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PCC’s ‘Rudy’ Melone to be memorialized
Rudolph J. Melone, who recruited many of the first faculty members at Pima Community College and successfully guided the school to its first national accreditation, died of cancer Sept. 17 in San Francisco. He was 73.
Mr. Melone, known as Rudy to his friends, joined the fledgling school as dean of institutional research and development in 1969, more than a year before the first classes were held.
When construction delays threatened to postpone the college’s opening in 1970, Mr. Melone and other officials scrambled for a temporary site, settling on a hangar at Tucson International Airport.
Otis Bronson, one of the school’s first faculty members, recalled Mr. Melone as ”the single strongest influence on the instructional side of the foundation of Pima.”
Lee Scott, another early faculty member, said, ”Rudy was a model of the ideal commitment to academic effectiveness, cultural inclusiveness and personal compassion.”
Mr. Melone left PCC in July 1972 after rising to vice president for academic affairs.
He then became a consultant for curriculum development at other community colleges and later was named president of Gavilan Community College in Gilroy, Calif.
While in Gilroy, Mr. Melone founded the Gilroy Garlic Festival, a summertime event that draws about 125,000 visitors a year.
Current PCC Chancellor Robert Jensen became a close friend of Mr. Melone’s when they worked at California community colleges.
Mr. Melone ”was an outstanding professional who touched the lives of many people, both his colleagues and students, and made a difference wherever he went,” Jensen said in a recent article in the Aztec Press, PCC’s campus newspaper.
Mr. Melone was born in New Haven, Conn., and grew up in New York City and Portland, Ore.
During World War II, he served with the Seabees in the Pacific and earned the rating of Carpenter 2nd Class.
After the war, he earned a bachelor of arts degree with a major in history, and a master’s degree in educational administration, from the University of Portland. He received a doctorate in higher education administration from the University of California at Berkeley.
Dr. Melone is survived by his wife, Gloria, four sons and four grandsons.
An informal lunch and gathering in celebration of Mr. Melone’s life will be held Nov. 14 at 1 p.m. at El Parador Restaurant & Cantina, 2744 E. Broadway. Family members will be present.
Those who want to attend are asked to call Lee Scott at 818-1828 and leave a message.
The Rudy Melone Memorial Scholarship Fund has been established through the PCC Foundation as one way to honor Mr. Melone. Checks made out to the foundation can be sent to: PCC Foundation, 4905C E. Broadway, Tucson 85709-1320. Please indicate the check is for the Melone Scholarship.
Jimanna Albertsen worked for TUSD
• She held governing boards together and was a class act, says County Supervisor Raúl Grijalva.
Services will be tomorrow for Jimanna ”Jimmie” Albertsen, known to many as the glue that held Tucson Unified School District governing boards together for nearly two decades.
Mrs. Albertsen died Tuesday night of cancer.
Services will begin at 10 a.m. at Emmanuel Presbyterian Church, 9252 E. 22nd St.
”I depended on her a lot, and we all loved her,” said former TUSD board member Raúl Grijalva, now a Pima County supervisor.
”When I say ‘we,’ I mean any board member who ever worked with her,” he said. ”She was really great for education. She held the school boards together and helped us function. She deserves more credit than people give her.”
Mrs. Albertsen began working for TUSD in 1974 as a clerk and joined the governing board office in 1978. She soon became director of staff services to the governing board.
Tomas Castillo, who also was a board member with Grijalva in the ’80s, said Mrs. Albertsen always handled things ”with absolute diplomacy and tact” and probably knew more about the district than anyone.
But they were secrets she would keep forever. People trusted her, and she would never betray that trust.
Bridget Auvenshine, who took over Mrs. Albertsen’s job when she retired in December 1996, called her ”a mentor and one of the best friends I’ve ever had. It’s hard to describe her because she’s so special, and she made every individual feel special.”
Former board president Bob Strauss remembers Mrs. Albertsen as a ”class act who set the tone for all the people who worked in that office. She was a great resource to have.”
”And she always had a smile on her face . . . whether you saw her as she was one of the first ones to come in in the morning or the last one to leave at night.”
