The Memorial Wall

The next Men's Club Association members tournament at The Citrus Club won't be the same. There will be no final-round charge from Charles R. Cabrera.

Chuck died January 9, 2019, after a 15-year-battle with Parkinson's disease. He was 74.

He was a dedicated golfer and a born competitor, and he also was a gentleman straight out of Central Casting, known for his kindness to everyone he encountered. He'd let you play through.

Along with his love of golf, Chuck loved learning. He earned an undergraduate degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1966 — but he refused to leave campus, holing up in his room with his text books and the phone number to his favorite pizzeria. He earned an MBA from the school and then continued on to UC Hastings College of Law.

He was accepted to the California Bar in 1972 before putting aside the law to become an investments advisor at Dean Witter & Co. in the Bay Area. He quickly built a successful career, earning the trust of clients and business associates alike due to his intelligence, hard work, decency, and, always, good humor. It was at Dean Witter that he met Linda Hall Perry, a fellow broker. They fell in love and married, and Chuck became a beloved stepfather to Jeff, Doug and Zack. 

In 1990, Chuck and Linda merged their respective businesses to become one of the first husband-and-wife teams at Morgan Stanley. During their 25-year business partnership and 33-year marriage they built their life around their family, their friends, and their clients.  

Chuck was born July 19, 1944, in Caracas, Venezuela, to Charles and Anita Cabrera. During much of Chuck's and his younger brother Robert's early years, the family lived in South America, where their father worked for Chevron Oil Co. as a government liaison, and Chuck became fluent in Spanish.

Chuck embraced sports and good-natured competition from an early age. He was on his high-school golf team, and he later took up tennis and became a first-rate club player. He enjoyed fly-fishing trips to Alaska, Belize, and other far-flung destinations. He spent many years playing shuffleboard at the Kingfish Pub in Berkeley, and during his school and bachelor days he rarely missed a Cal football game.

His dedication to staying active and playing golf lasted to the very end, despite the limitations Parkinson's imposed on him. In honor of Chuck and his indomitable spirit, the Men's Club Association at The Citrus Club in La Quinta renamed its members tournament The Cabrera Member/Member Calcutta, and his CITTCO Golf Group renamed its tournament The Cabrera Cup.

He leaves behind his wife and stepsons, their wives (Kelly, Deborah and Hayden), his beautiful grandchildren (Jordan, Kody, Anastasia and Beckett), his brother, and a host of friends far and wide.    

A Memorial/Celebration of Life will be held at The Citrus Club, January 25 at 5pm. Donations may be made to The Parkinson Resource Organization in Palm Desert

Eugene Becker, known to friends as "Gene", passed away from Parkinson's complications on Jan. 1, 2019 at the age of 85.

A native of Seattle, WA. Gene attended Washington State University and graduated with a degree in Chemical Engineering. 

In 1959 he began his career and worked on projects including the "Beavon Process" which reduced emissions from oil refineries in Los Angeles in the 1970s, to his own Global Sulfur Systems which recycled the "Stretford Solution" which was previously disposed of by oil refineries. He also spent 4 years working in the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory in the early 1960s. He coached basketball and led backpack trips for underprivileged kids.

Gene Becker is survived by his 2 daughters, Julia and Kathryn, his dear friend and ex-wife Carolyn, 2 sons-in-law, Jim and Al, and 5 grandkids, Hannah, Aliza, James, Katie, and Tyler.

Suzanne (Bayer) Volin, age 91, died peacefully at home in Boca Raton on Tuesday, January 1, 2019 surrounded by her loving family after a courageous battle with Parkinson’s disease.She was born and raised in New York City, daughter of Saul and Estelle (Cohen) Bayer. After graduating from Hunter College in NYC she taught kindergarten before starting her family.After moving to Worcester, MA she was nursery school director for many years. They moved to Boca Raton in 1987 where they lived for over 30 years. She and her husband, Irwin spent many years traveling to Thailand on business and opened the country’s first Dunkin Donuts.She leaves her loving husband Irwin to whom she would have been married 70 years this summer. She also leaves her beloved children, Kathy, wife of Robert Pulda of Worcester, MA, Lawrence Volin of Tamarac, FL, her devoted granddaughters Dana Pulda Acone, wife of Chris Acone, and Julie Pulda, her great granddaughter Ruby Pulda Acone, her brother Mitchell Bayer of New York City and his wife, Beatrice, Claire Volin of Cherry Hill, NJ and several nieces and nephews. She will forever be remembered for her kind and gentle spirit. Funeral services were held in Worcester, MA. where she was buried.

