The Memorial Wall

It is with great sadness that we announce the peaceful passing of Everett Taylor Keech from complications of Parkinson’s disease on May 24, 2024. In his remarkable life, he was a Navy pilot, management consultant, education and business leader, and civil servant. He will be deeply missed by his family and friends. Everett is survived by his wife, Ann (née Holman), sons Will and Stephen, daughter Allison (Jefferson) Sanka, grandsons Evan Sanka and Lucas Keech with mother Michele DiSimone, a sister, Susan Keech McIntosh, and very special nieces and nephews.

Everett was born February 23, 1940, in Rochester, New York to S. Elwin Keech and Lucille Stone Keech. He earned a B.A. from the University of Rochester in 1961, where he was in the Naval Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program. He was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the United States Navy from 1961 to 1967, flying A4 jets off the USS Enterprise, the world's first nuclear aircraft carrier, and the USS America. Following his active service in the Navy, he earned an M.B.A. from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1969 and continued in the Naval Reserve until 1972 as an F-8 fighter pilot, Lieutenant Commander.

As a management consultant in organizational strategy, he worked as a Senior Associate at Cresap, McCormick & Paget in New York City before being recruited to government service from 1972-1977. He first served in the Department of Interior and then Office of Management and Budget as Deputy Director for National Security and International Affairs. He was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Financial Management by President Gerald Ford in 1976 and served until 1977. His service was recognized with the Exceptional Civilian Service Award in 1976. Everett was asked to stay on during transition to the Carter Administration to help set up the new Department of Energy, receiving a Distinguished Service award as a Senior Member and for Outstanding Contributions to the Establishment of the Department of Energy.

From 1977 to 1982, he was Vice Dean of the Wharton Graduate School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also held adjunct faculty appointments in public policy and management. Wharton Graduate and its Executive MBA program thrived and grew under his leadership, initiating many collaborative programs. He continued as a lecturer in Entrepreneurship and Leadership through Penn’s Organizational Dynamics Program for over 25 years, serving as an entrepreneur mentor and advisor to many of his students.

Over the years, he led a number of business organizations as an Advisor, company Director, Chairman of the Board, or Board Member, including Laser Technology, Inc., Piasecki Aircraft Corporation, Advanced Training Systems International (ATSI), Pico Products, Inc., Philadelphia First Group, Teletrac Corporation, Quaker Securities, Quaker Investment Trust, and Barter Exchange, Inc.

Everett was on the Board of Visitors of the Defense Systems Management College and a Distinguished Fellow at the Mobilization Concepts Development Center of the National Defense University, in support of his lifelong dedication to advancing national defense and public policy.

Everett’s significant contributions included public service. He enthusiastically served on the Board of the Eisenhower Fellowships. He was appointed by Governor Thornburgh as Commissioner of the Pennsylvania Ethics Commission, Harrisburg, from 1980-1981. From 1981-1988 Everett served as Pennsylvania's representative on the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Committee where he worked on many projects, including completion of the I-476 Blue Route. In addition, he was involved in the founding of The Pennsylvania Center for Adapted Sports and an active participant in its adapted skiing, flying, and glider programs with his son, William, who uses a wheelchair.

Everett’s great passion throughout his life was flying. In the Navy, he had about 600 carrier landings, was recognized for making the USS Enterprise’s 20,000th jet-to-carrier landing, and became a member of The Caterpillar Club, an exclusive organization for people who have had their lives saved by a parachute. He continued to fly small private planes, seaplanes, and the occasional fighter jet well into his 60s. Many of the companies and organizations he was involved with centered around the aviation, military training, defense, and space exploration industries. Everett enjoyed his memberships in organizations such as the Philadelphia Club, Cosmos Club in Washington, and the Links Club in New York City.

Darryl Hickman, who appeared in such films as The Grapes of Wrath and Leave Her to Heaven as a youngster before becoming a CBS executive in charge of daytime drama and an actor once more, has died. He was 92.

Mr. Hickman, who lived in Montecito, Calif., had been treated for Parkinson's disease.

He was the older brother (by three years) of the late Dwayne Hickman, who starred on the 1959-63 CBS comedy The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. Darryl appeared with his brother in Captain Eddie (1945) — he played famed fighter pilot Eddie Rickenbacker as a boy — and on three first-season episodes of Dobie as older brother Davey, who came home from college.