Mrs. Albertsen is survived by her husband of 42 years, John; son Mark of Tucson; daughter Kris Scalpone; brother Bob Beale of El Paso; and four grandchildren.
The family requests donations be made to the American Cancer Society.
(Dated Nov 06, 1998)
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Artist Barbara Kennedy, known for paintings, papers
Artist Barbara Kennedy had a hunger for learning. That hunger never left her, even after a series of small strokes slowed her down.
Saturday, Mrs. Kennedy died at Tucson Medical Center Hospice after a massive stroke. She was 87.
Her death came a little more than a week after she and a group of artists gathered to paint and learn from each other, as they had been doing for five years.
”We met once a week for three hours,” said artist Pat Dolan, who knew Mrs. Kennedy for close to 20 years. ”Everyone would go into her studio and work, have tea and critique each other’s work. We’d talk about art, books, politics, sing a song, recite a poem.
”She kept on wanting to learn,” Dolan continued. ”After she had a series of small strokes (in the summer), she’d forget the present, but her paintings came from some other place. She did some incredible paintings. Just over a week ago, she was finishing up two.”
Mrs. Kennedy was known for her great love of color, which gave a richness and depth to her pastel paintings and her handmade papers, for which she was best known.
Her work is in the permanent collections of the University of Arizona Museum of Art, the Tucson Museum of Art and Ventana Canyon Resort. She has shown at TMA, Pima Community College West, Tohono Chul Park, and Rancho Linda Vista Gallery in Oracle.
And the University of Arizona Museum of Art is planning a major retrospective of Mrs. Kennedy’s work for November 1999.
”If I had a choice to pick among people in Tucson who should be able to live forever, it would be Barbara Kennedy,” said Peter Bermingham, the director and chief curator of the UA art museum.
Bermingham met Mrs. Kennedy when he came to Tucson about 20 years ago.
”She had a way about her,” he said. ”I don’t know where it came from. She not only showed great joy in whatever she was doing, but she realized she needed to constantly grow. She always wanted to evolve into something.”
Mrs. Kennedy had been working with Bermingham on her retrospective exhibit before she died.
”We still plan to go through with the show, but it won’t be the same without Barbara’s advice,” he said. ”She had an interesting, possessive feel for what she did. They were her children, almost. She harbored equal enthusiasm for each one of her works.”
Mrs. Kennedy was one of the first people artist Jim Waid and his wife, Beverly, met when they moved to town about 20 years ago. At the time, she was teaching art at Green Fields Country Day School, a job she took to keep herself busy after her husband, Jim, died.
”She was one of the most vital people I’ve ever known,” said Waid. ”Beverly once said that Barbara Kennedy was her idol, that she was who Beverly wanted to be like.”
Mrs. Kennedy was born in Pittsfield, Mass., on March 24, 1911. She graduated from Smith College in Northampton, Mass., where she studied art history.
In the early 1960s, she and her family moved to Tucson for her husband’s health.
She studied art under Hazel Archer at the Tucson Museum of Art, then at the University of Arizona. She often gathered with other artists to discuss and critique each other’s works.
But it wasn’t until 1977, on a visit to a San Francisco gallery, that she discovered handmade papers. Her passion for the medium brought a whole new direction to her art.
”Her art really took off then,” Waid recalled. ”She had produced some interesting things, but somehow that was a real leap forward. She produced good work from there on out.”
Her art continued to change and improve. This summer, said Waid, it seemed to be reaching a peak.
”She’d get out in the studio and kept producing these wonderful images,” he said. ”There was no voice inside her telling her what she should or shouldn’t be doing. It was as though she had an open channel.”
It was because of Mrs. Kennedy’s paper art that fellow paper artist Catherine Nash came to know her in 1985.
”We really connected,” recalled Nash, who was a UA graduate student then. ”She was quite a mentor. She is an inspiration in the way she’s lived her life on the creative and personal level. She’s really one of my best friends.
”I saw in her someone that I admire – that I could live my life like that,” continued Nash. ”She’s always interested in the new, taking classes, having a fresh, positive outlook every day. She was a very positive, optimistic person.”
Dolan, who took classes from Mrs. Kennedy as well as taught classes the artist took, loved the way she approached art.