Martin Wenger, beloved husband of Rita, died December 19 at 82. 

Martin was born in Monterrey, Mexico, the 4th child of Moses and Hasia Wenger. He immigrated with the family in 1945 and excelled at Roosevelt High School, lettering in tennis, a sport he dearly loved throughout his life. He was sort of daring: at 16 he was forbidden to buy a car, so he parked his shiny Studebaker around the corner until discovered. 

Martin graduated from UCLA in Business in 1958 and joined the family store, Wenger Furniture, which he expanded and ran, later with his son James. 

Martin loved to exercise and would play and teach tennis whenever possible, often with children, grandchildren or any willing friend or relative. When he could no longer play tennis, he rode a recumbent bicycle in the neighborhood. 

Martin was known by co-workers, employees and clients as a fair and generous businessman. 

He loved and supported the State of Israel. He was a fixture at UCLA basketball games and loved the Bruins. Martin was a mensch. He is survived by wife Rita; children Neil (Claudia), Robert, Jamie (Carole), and Nancy (Doug) Brown; siblings Claire Weinstein and Alex Wenger; and grandchildren Benjamin, Ariela, Jeremy, Tasha, Daniella, Jono, Zachary, Brianna, Leora, Talia, Hannah and Tanner.

It is with deep sorrow that we announce the death of Richard H. Goodin (Manhattan Beach, California), born in Detroit, Michigan, who passed away on December 9, 2018, leaving to mourn family and friends. Family and friends can light a candle as a loving gesture for their loved one. Leave a sympathy message to the family in the guestbook on this memorial page of Richard H. Goodin to show support.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to PRO (Parkinson Resource Organization), 74-090 El Paseo, Suite 104, Palm Desert, CA 92260).

Richard's surviving wife, Betty Goodin, was the co-facilitator of Parkinson's Resource Organization's Support Group and Parkinson's Education Meetings in Manhattan Beach, CA.

George HW Bush, who has died aged 94, was the 41st president of the US (1989-93) and father of the 43rd president – the first instance of a father and son holding America’s highest elected office since John and John Quincy Adams almost two centuries earlier.

Bush could claim to have been one of the most successful foreign-policy presidents, in the same league as Harry Truman and the two Roosevelts, but he had a far shakier touch when it came to economic policy and domestic affairs. He steered the US and its allies successfully through the collapse of communism and coordinated support for the reunification of Germany. Then he organised a triumphant international response to Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, in marked contrast to his son’s invasion of Iraq, which was endorsed wholeheartedly by only a handful of governments.

He was also popular with the awkward squad of foreign leaders with whom he had to deal, including Margaret Thatcher, Helmut Kohl and François Mitterrand. Although his performance on the domestic front was notably less assured, he won general trust as he steered the US into a position of unprecedented global dominance.

It was widely assumed that Bush was unenthusiastic about the rightwing tone of his son’s administration, but he remained discreet about such matters, and no one could be sure what he felt beyond family pride.

Although temperamentally conservative with a small C, Bush did not belong to the rightwing movement that propelled Reagan to the White House, and was treated with reserve and even suspicion by the ideologues of the new right. He was, rather, a traditional “country club” Republican, with family and business roots several generations deep in the Wall Street investment banking elite. His father, Prescott Bush, was a senator and a partner in the investment bank Brown Brothers Harriman, of which his grandfather, George Herbert Walker, was a founder.

If George W Bush, “Bush 43”, succeeded in coming across to his supporters as a downhome Texas boy, a born-again Christian at ease in cowboy boots and speaking with an authentic twang, his father, “Poppy Bush” or “41”, never sought to hide what he was, a great American gentleman in public life. He was so unconvincing as a man of the people that his aides urged him to be filmed buying something in a shop. Characteristically, he said he needed a pair of tennis socks, but seemed unfamiliar with the process of buying them.