In 1951, after appearances in more than 40 movies, Hickman — who had been a contract player at Paramount and MGM — became disillusioned with the business and entered a monastery, though he was back in show business before long.

Hickman had made his first movie appearance in The Prisoner of Zenda (1937) and had one line of dialogue in If I Were King (1938) before he sang and tap-danced in The Star Maker (1939), starring Bing Crosby.

Bing’s brother, Everett Crosby, became his agent and got Hickman an interview with director John Ford, who was casting the part of Winfield, the youngest member of the Joad family, in an adaptation of John Steinbeck’s Dust Bowl classic The Grapes of Wrath (1940).

About 100 kids were brought in to try for the role. Asked why he gave Hickman the job, Ford replied, “He was the only kid that didn’t act like an actor.” Hickman said he had a great time during production “riding around on the top of that truck on Route 66 with Shirley Mills” (she played his sister, Ruthie).

In the Technicolor film noir classic Leave Her to Heaven (1945), directed by John M. Stahl, Hickman stood out as the disabled younger brother of Cornel Wilde who drowns in a lake as the callous Gene Tierney looks on.

Hickman also played younger versions of Ira Gershwin (Robert Alda) and Van Heflin’s Sam Masterson in Rhapsody in Blue (1945) and The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946), respectively; was a mentally slow child in the wartime melodrama The Human Comedy (1943); and starred as the son of a gambling-house owner (Clark Gable) in Any Number Can Play (1949).

He had a year-plus stint on Broadway, taking over for Robert Morse as J. Pierrepont Finch in the original production of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, which ran from 1961-65.

Hickman also appeared in Paddy Chayefsky’s acclaimed Network (1976) as a West Coast TV executive and in the Burt Reynolds-starrer Sharky’s Machine (1981) as a cop who turns bad.

Darryl Gerard Hickman was born in Los Angeles on July 28, 1931, the son of an insurance salesman. He was discovered by one of his father’s clients, Ethel Meglin, a former Ziegfeld girl who presided over Meglin’s Kiddies, a troupe of young performers.

After The Grapes of Wrath, Hickman appeared with Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney in Men of Boys Town (1941) and in the Our Gang comedy Going to Press (1942). In Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), his character, the scalawag Johnny Tevis, says: “Tootie, if you don’t hit Mr. Braukoff in the face with flour and say, ‘I hate you,’ the Banshee will haunt you forever!”

Hickman graduated from Cathedral High School in Los Angeles in 1948, dated Elizabeth Taylor, appeared in A Kiss for Corliss (1949) — he had also acted on the radio show — and, after his short stay in a monastery, enrolled at Loyola University.

He made his living during the 1950s primarily by guest-starring on TV shows including The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, Perry Mason, Climax!, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, General Electric Theater, Studio One in Hollywood and Tales of Wells Fargo.

Hickman wrote for NBC’s The Loretta Young Show in 1961 and also starred that year as a Union solder on a short-lived series for the network, The Americans.

In the 1970s in New York, Hickman worked as a producer on the CBS soap opera Love of Life (then starring a young Christopher Reeve as bad boy Ben Harper) and spent about five years in charge of the network’s daytime programming.

He came back to Los Angeles in 1977 to produce A Year at the Top, a sitcom from Norman Lear‘s TAT Communications that starred Paul Shaffer. He also taught acting, did voice work on Jonny Quest and other cartoons and appeared on Baywatch and The Nanny.

In 2006, Hickman appeared on Turner Classic Movies, where, along with other former child actors Margaret O’Brien (his Meet Me in St. Louis co-star), Dickie Moore and Jane Withers, he was interviewed by the late Robert Osborne. “I’ve had 12 psychiatrists and it cost me $85,000 to be able to sit here with some degree of sanity,” he said.

Hickman’s book about acting, The Unconscious Actor: Out of Control, In Full Command, was published in 2007. He said he was greatly influenced by Tracy and director George Cukor after working with them in Keeper of the Flame (1942).

Hickman married actress Pamela Lincoln in 1960, whom he had met on the set of the Vincent Price horror film The Tingler (1959). A few years after they divorced, their youngest son, Justin, died by suicide in 1985.

