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Former Citizen sportswriter Jan Petranek
Former Tucson Citizen sportswriter Jan Petranek, who died last week at age 47, began his journalism career sitting on a typewriter at Catalina High School because there weren’t enough seats in the overcrowded classroom.
”There he was, in the back of the room, firing question after question at the teacher,”recalled Steve Kelley, a classmate and former Tucson Citizen colleague. ”We all knew he was someone special.”
In the next 30 years, that teacher who fielded Mr. Petranek’s questions – John G. Carlton – watched his student grow into editor of the school newspaper in 1967 and work at four newspapers and two universities.
”He never went any place else but up,” said Carlton, who retired in 1989. ”He was one of the finest journalists I’ve ever known.”
Mr. Petranek died March 4 in Eureka, Calif., near Humboldt State University, where he was director of development.
”He loved people. He loved conversation. And his great love was writing,” said Debbie Collazo, his sister who followed him as editor of the Catalina newspaper in 1969 and is now a volunteer at the Primavera Foundation here.
After graduating from Catalina, Mr. Petranek worked at The Arizona Daily Star before taking a job with the Citizen sports department in January 1968.
His interview with golfer Lee Trevino’s caddie, after Trevino won the 1969 Tucson Open, won first place in the Arizona Press Club competition. He won second place for his coverage of the 1970 University of Arizona baseball team, which went to the College World Series.
He worked on the copy desk at The Arizona Republic in Phoenix and at the Los Angeles Times.
”Writing became his passion,” said Kelly, who is the creative director for an advertising firm in the Los Angeles area. ”Being able to express ideas was terribly important to Jan. He wanted to change the world.”
Mr. Petranek became UA’s assistant director of alumni in the early 1980s before taking his job at Humboldt in Arcata, Calif., in 1984.
He continued to write unpublished books and political speeches, including unsolicited ones for President Clinton.
”He liked to rail against the system,” Kelley said. ”He wanted to do well for the little people.”
Mr. Petranek also traced his roots in Czechoslovakia, meeting two men there with his name, Kelley said. He was not related to either, but one was a journalist who shared a jail cell with Vaclav Havel, a playwright and human rights campaigner who was chosen president in 1990, Kelley said.
”He brought both Jan Petraneks together in Czechoslovakia, and the three Jans talked politics,” Kelley said. ”It was remarkable.”
Mr. Petranek is survived by his wife, Deborah of McKinleyville, Calif.; sons Christopher, Dugger and Will; daughters Anacera and Heike, also of McKinleyville, and sister Debbie Collazo of Tucson.
A graveside remembrance is scheduled for 3 p.m. today at East Lawn Palms Cemetery, 5801 E. Grant Road. Services were held Sunday at Humboldt.
(Dated Mar 11, 1997)
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Radio host J. ‘Lance’ Freeman
He urged morning show listeners to get up and enjoy another day of paradise in Green Valley.
A memorial service will be held tomorrow for Joseph ”Lance” Freeman, a radio personality for Green Valley’s big-band station, KGVY.
Mr. Freeman, 56, died March 5 after a three-year battle with melanoma, according to a news release from KGVY.
He worked for the station for seven years and was known for his theme song, ”Good Morning Glories.”
Listeners to his morning show were urged to get up and enjoy another day in paradise, which is how he viewed the Green Valley area.
”Where else could I have so much fun, play the music I love and get paid for it?” Mr. Freeman was fond of saying.
When health problems forced him to step down as morning show host in November, he received many cards and letters from listeners.
”Southern Arizona has lost one of the best and most-beloved morning announcers ever,” said KGVY general manager Joe Crystall.
Mr. Freeman received his journalism degree from the University of Oklahoma, and had been a producer and writer for television, a newspaper reporter, and an advertising agency creative director before coming to Green Valley, 20 miles south of Tucson.
He was fluent in Spanish and taught English as a second language. He served with the Peace Corps in Bogota, Colombia.
His African Grey parrot, Portia, was a constant companion.
Mr. Freeman is survived by his wife, Susan; sons Bruno, Jack and Mack; two sisters, Katie Klein and Cynthia Freeman; and three stepchildren.
The family suggests donations to the ”Alex” Foundation, set up to study intelligence and communication in African Grey parrots, in care of Irene Pepperberg, Department of Ecology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Ariz. 85721; or to The Hermitage No-Kill Cat Shelter, P.O. Box 13508, Tucson, Ariz. 85732.
The memorial service will begin tomorrow at 2 p.m. at the American Legion Hall in Sahuarita, next to the Titan Missile Museum on Duval Mine Road just west of Interstate 19.
(Dated Mar 12, 1997)
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Arts District is Roediger legacy
Her lifelong passion was tracing family history, her daughter says.