Like his son, he received the traditional education of the American upper class. Both went to Phillips Andover Academy, Massachusetts, and then to Yale University, Connecticut, where both played on the college baseball team and both, like many of their relations, were members of the exclusive, ultra-secretive Yale senior society, Skull and Bones. Bush Sr played tennis well enough for him to briefly consider becoming a professional “tennis bum”. Both, too, instead of sliding easily into a privileged life of weekdays on Wall Street and sports-mad weekends in a plush Connecticut suburb, decided to try their luck in the booming oil business of the Permian Basin field in West Texas.

The Bushes claimed descent from the Pilgrim Fathers several times over, and earlier from Mary Tudor, Duchess of Suffolk, sister of Henry VIII. In 1919 Prescott Bush, a big man on the Yale campus turned US senator, married Dorothy Walker, whose family ran a business in St Louis, Missouri, importing dry goods, largely from Britain. Their second son, born in Milton, Massachusetts, was named George Herbert Walker after her father.

Prescott was prospering as an investment banker, thanks to his connections with the Rockefeller, Morgan and Harriman business empires. In 1920 he became president of the newly established investment bank WA Harriman & Co (from 1931, Brown Brothers Harriman), which focused its business efforts on funding the recovering economy of Germany, continuing to issue bonds for the German government long after Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933.

The bankers and their lawyers, however, including movers such as Henry L Stimson, were on the whole more pro-British than pro-German and were to become the “foreign policy establishment” who helped Franklin Roosevelt to overcome the isolationists and manoeuvre the US into giving Britain “all aid short of war”.

It was Stimson who played a part in one of the decisive moments in Bush’s life. In June 1940, after France fell, the Wall Street lawyer and former secretary of both war and state went to give a talk at Andover. He painted a dark picture of the situation in Europe, but portrayed it as an opportunity for young men to fight for freedom. Bush was supposed to enrol at Yale that autumn. Instead, he headed for a navy recruiting office. Helped by family contacts, because he was under age, he volunteered and became the youngest navy pilot in history.

After the US entered the second world war in December 1941 with the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Bush flew 58 combat missions and was twice rescued from the Pacific ocean. In April 1944 he made a forced landing on water, and in September that year he bailed out after a successful attack and was rescued by a submarine. For this action he received the Distinguished Flying Cross.

While still at Andover, at a Christmas dance in South Carolina, Bush met Barbara Pierce, herself a Mayflower descendant, whose ancestor Franklin Pierce was the 14th president (1853-57). They were engaged before Bush departed for the South Pacific. When he returned, she dropped out of Smith College, Massachusetts, and in January 1945 they got married.

The demobilised Bush took an economics degree at Yale (1948) and then joined Dresser Industries, an Ohio firm with Yale and family connections (his father had been on the board since 1930). It was Dresser who sent him to work in Texas. In 1950 he moved down to Midland, a West Texas town full of well-connected Ivy League types.

Bush was no roustabout, still less a roughneck. His involvement in oil was primarily on the financial side. He began as a “landman”, seeking out owners of mineral rights and buying up promising properties, and went on to corporate finance.

He became a leading light in Zapata Petroleum, later a major oil company. There are scraps of evidence that suggest that he was already involved with the CIA, as his partner in Zapata, Thomas Devine, certainly was. It has even been suggested that Zapata itself was a CIA “proprietary”, or secretly owned company. He was also involved in CIA operations against Fidel Castro.

The Bushes moved to Houston, where he soon became involved in Republican politics. Houston was then still an overwhelmingly Democrat city, so Bush faced little competition in 1962 when he was elected chairman of the Harris county Republican party, where he was unprepared for the virulence of the John Birch Society’s rightwing opposition.

In 1970, perhaps ambitious to match his father’s career, he quit the House and ran again for the Senate. He had hoped to win against the liberal Democrat Ralph Yarborough, but Yarborough, beaten in the Democratic primary by the relatively conservative Lloyd Bentsen, endorsed Bentsen for the general election, and the Democrat beat Bush easily.

At this point, Bush’s political career could have ended. He was saved by Richard Nixon. Keen to improve his relations with the establishment and moderate “Rockefeller Republicans”, Nixon appointed Bush as his ambassador to the UN in 1971. Although he was not a particularly effective ambassador, he began to become known and respected in Republican circles. When in 1974 Nixon was forced to resign over Watergate and was succeeded by Gerald Ford, Bush was given the choice of embassies in London or Paris.