Joan Cushing, a fixture of the Washington theatrical scene who entertained audiences of all ages, first as the plume-hatted Mrs. Foggybottom in a long-running political satire revue and later as a nationally known creator of plays for children, died May 21 at a care facility in Columbia, Md. She was 77.

Her family confirmed her death and said she had Parkinson’s disease.

Ms. Cushing, a onetime schoolteacher, began her performing career at Washington-area piano bars and burst to fame as Mrs. Foggybottom, a character she conjured up to amuse bar patrons in between show tunes and standards.

Named for the neighborhood of Washington that is home to the State Department, the Watergate complex and George Washington University, Mrs. Foggybottom was a martini-sipping dowager — one of “those ladies who lunch,” as Ms. Cushing described her.

In the persona of her alter ego, Ms. Cushing skewered the city’s grandees in a cabaret-style show, “Mrs. Foggybottom and Friends,” that opened in 1986 at the New Playwrights’ Theatre, played for nearly a decade at the Omni Shoreham Hotel, appeared at the Hexagon charity revue — where Ms. Cushing was a regular — and also went on the road.

“Political satire has an essential role in this town,” Ms. Cushing told the Washington Times in 1995. “People do take themselves too seriously.”

She joined several acts in Washington, among them the Capitol Steps and Gross National Product, that delivered sendups of politicos, wonks, VIPs and wannabe VIPs in a mixture of stand-up and song. Mark Russell, perhaps Washington’s best known musical parodist, once declared of Ms. Cushing that “she has more dignity than I do.”

Her number “The Deficit Shuffle” incongruously had U.S. Sens. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.), Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.) and Ernest F. “Fritz” Hollings (D-S.C.), authors of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings balanced budget act of 1985, singing in rap.

Mrs. Foggybottom mounted her own campaign for the presidency on the Cocktail Party ticket. She pledged, if elected, to ensure that every American could correctly spell “hors d’oeuvres.”

In addition to her stage performances, Ms. Cushing penned a satirical column that appeared in the Capitol Hill publication Roll Call and in the Georgetowner newspaper.

She had never written for children, however, when Imagination Stage, then located at the old White Flint Mall in suburban Montgomery County, Md., commissioned her in 2001 to write a musical based on the book “Miss Nelson Is Missing!” (1977) by Harry Allard with illustrations by James Marshall.

Kathryn Chase Bryer, the director of theater at Imagination Stage, said that she and her colleagues admired the cleverness of Ms. Cushing’s lyrics for Mrs. Foggybottom and did not see her lack of experience in theater for young people as a limitation.

Ms. Cushing was a gifted storyteller, Bryer said, and the principles of storytelling are the same, whether the audience is made up of grown-ups or children. “When you’re a child you care about things passionately,” Bryer said. “They just happen to be different things than what you care about when you’re an adult.”

“Miss Nelson Is Missing!” — about a schoolteacher, her class and the dreaded substitute Viola Swamp — became one of the most popular musicals for children. (It is currently playing again at Imagination Stage, now located in Bethesda, Md.)

From that point on, Ms. Cushing devoted her career in large part to young audiences. Her works became mainstays of Imagination Stage, the Adventure Theatre at Glen Echo in Washington and other children’s theaters around the country.

She followed “Miss Nelson Is Missing!” with “Miss Nelson Has a Field Day” and brought author Barbara Park’s popular character Junie B. Jones to stage in “Junie B. Jones and a Little Monkey Business.”

Ms. Cushing’s play “Petite Rouge,” based on a book by Mike Artell with illustrations by Jim Harris, is a Cajun retelling of the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale, and “Ella’s Big Chance,” adapted from a book by Shirley Hughes, sets Cinderella in the Jazz Age.

Ms. Cushing’s play “Grace for President,” based on a book by Kelly DiPucchio and LeUyen Pham, centers on an African American girl who runs for president in a mock election at her school. It remains one of Ms. Cushing’s most popular works, according to her agent, Susan Gurman.

Joan Marie Cushing was born in Evanston, Ill., on Aug. 18, 1946. Her father was a physicist, and her mother was a Montessori teacher who raised Ms. Cushing and her seven siblings.