Anne-Rosewell ”Rosie” Johns Roediger, who was instrumental in the creation of Tucson’s downtown Arts District, was to be remembered at a memorial service today.
Mrs. Roediger, 66, died Sunday after a bout with cancer. The service was set for 3 p.m. at St. Philip’s in the Hills Episcopal Church, 4440 N. Campbell Ave.
She was born in Richmond, Va., in 1930. She was a graduate of St. Catherine’s and a cum laude graduate of Bryn Mawr College.
Mrs. Roediger moved to Tucson in 1960. Her daughter, duVergne Robert Gaines, said her mother’s lifelong passion was researching family history.
”She had a lot of family archives and had diaries of her great-uncle, Thomas Nelson Page, who was appointed an ambassador by President Woodrow Wilson.”
In Tucson, she worked with Tucson Local Development Corp., later renamed Business Development Finance Corp., joining the organization in 1984 and becoming its executive director two years later. She retired from that position in September 1992.
During her tenure with the corporation, she was instrumental in securing and preserving numerous historic buildings and establishing the Arts District, which helped revitalize the downtown area.
Upon her retirement, Mayor George Miller proclaimed October 30, 1992, as ”Anne-Rosewell ‘Rosie’ Roediger Day.”
She served on the advisory board of Resources for Women Inc.; two terms on the Catalina Foothills School District board of education (one as president); as a vestry member of St. Philip’s in the Hills; as a member of Ware Church of Gloucester County, Va.; member and president of Bryn Mawr Club of Tucson and as southwestern region director of the club’s Alumni Association.
She loved the ocean and was an avid sailor.
She also was an enthusiastic University of Arizona basketball fan.
Survivors include her husband, Walter; a son, Edwin Metcalf Gaines Jr. of Tucson; two daughters, Anne Page Gaines Vallee of Tucson and duVergne Robert Gaines of Los Angeles; a stepson, Charles Clark Roediger of Tucson; a stepdaughter, Anne Victoria Roediger of Tucson; two sisters, Patsy Langford of Jackson, Miss., and Ruth Hill of Richmond, Va.; and three grandchildren.
The family suggests memorials to the American Cancer Society, 1636 N. Swan Road, Tucson, Ariz. 85712.
(Dated Mar 19, 1997)
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Peggy Copple, 62, neurology prof
Services will be Friday for the UA professor and mentor to medical students.
A memorial service is planned Friday for Peggy Copple, a professor of pediatrics in neurology at the University of Arizona, a child advocate and a mentor to medical students.
Dr. Copple, 62, died March 10 of unknown causes.
The service will begin at 2:30 p.m. Friday at Christ the King Episcopal Church, 2800 W. Ina Road.
Dr. Copple was one of the first American women to be board-certified in neurology with special competence in child neurology, according to UA.
”Peggy was a strong advocate for the promotion of women in academic medicine and an incredible asset to the department of pediatrics,” said Dr. Mary Johnson, head of pediatric neurology at UA.
Dr. Copple joined the UA faculty in 1979 and was associate head of the department of pediatrics from 1985 to 1988, developing services for children with neurological impairment and cognitive disabilities.
She worked with St. Andrew’s Crippled Children’s Clinic in Nogales, which served children from Sonora.
Her special area of expertise was in neuro-behavioral syndromes and learning disorders such as dyslexia. She also was interested in the long-term neurological effects of cardiac surgery.
”We will remember Peggy for her clarity of vision, her wit, generosity and loyalty, and for her personal concern and caring both for her patients and her colleagues,” said Dr. Donna Capin of Boston, a pediatrician whose career choice was influenced by Dr. Copple.
Dr. Copple, who published nearly 100 scholarly papers, book chapters and editorials, was also a consultant to the National Institutes of Health, a member of the editorial board of several professional journals and a reviewer for journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine.
She reviewed grants for the NIH and the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation.
Dr. Copple received her medical degree from the University of Oregon Medical School.
Before joining the UA faculty, she held academic positions at the University of Oregon and Vanderbilt Medical School, and was a visiting scientist for NIH in 1988.
She is survived by a sister, Linda Trout of Idaho; two stepbrothers, Scott Copple of Sonoma, Calif., and Stephen Copple of Boise, Idaho; her stepmother, Becky Dwyer of Garden Valley, Idaho; and three godchildren.
Donations may be made to the Peggy J. Copple, M.D., Memorial Lectureship, with checks payable to UA Steele Memorial Children’s Research Center and sent to 1501 N. Campbell Ave., Tucson, Ariz. 85724.
Or, the family suggests contributions to Casa de los Nie±os Crisis Center, 347 E. Speedway Blvd., Tucson, Ariz. 85705.
(Dated Mar 19, 1997)
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