Huge Marriages Search Engine!
J. Lester Hearn, ham radio enthusiast
He was instrumental in helping to find donors for corneal transplants.
J. Lester Hearn, a Tucson sign company operator for many years and a man known for his ham radio work arranging for corneal transplants, died Tuesday – on his birthday – of congestive heart failure.
He was 83.
Mr. Hearn was born Oct. 1, 1913, in Marshall, Mo., and moved to Tucson with his parents in 1920. He attended public schools here, and later studied electrical and neon engineering.
He went to work for a plumbing business, Hearn & Caid, co-founded by his father, in 1928. He moved to Florida in 1935 and later to Georgia, where he worked for neon sign companies.
In 1937, he opened Hearn Neon Products in Tucson, continuing until 1942 when he joined the U.S. Army-Air Force during World War II. He served here at Davis-Monthan and in Pyote, Texas.
He was married to Winona Watkins in Tucson in 1933. Mrs. Hearn died 17 years ago.
He returned to Hearn Plumbing & Heating in 1946 and became neon division manager in 1951. He took over as president of Hearn Sign Co. in 1959, and continued until his retirement.
He began losing his eyesight in the early 1960s, a result of radiation exposure from early experiments with a self-built cyclotron.
An amateur radio enthusiast, he became involved with the Tucson branch of Eye Emergency Radio Network, sponsored by the Sunshine Lions Club. He was instrumental in helping those in need of corneal transplants to contact donors.
He was involved with the organization’s 10,000th such connection in 1981 – an event that he said made him proud.
Mr. Hearn was a member of St. Michael & All Angels Episcopal Church, the Exchange Club, Navy League, Arizona Pioneers Historical Society, Red Cross First Aid Committee, Boy Scouts of America, Tucson Blind Association, Civil Defense, and was recognized for ham radio assistance to Pima County Search and Rescue and other organizations.
A memorial service is scheduled at 10 a.m. Tuesday at Adair Funeral Home’s Dodge Chapel, 1050 N. Dodge Blvd.
Survivors include a daughter, Linda Carol Donnelly of Oakland, Calif.; two sisters, Josie Mae Paver and Mary Jo Muller, both of Tucson; and four grandchildren.
(Dated Oct 05, 1996)
=======
Kermit Johnson, FBI special agent
The Iowa native, 87, investigated Mafia bombings and a triple homicide here.
Kermit F. Johnson, who headed Tucson’s FBI office from 1958 to 1974, died Tuesday at his home. He was 87.
Mr. Johnson was born Jan. 14, 1909, in Nevada, Iowa, and received a law degree in Des Moines in 1939. That year, he was admitted to state and federal bar associations.
He was married to Hazel Marie Hamilton on March 12, 1935, at Adel, Iowa. She died in May 1995.
Four years after receiving his law degree, in May 1943, Mr. Johnson joined the FBI. His career would take him to assignments in Atlanta; Charlotte, N.C.; and Springfield, Ill., before his assignment to Tucson as senior resident agent.
During his tenure in Tucson, he and the local FBI team investigated a series of bombings, one at the home of Mafia figure Joseph Bonanno, in the late 1960s.
”When he first got here, he was involved in the investigation of the Mafia thing,” said his daughter, Mary F. Johnson. ”Later he was involved with the Gretchen and Wendy Fritz murders – the Charlie Schmid thing – and with a case where an FBI agent’s daughter was abducted and killed.
”Those were high points in his career in Tucson.”
In the mid-1960s, Schmid beat and strangled the Fritz girls and teen Alleen Rowe, and hid their remains in the desert on the city’s outskirts. The triple murder tarnished the image of Tucson as a secure town.
Mr. Johnson retired in 1974. He became active in the Tucson chapter of the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI and served as president of the organization.
He also was active in the Downtown Rotarians and Trinity Presbyterian Church.
A memorial service in honor of both Mr. and Mrs. Johnson was scheduled at 9:30 a.m. today at Trinity Presbyterian Church, 400 E. University Blvd. Interment will be in Nevada, Iowa.
Survivors include a son, K. Bryce Johnson of Danville, Calif.; a daughter, Mary F. Johnson of Anchorage, Alaska; four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
The family suggests donations to the Kermit and Hazel Johnson Memorial Scholarship Fund at Trinity Presbyterian Church. The church’s ZIP code is 85705.
(Dated Oct 11, 1996)
=======
Ex-Amphi coach Loper, 57, dies
The longtime Arizona prep football coach led the ’75 Panthers to a state title.
As news of Jerry Loper’s death trickled through the coaching grapevine today, nowhere was the tragedy more profound than at Amphi High School, where Mr. Loper guided the Panthers to the 1975 Class 5A state football title.
The 57-year-old head football coach at Chandler High School died late last night as a result of injuries sustained in an automobile accident at a Mesa intersection.
Former Amphi and University of Arizona quarterback Jim Krohn, now a Phoenix businessman, started for three years under center for Mr. Loper’s Amphi teams.
”I just heard (about the crash) this morning and we are all shocked and saddened,” said Krohn, who is heading up a 20-year reunion of the championship team and had spoken with Mr. Loper in recent days. ”Jerry was really enjoying life at this point. He was no longer teaching and he was able to devote a whole lot more time and thought to football, coaching at Chandler.”