Ms. Cushing grew up in Winnetka, Ill., outside Chicago, before moving at age 13 to Kensington, Md., a suburb of Washington. She had years of classical music training and graduated from the Academy of the Holy Cross, an all-girls Catholic school in Kensington, in 1964. She was a 1970 elementary education graduate of the University of Maryland.

Ms. Cushing taught elementary school while moonlighting as a piano player at Washington-area bars and restaurants, including Mr. Smith’s in Georgetown and the Fire Escape Lounge in Alexandria, Va., where Mrs. Foggybottom made her debut. “One day,” Ms. Cushing told The Washington Post, “I decided that playing piano was more fun” than teaching.

Her husband, Paul Buchbinder, died in 2010 after 25 years of marriage. Survivors include a son, Ben Buchbinder of New Orleans; a stepson, Chris Buchbinder of Mill Valley, Calif.; a son from a previous relationship, Patrick Lavelle of Lafitte, La.; a sister; six brothers; and four grandchildren.

Ms. Cushing was a longtime District resident and belonged to Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Georgetown.

She wrote several plays for adults, including “Flush!,” set in a restroom at a venue that is hosting both a wedding and a funeral; “Tussaud,” about the French wax sculptor Marie Tussaud; and “Breast in Show,” a musical about the experience of breast cancer.

But her works for young people were perhaps the most enduring, if only because the collective audience of children is continually renewed.

“When I write, I don’t write for kids,” Ms. Cushing told the Nashville Tennessean. “I just write. I know in my head that a kid audience will see it, but I try not to think about that. When I was growing up, we didn’t go to children’s musicals. We just went to Broadway. And no, we didn’t get everything, but we still had a great time. Sometimes, with children’s musicals, there can be a very simple story on the surface, but another level underneath.”

Following a 16-year roller-coaster journey through various bouts of cancer and Parkinson's disease, Christopher Miller, 69yo, died on April 19, 2024 with his husband William "Bill" Stanley at his side. We are bereft at the loss of this wonderful man.

Christopher was born In Kalamazoo, MI where he maintained lifelong friendships, but made Louisville his home. He was a talented, intelligent, creative soul whose love for art and nature was instilled by his parents at a young age. At 17, he got his first job working with people with disabilities. He would continue to be inspired by the disability community and support their causes throughout his life. When in his late 30s, he adopted an eight-year-old boy, being one of the first single men in Kentucky to do so. His son Gary would give him a beautiful granddaughter, Amaree, who was the light of his life.

While Christopher spent much of his career as a successful fundraiser for nonprofits with a focus on the arts and humanities, he will be remembered by his friends and family as a gifted watercolor artist, poet, and pianist; a magnificent cook; and a consummate host who opened his home to all. He enjoyed spending time with Bill on beautiful Lake Michigan and traveling internationally. He fell in love with Portugal while working on an archeological dig there and returned often, making new friends each time. He was also a tornado magnet, narrowly escaping three.

Ever thoughtful, Christopher loved hosting gatherings where good food, wine, conversation, and laughter were shared in abundance. His eclectic mix of friends and family remember fondly his Thanksgiving and Christmas parties, which often included his piano rendition of “Diamonds and Rust.” He made us laugh, knew how to wear a good hat, and beat us mercilessly at Spelling Bee. He will be missed fiercely and always for his wit, generosity, integrity, and deep friendship. We will continue to feel his soul, hear his laughter, and walk in many memories that will sustain us.

In addition to his husband Bill, Christopher is survived by his grandchildren Amaree Skye Miller and Brayden Speed; sisters Pamela Pardue Stevens and Nancy MacKenzie; niece and nephews Ray Pardue, Chamisa MacKenzie, Dave Jurgens, and Gerry MacKenzie; and great nephew, David MacKenzie, as well as by his many friends. He was preceded in death by his parents, Clark and Jan Miller, and his son, Gary Miller.

John James Katsaros died with his wife and one of his sons by his side at Coterie, a senior living facility, in San Francisco, CA, at 72.

