Tucker as the first black players to play on a championship team. Lloyd later became the first black assistant coach with the Detroit Pistons in 1968.
FEB. 27
Robert Benmosche, 70
The Former AIG president and CEO led the insurer's turnaround after its $182 billion government bailout.
The company paid back its bailout by 2012 and the government received a profit of $22.7 billion. AIG also restructured and sold off some businesses, cutting its size in half.
FEB. 28
Anthony Mason, 48
His game was grit over glitz, more force than flash. That might not fit some stereotypes of New York, but it was the perfect style for the Knicks of the 1990s, and made the rugged forward a beloved bruiser by teammates and fans.
Mason was a defensive force who played for six NBA teams from 1989-2003, a popular protector of superstars like Ewing and respected by opponents who knew they were in for punishment when they lined up against his muscular frame.
Mason played for New York from 1991-1996, and then for the Hornets until 2000. He made his only All-Star team in 2001 as a member of the Miami Heat, after reuniting with Riley.