Instead, aware of the long-term significance of Nixon and Henry Kissinger’s opening of relations with China, he asked to be sent to Beijing. He and Barbara loved the posting and bought bicycles to explore the city. Bush’s main political preoccupation there was to try to protect Taiwan’s interests in a “two Chinas” policy without forfeiting the friendship of the Chinese leaders. In fact, he had little contact with the leadership. He saw Mao Zedong only twice, on formal occasions, and Zhou Enlai not at all.

When Ford asked Bush to become director of Central Intelligence it seemed a surprise appointment, though many top CIA officials were Skull and Bonesmen. By far his most important achievement during his brief tenure (1976-77) was to set up what became known as Team B. This was a high-level panel, stuffed with fire-breathing military men and conservative scholars, who were asked to reassess the agency’s estimate of the Soviet Union. They concluded that the CIA’s Soviet experts had underestimated the size of the Soviet defence budget and therefore the Soviet threat.

Whether or not the new estimate was more accurate than the agency’s old assumptions, the Team B episode, soon leaked to the press, was an important moment in the shift of the political centre of gravity to the right in Washington in the mid-1970s. It advanced Bush’s credentials in conservative circles and led to his emergence as a serious candidate for the presidency, in competition with Reagan, in 1980.

Bush annoyed the Reagan camp during the nomination campaign, not least by characterising Reagan’s economic ideas as “voodoo economics”. But that did not stop the Reagan team offering Bush the vice-presidency, to balance Reagan’s reputation with a more traditional Republican appeal.

Bush did come under suspicion of involvement in at least two intelligence-related scandals under Reagan. The first, widely dismissed but still supported by persuasive evidence, was the so-called “October surprise”. This was the charge that Bush was involved in secret negotiations with the Iranian revolutionaries in the context of competition between the Jimmy Carter White House and the Reagan campaign to bring back the American hostages from Tehran on the eve of the 1980 presidential election.

There were also suggestions that he was implicated in the Iran-Contra scandal, in which White House and CIA officials, some with previous connections to Bush, sought to finance illegal support for the rightwing Contra guerrillas in Nicaragua, forbidden by Congress, by means of an ingenious plot for selling arms to the rogue regime in Iran.

As a major public figure whose style exuded gentlemanly values, Bush had an unusual number of dubious or conspiratorial connections, some dating back to his involvement in Middle Eastern oil investment in his Texas days. There are plausible suggestions, for example, that he had business connections with the scandal-ridden Bank of Credit and Commerce International, and also with rich Saudi investors, including relatives of Osama bin Laden.

In spite of such rumours and indeed certain proven connections, Bush survived all threats to his position during the Reagan administration and emerged in 1988 as Reagan’s debonair heir apparent.

His campaign for the presidency was marred by some activities widely regarded as less than gentlemanly. Most controversial was the use of the case of Willie Horton, a convicted murderer freed under a Massachusetts furlough, or parole, programme, who went on to commit an attack that resulted in convictions for kidnapping, rape and attempted murder. This furlough scheme had been introduced by one of Michael Dukakis’s predecessors as governor of Massachusetts but was defended by Dukakis when he stood as the Democratic candidate. Ed Rollins, the chairman of Reagan’s 1984 presidential re-election campaign, stated that Bush’s campaign manager, Lee Atwater, “was no racist, but he played the race card with Willie Horton and George Bush looked the other way”.

The great events of 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell and the communist empire in eastern Europe collapsed, showed Bush at his best. He had already established a friendly working relationship with Mikhail Gorbachev. This enabled him to avoid the mistrust that might have arisen with a less diplomatic president. Even more positive was Bush’s role in avoiding the potentially perilous consequences of German reunification. Kohl was keen to seize the historic opportunity to bring the two Germanies together, but Gorbachev, Mitterrand and – even more vehemently – Thatcher were all opposed.

With the help of his skilful national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft, and of his old friend from Texas and the Reagan White House, James Baker, now his secretary of state, Bush calmed their fears and nudged the diplomatic process along to a successful conclusion.

