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Meredith Howard Harless, the first woman to broadcast on Arizona television, died Thursday in Scottsdale. She was 87.
In 1941, the Oklahoma native became the first woman to broadcast a presidential inauguration over radio. She moved to Phoenix in 1948 with her husband, Richard Harless, who later became a Democratic congressman from Arizona.
(Dated Jun 19, 1996)
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Radar designer Davidson was 78
A memorial service will be held tomorrow for Dalwyn Robert Davidson, who helped design on-board aircraft radar during World War II.
He died Saturday in Tucson after a long illness. He was 78.
Mr. Davidson was born
Aug. 10, 1918, in Lorain County, Ohio. He earned a bachelor of science degree at what now is known as Case Western Reserve University.
After leaving the military with the rank of captain, he went to work for Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co., Ohio’s largest private electric utility, retiring in 1989 as senior vice president. He oversaw the design and construction of the Perry Nuclear Power Plant in northeast Ohio during his final years with CEI.
In 1989, he moved to Tucson, where he joined the North Tucson Exchange Club, American Legion Post 36 and the Tucson Jazz Society.
The memorial service is scheduled for 3 p.m. tomorrow at East Lawn Palms Mortuary Chapel, 5801 E. Grant Road, with graveside services to follow.
Survivors include his wife of nearly 54 years, Georganna Sharp Davidson; a daughter, Karen Davidson Leach of Bozeman, Mont.; two sons, David Wynn Davidson of Tucson and Glenn Kirk Davidson of Arlington, Va.; a sister, Eloise Hensel of Oberlin, Ohio; two brothers, Ronald Davidson of Hudson, Ohio, and Delton Davidson of Elyria, Ohio; and five grandchildren.
The family suggests donations be made to Literacy Volunteers of Pima County Inc., 125 W. Yavapai Road, Building 800, Tucson, Ariz. 85705.
(Dated Sep 05, 1996)
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Wesley Egbert Polley, former prosecutor
BISBEE – Wesley Egbert Polley, a former Cochise County prosecutor, died Tuesday. He was 84.
Polley was known as a tough and thorough attorney with an exceptional memory for details and events. He had served as city attorney for Bisbee, Benson, Sierra Vista and Buckeye.
An avid horseman, Polley took part in team roping at rodeos. He also was a founder and a former president of the Mule Mountain Horseman’s Association.
His son, Alan K. Polley, has been the Cochise County attorney for the past 12 years.
Survivors include his wife, Essie, of Bisbee; his children, Gerald Polley of Sunnyvale, Calif.; Adrienne Polley Reeves of Tucson; Alan Polley of Bisbee; Cindy Polley Taylor of Bisbee; and stepdaughter Mary Ann Sipe of Ajo.
Visitation was set for tonight with funeral services tomorrow morning at the Bisbee Elks Lodge in Bisbee Junction. Burial will follow at Bisbee’s Evergreen Cemetery.
(Dated Sep 06, 1996)
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Scout Lynn Hodgson principal explorer of Colossal Cave
LARRY COPENHAVER
He was a farmer, forest ranger, artist, nature photographer and aviator.
But before that, he was a member of Tucson’s first Boy Scout troop. And it was with his scoutmaster that he explored and named one of the area’s best known caves.
Lynn F. Hodgson, who is credited in 1917 with dubbing an unnamed cavern east of the city as a colossal cave, died Saturday at Tucson VA Medical Center.
He apparently died from complications related to a hiatal hernia, said his daughter, Linda Nell Hendry. He was 96.
Visitation is scheduled for 10 to 11 a.m. Thursday at Evergreen Mortuary, 3015 N. Oracle Road. A funeral will follow.
“(Mr. Hodgson) was the last known survivor of Tucson’s pre-World War I Boy Scout troop, having been a member from 1913 to 1916,”said James B. Klein, president of the Otis H. Chidester Boy Scout Museum of Southern Arizona.
Klein said he has been doing research on local scouting and had become friends with Mr. Hodgson.
“He was the principal explorer of Colossal Cave, having spent the Christmas vacation of 1917, while in his junior year at Tucson High School, exploring the hundreds of passages large enough to squeeze through,” Klein said.
He was accompanied by Alfred A. Trippel, one of the scout troop’s founders and the original leader, and three other men, Klein said.
“When asked to describe the then-unnamed cave after he had explored it, Mr. Hodgson remarked that the cave was colossal in extent,” Klein said. The term stuck.
The name “Colossal” and descriptions of the exploration were documented in a Jan. 3, 1918, story published in the Tucson Citizen, and other articles, he said.
Another newspaper account from 1970 said Mr. Hodgson was credited with spending nine hours a day for three weeks in the cave and that the explorer estimated the length of the cave at nine miles.
And a Tucson Citizen story published in 1941 said Mr. Hodgson carried out the initial exploration of the Cave of the Bells in the Santa Rita Mountains and gave the cave the name because air movement in passages caused stalactites to resonate like bells.
“Pop was a very adventurous man,” Hendry said. “He loved to do anything for some excitement.”