”She once told me that having a new painting on the easel was like having someone there,” Dolan said. ”She’d often go to her studio to visit it. She was totally engaged with it. She was so alive. Her colors were so alive. She was one incredible lady.”
Mrs. Kennedy is survived by her sons, Judge James M. Kennedy of Walnut Creek, Calif., Dr. Timothy Kennedy of Denver and Douglas C. Kennedy of Tucson, and seven grandchildren.
A celebration of Mrs. Kennedy’s life is planned from 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday at her home, 4818 E. Towner St., a few blocks north of East Grant Road and east of North Swan Road.
The family asks that donations be given to Tucson Botanical Gardens, the University of Arizona Museum of Art or the Tucson Museum of Art.
(Dated Nov 16, 1998)
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‘Buck’ Graham, VFW post commander
Telmon E. ”Buck” Graham, a decorated B-52 tail gunner who flew more than 100 combat missions in the Vietnam War, has died at age 62.
Mr. Graham, a Tucson district VFW post commander, died Wednesday of a heart attack.
”He didn’t talk much about the war,” said son Michael R. Graham of Tucson. ”I think that was something he kept inside himself. He didn’t seem to be comfortable talking about his war experiences with family members, but I know he talked about them with other veterans of the war.”
The younger Graham said his father did tell him about his first experience with combat.
”He said the entire crew was new to combat, from Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth, Texas. Everyone was scared,” said his son, a Tucson Citizen reporter.
”He said they flew that B-52 faster than the Air Force said it would fly, and it was shaking and rattling.”
One of the B-52s on which Mr. Graham served is on display at the Pima Air & Space Museum – the one with the camouflage.
”Through his friends, I’ve heard that he and other bomber crewmen went through some pretty rough times,” Michael Graham said. ”Those were 12-hour missions, and they had six hours to worry about getting to Hanoi and six hours to worry about getting back.
”I know his best friend was a tail gunner on another B-52, and they were on a mission together over Hanoi. The plane his friend was on was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile, and my dad saw that happen.”
Mr. Graham was born Dec. 8, 1935, in Miami, Okla., where he graduated from Miami High School in 1953 and attended Northeastern Oklahoma A&M. He later earned an associate’s degree from Pima Community College in 1980.
He joined the U.S. Air Force in 1954 and served until his retirement as a master sergeant in 1976. He received numerous medals for his combat service in Vietnam.
After leaving the Air Force, he and his family moved to Tucson. He worked for Tri-Tronics and International Business Machines, later opening his own business – Catalina Alternator & Starter.
After accepting early retirement from IBM, he was involved in volunteer work at the Tucson VA Medical Center, an avocation that evolved into a full-time, paid position.
He retired from that position in 1997, though his involvement with various veterans organizations would continue until his death.
”The military was probably the major focus in his life,” said son Michael. ”He was heavily involved with veterans’ organizations. I think it was because there was a common ground; they spoke the same language and could relate to each other.”
Mr. Graham was VFW District 5 commander at the time of his death. In 1987, he joined VFW Post 549, at 1884 S. Craycroft Road. There, he served as a member or chairman of several committees, as junior and senior vice commander, and as commander of the post – the largest in the state – from 1996-98.
He also was a member of the Air Force Gunners Association, American Legion Post 36, the Elks Lodge and Moose Lodge.
He had served about 1,000 hours of volunteer time with various veterans organizations, and was on his way to a visitation on the night of his death.
Graveside services are scheduled Saturday at 10 a.m. at South Lawn Cemetery, 5401 S. Park Ave., followed by a memorial service at noon at VFW Post 549.
Survivors include his wife, Colleen, of Tucson; a son, Michael R. Graham of Tucson; a daughter, Teresa Graham Brett of Ann Arbor, Mich.; his mother, Ruby Graham of Grove, Okla.; four brothers, Glen Graham and Gerald Graham, both of Miami, Okla.; Dallas Graham of Edmund, Okla., and Carl Graham of Carriere, Miss.; and a sister, Vera Jones of Grove, Okla.
The family suggests donations be made to VFW Post 549 and Auxiliary Relief Fund, 1884 S. Craycroft Road, Tucson, AZ 85711.
(Dated Nov 24, 1998)
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