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Alan Dugan

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Categories: Writers/Editors

Alan Dugan, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, died on Sept. 2 from pneumonia. He was 80.
Dugan served in the Army Air Forces during World War II, then wandered around the country, experiencing life and writing poetry. He graduated from Mexico City College and became an advertising copywriter who wrote poetry on the weekends for the New Yorker and other magazines.
When he was 39, Dugan published his first collection, “Poems.” In 1962, the book won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Yale Younger Poets Prize and the Prix de Rome. A prominent and influential literary voice, Dugan spent the rest of his life teaching and writing the books, “Poems 2,” “Poems 3,” “Poems 4,” “Poems 5″ and “Poems 6.” The book, “Poems 7,” earned him a second National Book Award in 2001.
• An Interview and Poetry Reading on NPR

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Kenneth Matz

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Categories: Military

Kenneth Edward Matz Sr., a former Coast Guard officer who once rescued hundreds of people from a burning cruise ship, died on Aug. 12 of a heart attack. He was 62.
Matz spent 26 years serving in the Coast Guard, where he specialized in fire rescue. On Oct. 4, 1980, when the cruise ship, “Prinsendam” caught fire over 100 miles off the coast of Alaska, Matz was lowered from a helicopter to the stern of the boat to direct its evacuation. Once the 524 passengers and crew were shepherded onto lifeboats and inflatable rafts, Matz directed the fire-fighting efforts. The ship sank, but no one died.
Matz received many honors, including the Meritorious Service Medal, the Humanitarian Service Medal and the Coast Guard Achievement Medal.

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Frank E. Bolden

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Categories: Media

Frank E. Bolden, who was one of two accredited black war correspondents during World War II, died on Aug. 29. Cause of death was not released. He was 90.
Bolden studied law and biology at the University of Pittsburgh. By playing his clarinet, he became the first African American in the Pittsburgh marching band, an activity that saved him $50 in tuition each year. To make extra cash, he also began stringing for The Pittsburgh Courier, a leading black newspaper.
Upon graduation, Bolden applied for medical school but was turned down because at that time, blacks were not allowed admittance. After his application to teach public school was also refused, Bolden returned to The Courier to cover the Hill District as a general assignment and features reporter.
When the U.S. entered World War II, Bolden became an overseas correspondent, covering the black troops fighting in Italy, Japan and India. During the course of his travels, Bolden interviewed a variety of historical figures, from President Franklin Roosevelt to Winston Churchill, from Joseph Stalin to Gandhi. He filed his stories with the National Negro Publishers Association, which then distributed the copy to black newspapers in the U.S.
Bolden returned to The Courier after the war, and worked for the publication until 1962. He later took on assignments with The New York Times, NBC radio and television and the “Huntley-Brinkley Report.” He received numerous honors, including the George Polk Award and the Lifetime Achievement Golden Quill Award.
“I wasn’t the best, but I always thought I was the right fellow to be at the right spot at the right time,” Bolden once said.

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Slim Dusty

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Categories: Musicians

sdusty.jpgDavid Gordon Kirkpatrick, an Australian country music legend who performed for nearly seven decades, died on Sept. 12 from cancer at age 76.
He wrote his first song, “The Way the Cowboy Dies,” when he was 10 years old, and renamed himself Slim Dusty a year later. Although the singer/songwriter signed his first recording contract in 1946, it took another 12 years before his career took off with the release of the hit single, “A Pub With No Beer.” The song became an unofficial Australian anthem, and made Dusty the first Australian to receive a gold record. Some of Dusty’s other hits were “I Want a Pardon for Daddy” and “I Must Have Good Terbaccy When I Smoke.”
Dusty sold more than 5 million records and performed his repertoire of 1,000-plus songs on tours that traveled all over the country. One of his most memorable concerts occurred at the closing ceremony of the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
Dusty won more gold and platinum records, and more Golden Guitar awards than any other artist in Australia. A few weeks ago, he published his autobiography, “Another Day, Another Town.” He was recording his 106th album when he died.

