Category: Obituaries

Back when twin sisters Sandra “Sam” Himmel and Linda Van Allen were in high school, their dad called David Arthurs. Arthurs and the girls’ dad, Walt Connors, were Inverness business partners and friends, and Connors told him, “The girls need a job.” “Suddenly, we were employed by the Chronicle, stuffing papers once a week,” Van…
Read more

Leo Sandon — pastor and chaplain, professor, author, lecturer, long-time Tallahassee Democrat columnist — died Tuesday, March 22, at the Tallahassee home he shared with his son, Stephen. He was 86. The retired Florida State University professor of religion and FSU sports devotee also had been caregiver to his late wife of 45 years, Marvel Lou. He was beloved by…
Read more

Friends, colleagues and Palm Beach officials are recalling former Daily News Business Editor Carol Wright, who was killed Feb. 6 on the Royal Park Bridge, as a dedicated journalist. Former Shiny Sheet Publisher Joyce Reingold called her death an unspeakable tragedy.  “I can still hear her distinctive laugh and somewhere have the handwritten card with her recipe for pesto,” she…
Read more

Cuban-born South Florida journalist Guillermo I. Martinez, for decades a prominent and influential voice in both English and Spanish in television, radio and newspapers, has died. Martinez, a former reporter and editorial board member at the Miami Herald, died Sunday in Miami. He was 80. Friends said the cause of death was cancer. Equally at…
Read more

Former Ledger prep sports editor Durward Buck died on Sunday after a brief illness. He was 88 Former Ledger NFL writer Mike Cobb remembered covering Super Bowls when former Polk County high school stars were participating, and inevitably during the interview session when the players found out Cobb was from The Ledger, one question always…
Read more

I can research and write this column from my house, on my laptop, and publish it to FLORIDA TODAY’s website. If need be, I can write it and post it from my iPhone. And yet, decades before I got my first Tandy laptop as a fledgling journalist in 1990, people like Nicholas “Nick” White were covering critical, life-changing stories with speed…
Read more

Carole Fader, who broke barriers by becoming the first female sports editor in Florida Times-Union history during a career that spanned four decades, passed away on Nov. 27 at the age of 73. Her brother, Ron Fader, said she died at Ascension St. Vincent’s Southside of heart failure after a long illness. Fader cited the numerous…
Read more