Born in Astoria, NY to Gus and Mary Katsaros, the family later moved to Massapequa Park, NY on Long Island. But the real family locus growing up was always Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where John and his brother Arthur, as well as their cousins - Marilyn, Hope, Donna, Carol, to name a few - spent countless summers, playing cards (Canasta) in the sun at the Trotting Park Beach in West Dennis or perfecting their soft serve cones while working summer jobs at the Kream ‘N Kone.

John graduated from Lehigh University with a degree in Elec-trical Engineering, which gave him the itch to move to California, together with a job offer at Fairchild Semiconductors. A fresh face in the Bay Area, he and his fraternity brother, Steve Cox, met lifelong friends like Jim Willenborg. In 1993, John and his business partner and dear friend Larry Gordon, founded the Internet Research Group, a security and infrastructure research agency, which was later bought by Jupiter Communications in 2000. He got an MBA from Santa Clara University, and authored two books: Selling High-Tech: High Ticket (1993) and Getting It Right the First Time (2005).

But most important to John during this time: he met his wife, Robin, and they started a family together. While many couples have romantic stories of their first meeting, John and Robin liked to joke their “meet cute” was…less cute: they met at a bar. Specifically, The British Bankers Club in Menlo Park, California. John would later joke that was the most expensive drink of his life. They wed in 1984 at St. Helena Catholic Church, with a reception at Meadowood in Napa Valley; three days before their wedding, ominously, the resort burnt down, leading radio DJ Don Bleu of “Don Bleu in the Morning” to dedicate an entire morning of his show for people to call in with suggestions to help John and Robin find a new venue. Luckily this wasn’t a foreshadowing of their marriage: Sunday, May 26 will be John and Robin’s 40th wedding anniversary. And we consulted with the umpire, who is calling this slide into home plate for John “Safe!” in celebrating the milestone (John loved baseball).

John and Robin have two sons, Christopher and Matthew, and raised their family in Los Altos Hills, California, where they lived for over 40 years. John kept his offices in downtown Los Altos so that he could see his family as much as possible; the children would always stop by after school for a snack and a “hello!” to their Dad. John liked to joke that his commute doubled if he got a red light at Foothill Express-way; perhaps you remember him driving in his convertible - top down, even when it was entirely too cold for that. John and his other Dad friends - Milt McColl, John Burr - loved coaching their childrens’ baseball teams. In Los Altos’ “highly competitive” 10-12 year old baseball landscape, their teams were famous for losing, because they always put an emphasis on having fun with friends and team bonding over winning.

John was fortunate enough to see both of his children partner off (to Matthew Sargenti and Jen Maples, respectively), and even got to meet his first grandchild, Lenny John, born in 2020 - whom he and Robin adore.

But let’s not ignore the end of the story. John was diagnosed with Parkinson’s at age 57, but he probably had it much earlier (he lost his sense of smell at 40, which is an early indicator for the disease). Parkinson’s is a tough, slow disease. He died from Parkinson’s, but like all Parkinson’s patients, it was actually from complications due to Parkinson’s; in his case, a fall that he wasn’t able to bounce back from. He hated falling, not because of the physical pain, but that it made him feel like a burden. But he was never a burden: even in those darker moments, the only thing we ever saw was his quick wit and strong sense of humor.

But we’re glad he won’t have to fall again.

Jimmy James, whose ballad Come To Me Softly won him fans in Jamaica and the United Kingdom, died in London yesterday at age 84.

His family told the Jamaica Observer that James passed away at Northwick Park Hospital. They said James had Parkinson’s disease and a heart condition which caused him to retire from performing.

Born in Brown’s Town, St Ann, James moved to Kingston in the late 1950s and got involved in music, recording songs for producers including Lindon Pottinger (husband of Sonia) and Clement Dodd.

Pottinger produced the original version of Come To Me Softly, a soul ballad that remained James’ signature song. He was lead singer of The Vagabonds, a band led by bassist Colston Chen and included Phil Chen (later Rod Stewart’s bass player), Colston’s cousin.

James and the band moved to the UK in 1964 at the height of The British Invasion, led by bands like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Later that decade, as he and The Vagabonds established themselves, they performed on a number of shows with a young American guitarist named Jimi Hendrix.

In the 1970s, James had two solid pop hits with I’ll Go Where Your Music Takes Me (covered with great success by Tina Charles) and Now is The Time.