Mr. Loper was thrown from his Nissan pickup after the vehicle collided with another pickup at Alma School Road and Eighth Street about 10:30 p.m., yesterday, said Sgt. Earle Lloyd, a spokesman for the Mesa Police Department. Lloyd said witnesses told police the other vehicle – a pickup driven by Waylon Jackson, 19 – allegedly ran a red light and was broadsided by Mr. Loper’s pickup.
Mr. Loper, a Mesa resident, was pronounced dead at Scottsdale Memorial Hospital-Osborn, officials said.
The former Amphi coach had compiled a 224-106-10 record in 31 years and led the Panthers to a 23-22 victory over Phoenix Maryvale in the 1975 state title game. Amphi baseball coach Danny Hernandez, who was a senior on Mr. Loper’s 1974 Panthers squad, said his former coach inspired him in many ways.
”He knew how to push our buttons. He was no rah-rah guy; he would just lay it on the line. He broke a few clipboards in his day, but sometimes that’s what we needed,” Hernandez explained.
Mr. Loper began his coaching career with the Welton Antelopes in 1963 before taking over at Amphi in ’69. After the state championship in ’75, Mr. Loper took his talents to Mesa Westwood, where he led the Warriors to the 5A state title in 1988. He took over at Chandler (3-2 this season) in 1993.
”He was a man who never panicked,” Krohn recalled. ”He was a stabilizing force. There are a lot of good coaches out there, but I never saw one as able as Jerry at getting his players to carry out a game plan.”
Mr. Loper is survived by his wife, Patty, and sons Kent and Glenn.
(Dated Oct 15, 1996)
=======
Tucsonan Tappan, war hero
A memorial service is scheduled tomorrow for Edward Tappan, a longtime Tucson businessman and World War II hero who died Oct. 11. He was 75.
Mr. Tappan’s struggle to survive in German-occupied France after a crash landing made him a hero to residents of three French towns.
He was born in North Carolina and came to Tucson in 1934 to learn to be a cowboy. He attended the University of Arizona, where he played water polo and performed with the school’s earliest rodeo teams.
In August 1943, Mr. Tappan joined the U.S. Army Cavalry, then transferred to the Army Air Corps, the precursor to the Air Force.
While flying a combat mission over France in the days after the invasion of Normandy, the plane Mr. Tappan was co-piloting was downed by German pilots.
Burned and injured in the crash, he found allies in the residents of the town where he crashed. The locals nursed him to health and he soon was known to the residents of three nearby towns.
He survived by hiding in the woods with other Allied soldiers, sometimes assisting members of the French Resistance. After several weeks, Mr. Tappan flagged down an American Jeep and found his way back to his fellow soldiers.
On the 50th anniversary of DDay, Mr. Tappan was honored in the three French towns where he was given refuge.
After his release from the Army, Mr. Tappan returned to Tucson, where he later owned Best Boat Sales, 2854 N. Stone Ave.
Most recently, he owned and operated a horse ranch in Sonoita.
Carol Knowles, an administrative associate in UA College of Agriculture Alumni Office, said Mr. Tappan was a familiar face around agricultural and equestrian events in Tucson, where he served on the board of the Agriculture Alumni Council.
”He was someone who a lot of people in Tucson were very fond of,” Knowles said.
Until last summer, Mr. Tappan was active in the agriculture school’s annual homecoming golf tournament, Knowles said.
He is survived by his wife, Germaine; four sons, Frederick, Lawrence, James and Andrew Tappan; his brother, Robert Tappan; eight grandchildren; and several nieces and nephews.
A memorial service is scheduled for 10 a.m. tomorrow at St. Philip’s in the Hills Episcopal Church, 4440 N. Campbell Ave. Entombment will be at East Lawn Palms Mortuary & Cemetery’s Mausoleum, 5801 E. Grant Road.
Memorial donations may be made to the Edward and Germaine Tappan Fund for the University of Arizona Foundation of the Theatrical Arts, or to the Edward and Germaine Tappan Endowment Fund for the University of Arizona Department of Agriculture.
(Dated Oct 18, 1996)
=======
Tucson hotelier Arthur Dooley, at 71
Arthur D. Dooley, who managed some of the nation’s most-renowned hotels, died Oct. 10 of a heart ailment. He was 71.
As vice president and managing director of New York City’s Plaza Hotel from 1960 to 1972, Dooley hosted the rich, the famous and the infamous.
His guests included President John F. Kennedy, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, and Mafia dons who paid for $50,000 wedding receptions with attaché cases full of cash.
On another occasion, Gloria Steinem and other feminists refused to leave the Plaza’s ”For Men Only” Oak Bar -even when Dooley removed their table.
Dooley also managed wellknown hotels from Florida to Connecticut, including the Sommerset in Boston, the Roosevelt Hotel in New York and the Shoreham in Washington.
Dooley moved to Tucson in 1988. As president of Lee David International, a hotel management and consulting company, he helped restore the 300-room building that is now downtown’s Quality Hotel & Suites.
(Dated Oct 28, 1996)
=======