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Mildred Thompson

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Categories: Artists, Education, Musicians

Mildred Jean Thompson, an accomplished artist, teacher and blues singer, died on Sept. 1 from cancer. She was 68.
Thompson attended Howard University in Washington, D.C., then studied art at the Hamburg Art Academy in Germany. Trained in European abstract expressionism, Thompson was best known for painting in bright hues on large canvases. Her work has been showcased in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution, New York’s Museum of Modern Art and at the Brooklyn Museum.
“Mildred devoted her life to Abstract Expressionism, one of the few African-American female artists trained in that European tradition. She produced an awesome body of work, 5,000 pieces ranging from complex oil paintings to delightful pen-and-ink drawings,” said her friend, Don Roman.
After spending many years in Europe, Thompson moved to Atlanta in 1986 to teach at Spelman, Morris Brown and Agnes Scott colleges, and at the Atlanta College of Art. She received the Distinguished Artist Award from the Atlanta Chapter of Howard University in 1982.
In the evenings and on her lunch breaks, Thompson also sang and played guitar with the band, We Do Blues, which performs in Georgia restaurants and parks.

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Jack P. Eisner

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Categories: Writers/Editors

Jack P. Eisner, an author and Holocaust survivor, died on Aug. 24 of colon cancer. He was 77.
Born Jacek Zlatka, Eisner studied music until he and his family were forced into the Warsaw ghetto during World War II. More than 100 members of his family were killed in the Holocaust, and he was imprisoned and tortured at three concentration camps. When he was freed by the Allies, Eisner testified against the Nazis and helped the U.S. government find war criminals.
In 1980, he published the autobiography, “The Survivor.” The book was adapted into a Broadway play, written by Susan Nanus, and into the movie, “War and Love,” which Eisner produced.
Eisner founded the Warsaw Resistance Organization, one of the oldest Holocaust survivors groups in the world, and the first Institute of Holocaust Studies at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He also erected the Warsaw Jewish Cemetery in Poland. A memorial there reads: “In memory of one million Jewish children murdered by Nazi German Barbarians 1939-1945.”

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Iris Hensley

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Categories: Artists

ihensley.jpgIris Antley Hensley, founder of the Georgia Ballet, died on Aug. 30 of pancreatic cancer. She was 69.
Hensley graduated with a degree in dance from the University of Georgia. She studied in New York, Canada and Europe, then returned to Marietta, Ga., to open her own school.
For 41 years, the Georgia Ballet has taught hundreds of students to dance. Hensley was the choreographer and director of the company, which currently has 21 professional dancers and 275 students. She also served as the resident choreographer for the first Georgia Festival of the Arts in Italy.
Actress Joanne Woodward, a childhood friend of Hensley’s, was one of the company’s major benefactors. She and her husband, Paul Newman, have awarded grants to the Georgia Ballet through the Newman’s Own food company charity.
For initiating the Arts in the Schools Program, which introduces school children to dance, music and theatre, Hensley received the first Lillian Bennet Sullivan Award.

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Anton Barichievich

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Categories: Sports

Anton Barichievich, the legendary strongman who earned two places in the “Guinness Book of Records,” died on Sept. 7 from a heart attack. He was 77.
Barichievich was born in Yugoslavia on Oct. 10, 1925. He always refused to talk about what he did during World War II, but he immigrated to Montreal in 1945 to work as a wrestler and strongman.
Known as “The Great Antonio,” the 6-foot-4, 465-pound Barichievich appeared in the “Guinness Book of Records” twice. The first time occurred in 1952 when he pulled a 433-tonne train down 64.95 feet of track. In 1960, he pulled four fully-loaded buses down St. Catherine Street in Montreal.
Although he appeared on numerous television shows, including “The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson” and “Real People,” Barichievich died penniless and with no known family. Fans who learned of his death paid for his funeral, including a specially made, extra-large casket.

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