In 2010, Jimmy James was honoured by Tribute To The Greats, an organisation operated by Kingsley Goodison, for his contribution to Jamaican music.

He is survived by his wife Paula, five sons, two daughters, grandchildren, two sisters, nieces and nephews.

You entered HaShem's Kingdom peacefully May 14, 2024 with Daniel and me at your side.  Born August 20, 1946 in Berea, OH, you were the eldest son of the late Charles W. Showalter, scientist with the Atomic Energy Commission, and Genevieve (Bullock) Showalter, mother, secretary and successful entrepreneur ("Gene's Costumes").  In your youth, you lived in many places, but considered yourself a "southern boy" from Oak Ridge, TN.  Armed with a BA in history From Lehigh University and two masters degrees from the University of Pittsburgh, you set out to live your life.  In addition to your parents, you were predeceased by former first wife Barbara (Remen) Showalter.  You are survived by spouse Paula D'Auria-Showalter and Spinel, our black lab mix (Pioneertown, CA); brothers Bradley A. (Nancy) Showalter (Phoenix, AZ) and Jonathan L. (Loris Gielczyk) Showalter (Santa Cruz, CA); sons Charles W. Showalter III (Pittsburgh, PA) and Daniel J. (Patricia Hredzak) Showalter (Verona, PA); grandchildren Heather, Gwendolyn ("Winnie"), "Jack Jack" and several nieces. Interment will take place at the Tower of David,  Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Cathedral City, CA. Memorial contributions may be made to the Parkinson's Resource Organization (parkinsonsresource.org) and to the American Heart Association.  

You were employed, among other positions, as an assistant buyer  for Gimbel's Pittsburgh (furniture and bedding), an educator (Pittsburgh yeshiva) and as an alcohol/drug therapist (Aleutian Tribes Corp. in Cold Bay, AK).  Strongly feeling the need to help the disadvantaged and disenfranchised, you actively volunteered assisting the Pittsburgh homeless and worked as a trauma counselor.  A member of the Morongo Basin Democratic Club, the Morongo Basin CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) and the Morongo Basin Sexual Assault Services, you dedicated your life to giving back.  You enjoyed contributing as a volunteer educator for Desert Oasis Health Care, teaching the "Healthier Living Workshop" and "A Matter of Balance" classes with your wife.  "Well, hello there!" Who could resist that effervescent personality and smile as you strolled into the classroom sporting your red straw fedora and carrying your book bag?  Into politics, you proudly recounted being beaten by Chicago police while demonstrating during the 1968 Democratic convention.  Faith was extremely important to you as a member of Chabad of Rancho Mirage and Temple Isaiah Palm Springs.

A devoted follower of Bill and Dr. Bob, you were fond of saying, "The only meeting you need to attend is the one you don't want to."  Being of service to others was paramount in your life.  You established the Yucca Valley "House of Hope", a sober living house for women, and a housecleaning service, "Aaprons, the fine arts of housewifery", which you later paid it forward to those in recovery. A voracious reader especially of Civil War and WW II history, you visited all of the eastern and southern Civil War battlefields with Danny, enjoyed all types of music (playing the flute, piccolo and recorder) and were an eclectic art collector.  You enthusiastically waved the "Terrible Towel" at every chance for the Pittsburgh Steelers, your favorite football team in good and bad years.  You were witty, intelligent and creative.  You designed greeting cards, were always writing and researching topics of interest and constantly curious about the world.  More than once you only half-jokingly declared that anyone would want you on their Trivial Pursuit team.  We met in the fall of 1997 through a tiny " dwm seeking d/swf" ad placed in a village rag.  You were selling Alaska, and I was buying.  We corresponded and by Pesach 1998, I traveled to Cold Bay, AK to accept your proposal.  Back in PA, I sold my home and its contents, secured a position as Home Health Director for tiny native Kanakanak Hospital and moved to Dillingham, AK.  On July 9, 1998 we were married by the Court.  You were miffed that we married in the morning. We shared wedding cake with Yupi'k Native Americans by noon and by afternoon I returned to work!  We were amateur rock hounds.  While other couples had a favorite song, our favorite "rock" was labradorite.  

Jesuit Father Charles Delano Sullivan, a Baltimore native who taught and coached for nearly 50 years in Bronx, N.Y., died May 13 of Parkinson’s disease. 