In the 1998 memoir he wrote jointly with Scowcroft, A World Transformed, Bush gave his opinion that “in less than a year we had accomplished the most profound change in European politics and security for many years, without confrontation, without a shot fired”. Much was certainly owed to Bush’s personal building of trust with Kohl and with Gorbachev.

On 1 August 1990, Bush was characteristically receiving heat treatment for hitting too many golf balls when Scowcroft arrived at the White House medical office and broke the news that Saddam was about to invade Kuwait. From then until after victory, the president did not put a foot wrong. Immediately after learning of Saddam’s attack, he met Thatcher, who stiffened his determination that “this will not stand”. But he did not need the British prime minister to tell him that.

Perhaps his most impressive achievement was the way in which he lined up the broadest possible international coalition against Iraq. Around 400,000 American troops were involved as well as a significant British force. The Saudis, whose borders and oilfields were directly threatened, contributed forces. So did Syria and Egypt. The Japanese were persuaded to pay substantial sums, and Bush received diplomatic support from Russia, France and Germany.

Indeed, although Saddam had been supported by the Soviet Union in the past, on 3 August – only 48 hours or so after the invasion of Kuwait – Baker and the Soviet foreign minster, Eduard Shevardnadze, signed a joint statement condemning the invasion. For the first time since the cold war began, the US and the Soviet Union were on the same side.

In truth, the relationship was difficult for both sides. The Soviet leaders were reluctant to send troops, and the Americans were not keen to see them involved either. And there was a wobble, just before the ground attacks began, when the Soviet diplomat Alexander Bessmertnykh suggested the action could be called off pending a negotiated settlement, which by then the Americans did not want.

The military campaign was over in a matter of days, and Bush’s most controversial decision was to end the war before the coalition’s forces could reach Baghdad and overthrow Saddam, as his son’s army did. Critics have suggested that his Saudi friends unduly influenced Bush, reluctant as they were to take a step that might end with putting Shia Muslims in power in Iraq. Bush himself merely pointed out that his congressional mandate was to liberate Kuwait, not to oust Saddam.

It is plain that he was already aware of the danger of incurring responsibility for Iraq in the way that his son did so disastrously. He remained staunchly supportive of his son’s policy in public. But one of the most intriguing questions about Bush Sr is what he really thought of his son’s policies. Given the strong sense of family solidarity, it is at least possible that he privately opposed the invasion of 2003 but decided not to say so. Certainly, both he and Scowcroft criticised an operation that would have led to the capture of Baghdad when they were in command. In view of what Bush Jr was to do a decade later, there is irony in Bush Sr and Scowcroft’s judgment that had the US occupied Baghdad and ruled Iraq, it would have violated its own principles and “could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land”.

After Bush’s masterly management of the first Iraq war, it might have been assumed that his re-election, for a second four-year term from 1993, would be assured. In fact, his popularity plummeted, from more than 90% by some poll measures to under 40%. One reason, as the victorious Bill Clinton put it, was obvious: “It’s the economy, stupid!”

Even if he had wanted to be more active than he actually was, he would have been constrained by the immense deficit he had inherited from Reagan. The only two pieces of domestic legislation of any significance he persuaded Congress to pass were the Disabilities Act of 1990, bringing disabled people, as he put it, “into the mainstream”, and the Clean Air Act of 1990, passed after the Exxon Valdez oil spill. In the end, as Clinton himself summed up the election in his own memoir: “I had won the debate over what the election was about.” That, along with Clinton’s very able campaign team, had been too much for Bush, a man who gave the impression that he did not like campaigning, and was not much good at it.

Bush was vulnerable to the suspicion that he was a patrician, sheltered from the troubles of most people’s lives. Although his personal demeanour remained at least superficially modest, he did everything to confirm this stereotype. The independent third party candidate, Ross Perot, one of the most successful in history, who eventually won 19% of the vote, made capital out of the Bush administration’s apparent indifference to middle-class insecurity. Even Pat Buchanan, the rightwing Republican challenger, made mileage out of calling Bush “King George”. It was an ugly campaign, featuring insinuations of adultery and other personal attacks on both candidates. Bush lost a campaign, one Clinton biographer wrote, “shaped as much by Bush’s feeble grip on power as by Clinton’s determined grasp for it”.