Tucson’s first Boy Scout troop was organized in 1912, one year before Mr. Hodgson moved with his family to the San Xavier Mission area south of the city.
Mr. Hodgson and his brother, Donald, now deceased, joined the scouts and rode bicycles to meetings in what is now downtown Tucson.
In 1921, he worked for the U.S. Forest Service and later, for four years, he operated a farm in Glendale.
But his main career was in aviation, Hendry said. He took up flying in 1929 and was a pilot for 35 years. He did a lot of barnstorming and stunt flying. He also was a mechanic and flight engineer.
When he left flying because of a heart condition, he took up art, Hendry said. “He loved sunsets, and he painted a lot of desert scenes.”
Sometimes he took pictures of the desert and other natural subjects, and he exhibited those, she said.
His artwork was displayed in the University of Arizona Student Union and in many places around town, she said. But mostly, he turned a section of his home into a gallery.
“He loved his home,” his daughter said.
He said he wanted to die in his home, where he lived most of his life and the place where he married
Nancy, on Sept. 16, 1920, Hendry said.
“He almost made it. He lived there until he was taken to the hospital” four days before his death.
Mr. Hodgson was born
in Burt, Iowa, where the family lived before his father became an employee of the U.S. Indian Service, now the Bureau of Indian Affairs. After that, they lived in North Dakota, Wyoming, Utah and several places in Arizona.
Mr. Hodgson enlisted in the U.S. Army and served in Europe where he saw extensive combat before the Armistice of Nov. 11, 1918. He returned to Tucson and graduated in uniform from Tucson High in 1919.
The high school was then located in what is now Roskruge Bilingual Magnet School.
He was one of the first members of the Morgan McDermott Post No. 7 of the American Legion in Tucson.
Mr. Hodgson is survived by his wife, Nancy, with whom he celebrated his 76th wedding anniversary on Sept. 16; daughters Linda Nell Hendry and Edith Mellberg, and son Gene Arthur Hodgson, all of Tucson; and son Dale Allan Hodgson of Sun Valley, Calif.; 12 grandchildren; 30 great-grandchildren; and five great-great-grandchildren.
(Dated Sep 24, 1996)
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Rev. Roosevelt Foley, a man with a message
As executive chef of the Tack Room, the Rev. Roosevelt Foley created dishes to ”ooh and ah” over. And as a longtime Baptist minister, he cooked up messages to live by.
Preaching against drugs from the pulpit and for orderliness from the kitchen, he impressed many in the community.
Funeral services for the reverend, who died Saturday, will be held Monday. He died at age 75 of cancer at the Tucson VA Medical Center .
The services will begin at 11 a.m. at Prince Chapel AME Church, 602 S. Stone Ave. Visitation will be from 5 to 8 p.m. Sunday at Prince Chapel.
From 1974-84, the Rev. Foley worked at the Tack Room, including five years as its top chef. The Tack Room, a former five-star restaurant, was downgraded to four stars this year when the Mobile Travel Guide changed its standards.
Tack Room co-owner Drew Vactor yesterday recalled the Rev. Foley as ”a great man.”
Unlike some in the industry who display an ”artist’s temperament,” the Rev. Foley was down-to-earth, Vactor said. There were never any screaming fits or throwing of plates, Vactor said.
”He was very interested in the people around him. He wanted to make sure people learned things. He was a good teacher,” Vactor said.
Vactor’s mother, Tack Room coowner Alma Vactor, said the Rev. Foley ”was a true gentleman. Everyone respected him.”
While most executive chefs are addressed as Chef, Drew Vactor said everybody addressed the chef as the Rev. Foley, which the minister liked.
The Rev. Foley’s second ”job” during the Tack Room days was as pastor of the large Rising Star Baptist Church. He later ministered at Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church here.
Randolph Foley said his father loved helping people and counseling wayward youths.
”A lot of people came to him for advice,” he said.
From the pulpit at Mount Zion, he told worshippers: ”You don’t have to die and go to hell when you’re already in hell. If you’re lying and robbing to support a (drug) habit, you’re already in hell.”
The Rev. Foley was born
Jan. 27, 1921, in El Campo, Texas. He began cooking when he was teen-ager. He moved to Tucson, where he had relatives, when he was 18.
From 1950-’64, he was cook and then chef at the El Dorado Lodge. He became a minister in 1954.
He was executive chef at Skyline Country Club for seven years until he had a heart attack, he said in a 1980 interview.
Out of necessity, in 1974, he took a job at the Tack Room – near the bottom of the kitchen echelon – as a worker in the pantry. He quickly worked his way back up to sous chef (second in command). He became executive chef in 1979 when Chef Albert Bud Judd left.
After ”retiring,” the Rev. Foley started his own restaurant, called Foley’s Soul Queen, on South Park Avenue. It later moved to the North Side and then closed.
The Rev. Foley also served as an infantryman in World War II, his son said.
In addition to his son Randolph, he is survived by a sister, Verna Davis of Tucson.
(Dated Oct 02, 1996)
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