Columbia Journalism sChool Winter 2010 - Berkeley Graduate ...

in memoriam
—
1939
DeLancey Jones of Richmond,
Va., formerly of Williamstown,
Mass., died Aug. 25. He was 93.
He was preceded in death by his
first wife, Barbara; his second
wife, Catherine; and his brother,
Griffith Jones. He leaves his one
daughter, Deborah Walter and
husband Richard of Kamas,
Utah; two stepdaughters, Susie
Benson and husband Taylor, and
Holly Antrim and husband John
Mason, both of Richmond; stepson
S. Kirk Materne and wife Stuart
of Naples, Fla.; sister Valerie
Jones Materne of Washington,
Conn.; brother Christopher Peter
Jones of Wayland, Mass.; 12
grandchildren and 11 greatgrandchildren.
DeLancey was a
World War II Navy veteran and
retired from Ohio Bell in Cleveland.
After his retirement, he and
Barbara lived in Williamstown,
Mass. He moved to Richmond in
1997.
1943
Margaret Polk Yates Berkheimer,
writer and journalist, died Aug.
13, 2009, in New York City at age
93. She is the widow of the late
Dr. George A. Berkheimer and
the sister of the late Eugene A.
Yates Jr. and Betty Yates Shepard
Ensign. She is survived by
the children of her brother and
sister and their children and
grandchildren. She was born
Dec. 9, 1915, in New Jersey, spent
her early childhood years in Birmingham,
Ala., came out as a
debutante in NYC in 1933, and
resided in Manhattan her whole
adult life. She served in the OSS
during WWII and wrote two
mysteries published by E.P. Dutton
including “The Widows Walk,”
published in 1945, one of the first
mysteries with Nantucket, Mass.,
as the setting. Mrs. Berkheimer
was a devotee of Nantucket,
residing there in the summers for
more than 60 years and contributing
to numerous Nantucket
causes.
1946
Nona Mary (Rohan) Mahoney of
Bristol, R.I., died Oct. 15, surrounded
by her loving family. She was 86
and was preceded in death by
her husband, John P. Mahoney,
M.D. Mahoney was born in Boston,
Mass., and graduated from
Girls’ Latin School and Emmanuel
College. After Columbia Journalism
School, she began her career
at The Boston Post, where she
became women’s editor. She left
that job to start a family. Having
seven children in as many years
spurred her interest in early
childhood education, and she
founded the Blue Hill Montessori
School. After her husband’s
death in 1969, she studied at the
Language Clinic at Massachusetts
General Hospital to become
certified to teach students with
learning disabilities. She taught
for many years at the Charles
River School in Dover, Mass., and
at Milton (Mass.) High School.
She also tutored students with
learning disabilities. She lived in
Milton for 35 years. Mahoney
was also a frequent lector at
Catholic masses. Her faith played
a large part in her ability to
accomplish so much despite
having lost the use of a leg in
1955, in one of the last polio
epidemics in the United States.
She was also a breast-cancer
survivor. In retirement, Nona
performed with Next Move
Unlimited, a theater company,
and one of the first professional
ones, to bring performers with
disabilities and their issues to the
stage. She also volunteered with
the Talking Information Center in
Marshfield, Mass., reading newspapers
and books to be broadcast
on the radio for visually
impaired people. She is survived
by her children: James and his
wife, Nancy, of Mansfield, Mass.;
Sheila of Silver Spring, Md.; Stephen
of Meriden, Conn.; Elizabeth
of Tisbury, Mass., and her
partner, Lewis Colby; Ellen
Mahoney Sawyer and her husband,
Scott Sawyer, of Edina,
Minn.; John and his wife, Nancy,
of Cranston, R.I.; and Rosemary
of Athens, Greece, and her partner,
Aias Tchacos. She also
leaves seven grandchildren and
two great-grandchildren.
1947
Warren Leary Jr. died Aug. 17 at
age 86. He was the former owner
and publisher of the Rice Lake
(Wis.) Chronotype, and September
would have been his 50th year
writing the column “Out Amongst
’Em” for that newspaper, which
his father, Warren Leary Sr., and
August Ender bought in 1923.
It also would have been his
70th year writing for the paper.
In 2003, Leary was inducted
into the Wisconsin Newspaper
Association’s Hall of Fame.
Leary began his career with the
Chronotype in 1938 when, at age
16, he was getting paid 25 cents
an hour to help his father with
the printing end of the business.
He graduated from Notre Dame
and served in World War II, then
enrolled at Columbia Journalism
School. After graduation, he
briefly worked at the Milwaukee
Journal but soon returned to the
Chronotype. The paper’s editor
had contracted tuberculosis, so
Leary rose to the task of editing
the large weekly newspaper.
1953
William Trombley, a veteran
journalist and education analyst
who wrote for Life magazine and
the Los Angeles Times during a
five-decade career, died Sept. 6.
He was 80. Trombley had respiratory
and other problems and
died after a heart attack. At the
Times, where he was a reporter
for nearly 30 years starting in
1964, Trombley was known for
reshaping the paper’s coverage
of higher education, starting on
the beat during a tumultuous
period when the Free Speech
Movement was roiling college
campuses from California to
New York. He also covered
crucial issues in lower education,
from the desegregation lawsuits
that brought busing to Los Angeles
schools to prickly battles over
bilingual education and textbooks.