In the circumstances, Bush’s rejection by the electorate in a period of economic stagnation and fear is less remarkable than his rehabilitation in the court of public opinion. Conservatives never forgave Clinton for interrupting what they saw as their historically inevitable, if not divinely ordained, ascendancy. Bush himself won sympathy when an attempt was made to assassinate him during a visit to Kuwait.

Most striking of all was the way the conservative movement, and the Republican party with which it increasingly overlapped, allowed him to pass on a certain political charisma to his sons, first to John Ellis “Jeb” Bush and then, after Jeb’s defeat in his first run for governor of Florida, to George W. The two Georges, after all, were more than a little different: the father a well-mannered patrician, the son – well, something very different. “Poppy” was far too traditional a patriarch to allow the press any specific idea of what he thought of his two sons. When George W was criticised, his father and mother would say how proud they were of their son. In 2010, the two men jointly threw out the first ceremonial pitch in a World Series baseball game.

The Bushes remained, however, above all else a family, tightly bound by shared ambitions, attitudes and habits, and especially by a common passion for all forms of sport. Bush Sr wrote a moving letter to his sons about his own consciousness of the ageing process and, by implication, though he was too reticent to make much of it, of the approach of death. But the examples he cited were all taken from sports, the creaking of joints on the tennis court, and the shortening of his golf drive.

Nonetheless, Bush was an unconventional figure in turning his back on the easy life he might have had in business. He climbed, against most expectations, to the top of the greasy political pole, and made a real impact on international politics at a moment of dangerous transition.

Bush was better known for his simple expressions of personal taste and belief than for philosophical profundity. He disliked broccoli, he told the press, and had done so since he was a little kid. He was not the sort of guy, he said, who would ever apologise for the US, whatever the facts. Such moments led the sharp-tongued Texas governor Ann Richards to say: “Poor George, he was born with a silver foot in his mouth.”

Whatever the truth about his dabblings in the covert world, and for all his proven ability to hold his own with the subtleties of diplomacy, he remained at heart an unreconstructed Ivy League hero out of the pages of John O’Hara or John P Marquand, devoted to capitalism, family, honour and country. He was happiest when fishing from his speedboat, Fidelity, in the cold waters off Maine, or pitching horseshoes and greeting each of his own successful throws with his trademark cry of “Mr Smooth does it again!”

Barbara died in April this year. Bush is survived by their sons, George, Jeb, Neil and Marvin, and daughter Dorothy. Another daughter, Robin, died in childhood.

Geoffrey G. Webb left his earthly stage on November 11, 2018. He died at home with his husband and best friend of 27 years, Donald Beck, by his side. He was born in 1929 in the village of Keyworth in Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom. He was the youngest of 11 children of Sarah and William Webb.

From an early age, Geoffrey's talents as a performer were evident and shared with family and the community. At the age of 17 he joined a touring ballet company and danced throughout Europe for the next 6 years. He then performed with London's Festival Ballet Company. Geoffrey's reputation continued to rise and he had the opportunity to perform in the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden on the occasion of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. The opera was titled "Gloriana" and was a specially commissioned opera based on the life of Elizabeth I.

Geoffrey was a "triple threat" as a performer, excelling in dance, song, and acting. He worked in summer stock, movies, TV, and the legitimate stage. After many theatrical productions in the West End of London, notably "The Boy Friend" and "Chorus Line", he came to America with the Victorian Edwardian musical "Late Joys". In the US he appeared in "Chicago", "My Fair Lady", "Gigi", and "South Pacific" and others. Geoffrey also played the role of a butler in the soap opera "One Life to Live" for several years. Music and performing was a large part of his journey and he was a part of "Songshine" for ten years. He became a US citizen in 2000 and soon thereafter he was a key member of the cast of the "Fabulous Palm Springs Follies" for 9 years. He read to first graders with "BookPals" for 10 years In addition to the performing arts, Geoffrey loved to travel. He and Donald traveled to all parts of the world, making many new friendships in the process.

Geoffrey thanks everyone who touched his life on his journey; he cherished every moment. He leaves many nephews and nieces in England, friends all over the world, and the love of his life, his husband, Donald Beck.

A "Celebration of Live will be held at the upper level of Spencers, 701 W Baristo Rd. Palm Springs, on Wednesday December 5th at 1;00 clock.