He was ordained in Baltimore by Cardinal Lawrence Sheehan in 1972. He spent 49 years teaching math and coaching basketball at Fordham Prep. Father Sullivan also was a noted retreat speaker.

The youngest of three children, Father Sullivan grew up just blocks from The Johns Hopkins University in Homewood. He attended what are now Loyola Blakefield High School and Loyola University Maryland.

At the end of his junior year of college in 1960, he joined the Society of Jesus and after two years in the novitiate of St. Isaac Jogues in Wernersville, Pa., he did philosophical studies at Shrub Oak, N.Y. (1963-1965). He earned a master’s degree in math at Boston College and then spent regency teaching math at Georgetown Prep and the lower school in North Bethesda. 

According to a Jesuit obituary, Father Sullivan was a longtime friend of Hall of Fame University of Notre Dame basketball coach Richard “Digger” Phelps, with whom he worked basketball camps for more than 30 years. 

“You will not find a person who represents the values of Fordham Prep, its students, and the Jesuit community better than Charlie,” Phelps said upon Father Sullivan’s induction into the Fordham Prep Hall of Honor in 2011. “His dedication to teaching and serving the young men of Fordham Prep for over 40 years has prepared many academically and spiritually for the years ahead. Add to this his commitment to coaching and impacting young men in the field of athletics and you have a deserving person for this special honor.”

In 2019, declining health forced him to retire. He was diagnosed with Parkinson ’s disease and moved to Campion Center, the Jesuit health care facility in Weston, Mass. 

We are very sad to report that Bill Giduz passed away on May 11th, 2024. Born William Roland Giduz on April 12, 1952, Bill grew up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. His father was a journalist and his mother was the town manager for Chapel Hill.

Bill Giduz was an extremely important figure in the juggling community around the world. His contributions were many, varied, and of great importance. Bill is universally credited as the inventor of the sport of joggling, where track and long-distance races are run while juggling. Bill started joggling in 1975 and brought that activity to the International Jugglers’ Association (IJA) in 1980. He organized and ran the races for many years at the IJA as the Joggling Director and took the sport to many other regional festivals as well. The sport of joggling is recognized by the Guinness World Record Book and continues as a part of the annual IJA Festival and elsewhere. 

Bill became an IJA Board member in the 1970s and served in various capacities over the next several decades, including working as the Affiliates Director, Joggling Director, and heading up World Juggling Day celebrations. In 1979, Bill Giduz took over publishing the IJA Newsletter, which he later turned in the professional quality Juggler’s World Magazine. Bill served as editor of Juggler’s World from 1981 to 1997, working to connect jugglers around the world. His work with Juggler’s World showcased his immense talent as a writer and photographer. He served as IJA President from 1985 to 1987. Bill received the IJA Extraordinary Service Award in 1993. 

Bill was one of the founders of the Atlanta Juggling Association and was the first secretary in 1977. He researched and obtained the Phil trophies for the Groundhog Day Jugglers Festival from 1979 to 2017. Even after moving away, Bill continued to support and attend the Groundhog Day festival and bring the trophies with him each year. 

In 1980, Bill moved to Davidson, NC to work as the Director of Media Relations at Davidson College. He brought his love for juggling with him and helped run the Hurricane Hugo Juggling Festival there for over two decades. He also established a yearly survey of Davidson College students to find what percentage of them could juggle. Bill retired from Davidson College in 2017. 

Bill served as a photographer at many juggling festivals for decades, recording wonderful memories that are still enjoyed and appreciated today. Bill was renowned for his gentle spirit and generosity to all who came in contact with him.

Bill had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease and succumbed to a bout of pneumonia on May 11th, 2024. Our sincere condolences go out to his family and many friends.

Former Walsall boss Frank Sibley has died at the age of 76.

Sibley, who began his career as a player with Queens Park Rangers, went on to manage the Rs for a season.

After leaving Loftus Road he had a brief stint a manager at the Saddlers.

He later returned to QPR as caretaker manager and as part of the coaching staff under Gerry Francis in the 1990s.

Sibley was diagnosed with Parkinson's back in 2004 - and QPR confirmed his death with a statement on their website on Monday morning.