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'Tommy' Floyd, jingle advertised pinto beans
July 31, 2002
ASHEBORO, N.C. - Thomas Calvin "Tommy" Floyd, whose twangy voice sold Luck's beans in the 1950s, died Sunday. He was 89 and suffered from Alzheimer's disease.
Floyd was one of Asheboro's best known voices, between his music career and his jobs announcing at radio stations.
Floyd organized the Blue Grass Buddy's in 1942. The group played for radio shows and performed around the Southeast.
In 1950, Luck's sponsored the band, provided that Floyd plug the product at shows. His jingle went: "Luck's pinto beans, Luck's pinto beans. Eat 'em and you'll never go wrong. Luck's pinto beans."
Westley Wallace Law, a civil rights activist
July 31, 2002
SAVANNAH, Ga. - Westley Wallace Law, a civil rights activist who spent 26 years as president of the Savannah branch of the NAACP, was found dead Monday at his home. He was 79.
In 1960, congressional candidate G. Elliott Hagan made Law's job as a mail carrier a campaign issue. Law was leading an 18-monthlong boycott of Savannah merchants and he was accused by Hagan of violating the Hatch Act by talking about money and votes while on government time.
Hagan won. Law was fired from the U.S. Postal Service in 1961 but reinstated on appeal after national NAACP leaders came to his defense.
Yee Sateow, Thai's hair among world's longest
July 31, 2002
BANGKOK, Thailand - Yee Sateow, a Thai tribesman mentioned in the Guinness Book of Records for his lengthy locks, died one year after the death of his brother who held the record for the world's longest hair. He was 82.
Yee, whose hair was measured at 16 feet, died Monday of food poisoning, said Udom Pakdee, a neighbor in his remote mountain village.
At 16 feet 11 inches, Yee's brother, Hoo's, hair was recognized by Guinness as the longest in the world.
Yuji Ichioka, coined the term Asian-American
Sept. 08, 2002
LOS ANGELES - Yuji Ichioka, a UCLA historian and community activist who coined the term "Asian-American," in the late 1960s to advance the rationale for bringing diverse Asian groups together, has died. He was 66.
Ichioka died Sunday of cancer in Los Angeles.
A founder, in 1969, of the Asian American Studies Center at UCLA, Ichioka was considered by many to be the nation's foremost authority on Japanese-American history.
A man of many dimensions, the San Francisco-born scholar was well known not only for his pursuit of social justice and research to recover the "buried past" of the early Japanese settlers, but also for his zest for life.
Ichioka mastered the Japanese language in order to tackle the original sources on immigrant life, such as diaries, letters and old newspapers.
His seminal work, Issei: The World of the First Generation Japanese Immigrants, 1885-1924, was awarded the 1989 U.S. History Book Award of the National Association for Asian American Studies.
David T. Wilkinson, 67, pushed Big Bang theory
Sept. 08, 2002
PRINCETON, N.J. - David T. Wilkinson, a key figure in the gathering of information that provided a solid basis for the Big Bang theory in the 1960s, died Thursday. He was 67.
Wilkinson died after a long bout with cancer, according to Princeton University, where he served as the Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics Emeritus.
Wilkinson also guided major satellite-based investigations of the universe, including the launch of the COBE satellite, which charted a sky-wide map of slight variations in radiation.
He started as a physics instructor at Princeton in 1963 and received the Princeton President's Award for Distinguished Teaching in 1996.
Helen Giuliani, 92, mother of ex-N.Y. mayor
Sept. 09, 2002
NEW YORK - Helen Giuliani, the mother of former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who was credited with teaching her only child a sense of history and public service, died Sunday. She was 92.
Giuliani died at Mount Sinai Medical Center with her son and other family at her side.
Giuliani took an active role in her son's political career, campaigning for him in 1989, when he lost a bid for the mayor's office, and in 1993, when he won his first term.
The former mayor, 58, credited his mother with imparting a sense of history and the importance of establishing priorities, said Sunny Mindel, a spokeswoman for the former mayor.
"He regaled us with wonderful stories about his mother," she said.
B. Roberto Cruz, started Hispanic University
Sept. 09, 2002
SAN JOSE - B. Roberto Cruz, founder of the National Hispanic University, which started as a two-classroom campus and grew to an accredited private college, died Wednesday after a bout with cancer. He was 61.
Cruz devoted much of his life to fighting for the education of Latinos. He founded the university in 1981 in Oakland. Ten years later, it moved to San Jose.
Edmund Taylor Pratt, former Pfizer executive
Sept. 09, 2002
NEW YORK - Edmund Taylor Pratt, a former Pfizer Inc. executive who boosted the company's role in pharmaceutical research, died Thursday. He was 75.
Pratt worked for Pfizer for more than 30 years, rising from controller to chairman and chief executive.
As the company's chairman, he was credited with shifting Pfizer's interests from manufacturing to research and helping to keep its headquarters in New York City.
He served as a lieutenant in the Navy in the Korean War.
Before joining Pfizer, Pratt worked for IBM and was assistant secretary of the Army for financial management.
Albert Costello, ex-head of W.R. Grace & Co.
Sept. 09, 2002
PARAMUS, N.J. - Albert Costello, a former chairman of W.R. Grace & Co., a specialty chemicals and health-care company, died Tuesday at 66.
Costello apparently died of heart-related causes while playing golf, his son said.
Between 1995 to 1998, Costello held the posts of chairman, president and chief executive at the company.
Salvator Altchek, Brooklyn's $5 doctor
Sept. 15, 2002
NEW YORK - Salvator Altchek, known for 67 years as the $5 doctor to the melting pot of Brooklyn, especially the poorer residents of affluent Brooklyn Heights, died Tuesday. He was 92.
He continued to work until two months ago, though he gave up house calls five years ago. He delivered thousands of babies and attended to the health needs of anyone who showed up at his basement office, charging $5 or $10 when he charged at all.
Altchek often made his house calls on foot. He often treated the poorest people. He welcomed longshoremen and lawyers, store owners and streetwalkers. One patient always paid him $100 to make up for some who could not pay.
W. Phillips, co-founder of the 'Partisan Review'
Sept. 15, 2002
NEW YORK - William Phillips, who co-founded the Partisan Review, died Friday. He was 94.
Phillips founded the magazine with Philip Rahv, and they molded it into one of the most influential literary and political journals in the country before and after World War II.
It introduced Americans to existentialism, and published such well-known intellectuals and writers as Lionel Trilling, Mary McCarthy, Irving Howe and Dwight Macdonald.
Phillips, who said the Depression stirred his interest in politics, joined the John Reed Club, an organization of writers and artists supported by the Communist Party.
He became the club's secretary but sought to express more subtle distinctions in his views. He found an ally in Rahv, who was discontented with writing for the New Masses, a Communist journal.
Mary Vhay, daughter of Rushmore sculptor
Sept. 15, 2002
RAPID CITY, S.D. - Mary Ellis "Mel" Borglum Vhay, the daughter of Mount Rushmore sculptor Gutzon Borglum, died Wednesday at her home in Reno. She was 86.
"She was our last living link to Gutzon Borglum," said Mike Pflaum, chief ranger at Mount Rushmore National Memorial.
Vhay returned to the mountain often and maintained ties with the National Park staff, Pflaum said.
In August she was a guest at ceremonies marking the 75th anniversary of the carving's dedication.
She was born March 25, 1916, in Atlanta, where her father had begun work on a monument to Confederate heroes on nearby Stone Mountain.
After a falling-out with the Stone Mountain Committee, he undertook the Mount Rushmore project.
Borglum died in 1941.