Donna Axum Whitworth, the first Miss Arkansas to go on to win Miss America, died Sunday evening of complications from a 12-year battle with Parkinson's disease.

Whitworth, 76, spent one of her last weekends in Fayetteville doing what she loved, representing the people of Arkansas.

Whitworth, who was born in El Dorado, won the Miss America title in 1964. She was beloved among Arkansans and remembered as a lady, according to Jessie Bennett, executive director of the Miss Arkansas Scholarship Pageant Inc.

"We always said that when Donna took the crown off for the last time, she never removed those high standards that she thought Miss America should possess," said Rick Pruitt, a former executive director of Miss Arkansas.

"And so I ended up arriving in Fayetteville at the age of 17 in 1959 and absolutely fell in love with the area and -- uh -- spent some of the greatest years of my life here at the University of Arkansas," Whitworth said in an interview with The David and Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History. Whitworth majored in speech and drama, obtaining both bachelor's and master's degrees in the subjects.

The summer before her senior year, Whitworth made her second bid to become Miss Arkansas and won. She won the Miss America pageant about a month later, becoming the first of only three Arkansans to win the title. 

After serving as Miss America and graduating from the university, Whitworth taught speech classes at Texas Tech University in Lubbock and later went into television, starring in programs like The Noon Show and Good Morning Arkansas.

She married Bryan Whitworth in 1984, and combined the couple had five children. Whitworth lived in Fort Worth until her death.

Apart from the university, Whitworth served on the Miss America Board of Directors, becoming the first Miss America to hold a position on the board, Pruitt said. In 1994, President Bill Clinton appointed her to the President's Advisory Committee on the Arts for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

"Well, I think I've led a pretty normal life," Whitworth said in the Pryor Center interview. "I always think of myself as a very normal person. You know, I cook, I clean house, and, you know, I do everything everybody else does. But I have just been given extraordinary opportunities in my life -- extraordinary platforms to do good. And you can choose to do good, or not do anything at all, or do bad things. But the burden is always on the doing of good for other people and leaving a positive legacy

One of the most instrumental movers and shakers from the Warm Water Therapy Pool Society, Pat Graham, has died. The 88-year-old was credited as being the backbone of the push for the addition to the Jayman BUILT Aquatic Centre located at Spray Lake Sawmills Family Sports Centre. A caretaker to her husband, Gord, who had Parkinson’s and died earlier this year, Pat was on a mission to gain support for the town to include a warm water therapy pool in their concept for the new pool facility. Opened in July 2017, the pool is widely used by people of all ages, stages and ranges of mobility – as warm water has been credited as having positive and even transformative effects for those with a spectrum of physical and mental impairments ranging from Parkinson’s and MS to athletic injuries and even autism. The society raised more than $100,000 to help build the pool and has worked tirelessly to educate the public on the benefits of warm water therapy. “She was determined, tenacious and bright,” said Bob Head, who was contacted by Pat in the early advocacy years nearly a decade ago, to help form the society and push for the therapy pool. “She had a vision – a long-term vision of what could and should be here,” said Head, who was friends with Pat as both had spouses with Parkinson’s at the Bethany Care Centre at that time; his wife, Beverly, died in 2017. Board member Mary Lou Nicolson said that it was without question that Cochrane has the therapy pool to enjoy today because of Pat’s determination then – and at the end. “Just before she died she looked at me and said, ‘You keep that pool going the way we wanted it to go’,” said Nicolson. While the town took a while to warm to the idea of the pool, fellow board members credit Pat as the founder. “We’re going to put a plaque up with a picture of her acknowledging her contributions to the warm water therapy pool,” said society board member Lydia Graham – a former mayor who continues to be an active volunteer in the community. “She certainly steered the ship ... she was very committed and determined.” The society also lost another dedicated volunteer, Richard Foy, to cancer in the fall of 2017. Carolyn Simle, a current user of the therapy pool, said the use of the pool has transformed her life and that she is grateful to volunteers like Pat who are the reason behind it. Simle began experiencing lower back pain two years ago following an accident with a gate falling on her. A range of traditional doctor and medical therapies failed to help her and her pain became debilitating. She soon learned that she was to become wheelchair bound and would be rendered unable to work. Eventually, her research led her to ask her doctor if swimming might be a therapy solution. She began utilizing the warm water pool and said that in a period of weeks she has regained muscle, lost weight and is now walking limp-free. “The therapy pool gave me what every other treatment available had failed to do. After two years of suffering in pain every day, I am just one who is so very grateful to all of the people who fought to have this therapy pool at the (SLSFSC),” wrote Simle in a letter. “Who knew my answered prayer would be found in a pool.” Pat, who spent most of her life in agriculture with her husband, has been an active volunteer for many years since moving to Cochrane to retire. She was also very active with the Bethany Family Council – the family group that fundraises and volunteers to beautify the Bethany and make the environment a better place. “Pat was instrumental in advocating for the partnership between Bethany Cochrane and the warm water therapy pool,” said Jennifer Vance, administrator for Bethany Cochrane. “She liaised our two organizations together and now our residents enjoy weekly bus outings to the pool.” Vance said in Pat’s four years as council co-chair, she helped raise more than $125,000 to go toward residents at the senior care facility , as well as Pat’s white baby grand piano that now calls the senior centre home. A memorial service will be held for Pat and Gord on Dec. 2 at 2:30 p.m. at All Saints Anglican Church.