At National CrossTalk, Trombley
wrote a series of in-depth articles
on Kentucky’s efforts to reform
its higher education system. He
also wrote memorably about the
obstacles facing the UC system’s
newest campus at Merced,
including its infringement on the
habitat of several endangered
varieties of fairy shrimp, “microscopic
creatures that float on
their backs, waving their 11 pairs
of delicate legs” at frustrated UC
officials. After graduating from
J-School, he joined Life in 1953,
working in the magazine’s New
York and Chicago offices before
heading its San Francisco
bureau. After brief stints as
bureau chief at Hugh Hefner’s
short-lived Show magazine and
associate editor and contributing
writer at the Saturday Evening
Post, he joined the Times as an
education writer and was immediately
swept up in coverage of
the student protests of the
1960s. His stories documented
the upheaval of the period,
including the birth of the Free
Speech Movement at UC Berkeley
and the firing of UC President
Clark Kerr. He remained on the
education beat for 11 years,
switching to general assignment
in 1975 and urban affairs in 1984.
During his last three years at the
Times, he reported from the Sacramento
bureau. Whatever his
official beat, he always returned
to education stories and won a
number of prizes, including the
John Swett Award for Media
Excellence from the California
Teachers Association in 1983. In
addition to his wife of 55 years,
Trombley is survived by daughters
Patricia Trombley Ball of
Montclair, N.J., and Suzanne Rice
of Los Angeles, and two grandchildren.
1968
Kenneth Bacon died Aug. 15 at
age 64 on Block Island, R.I. He
was president of Refugees International,
the Washington-based
organization that serves as a
global advocate for the displaced.
Bacon was a familiar figure in
Washington, D.C., as chief Pentagon
spokesman during the
Clinton administration. He had
previously worked as a reporter
and editor for The Wall Street
Journal, where his assignments
included covering the Pentagon.
At Refugees International, Bacon
helped raise the organization’s
profile as an advocate for refugees
in Darfur. In Iraq and Pakistan,
he helped bring attention to as
many as five million refugees
who had abandoned their homes
to escape wars and terrorism.
Despite suffering late-stage
cancer, he testified as recently as
June before a House committee
to describe conditions in Pakistan.
He was an intern at The Wall
Street Journal in 1965 and
scored a rare (for an intern)
page-one story about an automated
car-repair system that
one overheated mechanic
described as “the greatest thing
since girls.” He went on to join
The Journal’s Washington bureau
and covered defense, the Securities
and Exchange Commission,
and the Federal Reserve. He later
became an editor in the Washington
bureau. In 2001, explaining
why he took the Refugees
International job, Bacon said his
interest was piqued during the
Kosovo conflict in 1999, when a
flood of Yugoslav refugees were
cared for by international aid
organizations. On Aug. 10, Refugees
International announced
that Bacon had endowed a new
program to focus on refugees
displaced by climate change. He
is survived by his wife, Darcy
Wheeler Bacon; two daughters,
Katharine Bacon of Brookline,
Mass., and Sarah Bacon of
Brooklyn, N.Y.; his father, Theodore
S. Bacon of Peterborough,
N.H.; a brother; and two grandchildren.
1972
Sam Brown, longtime broadcast
award-winning journalist, died in
August in Knoxville, Tenn. He
was 59. He was honored with a
Columbia Journalism School
Alumni Award during Alumni
Weekend in 2003. Brown was
also a Phi Beta Kappa graduate
of the University of Kentucky.
He was an investigative reporter
and anchor at WATE-TV in Knoxville,
arriving from WSM-TV in
Nashville in 1974. Brown was
later an anchor for WKX-TV now
WVLT. His three-decade career
in broadcast news was studded
with honors, both locally and
nationally, culminating in four
Edward R. Murrow Awards for
journalism excellence at radio
station WNOX. Most recently, he
was an adjunct professor at the
University of Tennessee’s College
of Communications.
1976
James C. Finkenstaedt Jr., a former
Boston Globe editor on the
international desk, died in Paris,
France, Nov. 28 due to complications
after an accidental fall. He
was 55. “Jim,” (or “Clem” to his
family and friends) of Norwell,
Mass., and Paris, was a consummate
journalist who dedicated
his life to the public’s right to
know and the betterment of
journalism. His career took him
from the Asbury Park Press to
the Agence France Press, International
Herald Tribune in Paris
and finally to the international
desk of The Boston Globe, a
position from which he recently
retired. A brilliant and committed
journalist, he was also known
for his courteous, hospitable,
welcoming and open nature. He
was supportive and encouraging
to all he met and kept a positive
outlook with a sense of humor
throughout the most difficult
times. He is survived by his wife,
Elizabeth, and his four children,
Catherine, R. Lindsay, James III
and Thomas, all of Norwell,
Mass.; his parents, James C.
and Rose H. Finkenstaedt of
Paris, France; his sister, Isabel
Schelameur, and her husband,
Francois, and their children,
Pierre, Luke and Rose.
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