Her husband, Gordon Graham died after battling Parkinson's. Read his story on the Memorial Wall.

Robert Noonan, one of the College of William and Mary's computer science department founders, died at 74. 

Robert “Bob” Noonan, an Emeritus computer science professor at the College of William and Mary who is credited with founding the department, died Thursday, Nov. 1, following a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. He was 74 years old. College Provost Michael Halleran confirmed his death with a message to faculty Nov. 6.

Noonan had worked at the College since 1976 as a faculty member in the mathematics department. Soon after, he and two other colleagues persuaded the College administration to establish a stand-alone computer science department. In July 1984, such a department was founded, offering both bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Furthermore, in 1986, the computer science department became the third at the College to offer doctoral degrees.

“Bob will be remembered as a kind friend and a passionate teacher who always put the interest of William & Mary’s students first,” Halleran said in a written statement. “Despite his long battle with Parkinson’s and lymphoma, he did not hesitate to teach in overland so that our B.S. students had enough classes to take and would be able to graduate. His students have fond memories of his mentorship as well as the annual graduation parties at his home. His support for his department and his colleagues was also unwavering. He did not hesitate to sit in every single lecture of junior colleagues for an entire semester to provide constructive advice as how to improve their teaching.”

Noonan was born June 4, 1944, in Rahway, New Jersey. He received his bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Providence College in 1966 and his master’s and doctoral degrees from Purdue University in 1968 and 1971, respectively. Noonan was the 22nd student to receive a Ph.D. in computer science from Purdue. Soon after graduating, he joined the faculty of the University of Maryland at College Park as an assistant professor.

During his time at the College, Noonan took a lead in several academic and administrative positions. He chaired the Information Technology Advisory Committee, a position in which he convinced the administration to wire campus for internet access. Then, he served as the acting associate provost for information technology. He also served as the computer science department’s longest-standing undergraduate director.

Noonan later joined the Liberal Arts Computer Science Consortium representing the College and was a long-standing member of the Association for Computing Machinery and the Special Interest Group for Computer Science Education. He also co-authored a textbook, “Programming Languages: Principles and Paradigms” that has been used to teach programming languages across the country.

“Despite his many accomplishments, Bob was humble and dedicated to others,” Halleran said in a written statement. “He would always speak his mind but extremely thoughtfully and considerately. As a leading figure in our Department for decades, he has nurtured an egalitarian, good stewardship climate which we identify as one of the biggest strengths in our department and try to maintain to this day.”

When both he and his wife, who was also a computer science professor at the College, retired, the computer science department established the Bob and Debbie Noonan Award that is now given to an undergraduate student with a high GPA and active participation in computer science-related extracurriculars. Noonan is survived by his wife, son, three brothers, numerous nephews, nieces, grand-nephews, grand-nieces and his in-laws. Halleran said Noonan will be greatly missed by his students, friends and colleagues. Visitation hours were held Wednesday, Nov. 7 at the Nelsen Funeral Home in Williamsburg.

A celebration of life service was held Thursday, Nov. 8 at the Wellspring United Methodist Church.