Mike Auldridge, Graphic Arts & World-renowned Dobro artist, December 29, 2012

2012 award of the National
 Endowment for the Art’s
highest honor, the
National Heritage Fellowship

Mike Auldridge (December 30, 1938 – December 29, 2012) was widely acknowledged as a premier resophonic guitar (the instrument formerly referred to as a Dobro) player. He played with The Seldom Scene for many years, creating a fusion of bluegrass with jazz, folk and rock.
Born in Washington, D.C.,Auldridge started playing guitar at the age of 13. His main influence through his early years was Josh Graves who also sold him his first Dobro. A 1967 graduate of The University of Maryland, Auldridge worked as a graphic artist for a commercial art firm in Bethesda, Maryland and then for the now defunct Washington Star-News. He did not start playing music full-time until the Washington Star-News folded in 1976.
Auldridge last played with Darren Beachley and The Legends of the Potomac bluegrass band. Past bands include Emerson and Waldron, Cliff Waldron and the New Shades of Grass, Seldom Scene (of which he was a founding member), Chesapeake, The Good Deale Bluegrass Band, and John Starling and Carolina Star (which featured three original members of The Seldom Scene). Mike was also a member of the touring bands of Lyle Lovett and Emmylou Harris.
Auldridge worked with Paul Beard (Beard Guitars) to produce the Beard Mike Auldridge Models of square-neck resophonic guitars, including an 8-string version. Just one day prior to his 74th birthday, he died on December 29, 2012 in hospice care in Silver Spring, Maryland after a lengthy battle with cancer. 

Attribution: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Auldridge

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Mike Auldridge, founding member of D.C.’s Seldom Scene bluegrass group, dies at 73

Mike Auldridge, a bluegrass musician whose broad knowledge of many musical forms helped redefine and modernize the steel guitar known as the Dobro, died Dec. 29 at his home in Silver Spring. He died a day before his 74th birthday.

Larry L. King, playwright of ‘The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,’ dies at 83

Washington Star Writer-in-Residence

Before he became known the world over as a playwright, Larry L. King was a reporter, a Capitol Hill aide, a raconteur, a brawler and a full-time Texan. He helped define the freewheeling New Journalism of the 1960s and 1970s, partly with an article he wrote for Playboy magazine in 1974 about the Chicken Ranch, a house of ill repute in southeast Texas.
 A few years later, Mr. King and several collaborators refashioned his article into a musical comedy about a brothel that operated for years under the averted gaze of the law. “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” ran on Broadway for almost four years and has been in almost continuous production since. In 1982, it was made into a Burt Reynolds-Dolly Parton movie — which Mr. King loathed.
 Mr. King, who had lived in Washington since the 1950s, died Dec. 20 at Chevy Chase House, a retirement facility in the District.
He was 83. He had emphysema, his wife, Barbara Blaine, said.
 He was the author of seven plays and more than a dozen books, including memoirs, a novel and collections of articles and letters. In 1982, he won an Emmy Award as the writer and narrator of a CBS documentary, “The Best Little Statehouse in Texas,” that looked at the legislature’s behind-the-scenes horse-trading.
 Mr. King also was known for his outsized personality, full-bore drinking and an ability to tell outrageously droll stories in a profanity-laced drawl that was almost indistinguishable from his writing voice. “His certain knowledge of his origins informs his point of view and his prose style,” New York Times book critic Christopher Lehmann-Haupt wrote in a review of Mr. King’s 1971 memoir, “Confessions of a White Racist.” “And this confidence in his roots is what makes Mr. King’s writing so alive, dramatic, warm, and funny.”

Joe L. Allbritton, communications giant who led Riggs Bank into disrepute, dies at 87

Joe L. Allbritton, a self-made millionaire who built a Washington communications empire and led the once venerable Riggs National Bank as it became embroiled in a massive money-laundering scheme involving Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, died Dec. 12 at a hospital in Houston. He was 87.
He died of heart ailments, said Frederick J. Ryan Jr., president of Allbritton Communications and president and chief executive of Politico.
The son of a Houston sandwich-shop owner, the hard-charging Mr. Allbritton dealt in real estate, banks and mortuaries until he was drawn to the District by a new challenge: reviving an ailing afternoon newspaper in the nation’s power center.
Mr. Allbritton bought the Washington Star in 1974. He won entry into the District’s elite political circles not only as a media magnate but also because of friendships with other Texans who had made their fortunes in the capital city, including lobbyist Jack Valenti and Watergate special prosecutor Leon Jaworksi.
Federal regulations over media ownership forced him to sell the Star just four years after he bought it. But he retained valuable broadcast properties, including the ABC affiliate that soon took his initials (WJLA, Channel 7), and forged ahead with other enterprises including NewsChannel 8, one of the country’s first 24-hour news channels.

Paul B. Moore, Evening Sun reporter; 84

Paul B. Moore, a former Evening Sun reporter and editor who later became a public relations executive, died Nov. 27 from complications of prostate cancer at his Homeland residence. He was 84.
"Paul was a very conscientious reporter and a very conscientious person. He was very talented and what he did, he did well," said Helen Delich Bentley, a former newsroom colleague who later became a congresswoman and federal maritime commissioner.
"As a reporter, he was always fair, and wherever he went always looked for something interesting and challenging," said Mrs. Bentley. "He was never rude and was a genuinely decent person."
"Paul was frequently in all the chaos and breaking news that descended on The Evening Sun. He was Mr. Calm. He was the guy everyone turned to. He was the voice of order and calm," said David Culhane, who later joined CBS News in New York City. "Paul was always the safe and steady hand when we were in the middle of trouble spots."
The son of a real estate broker and a homemaker, Paul Benedict Moore was born in Rockaway Beach, N.Y., and graduated in 1946 from Baldwin High School in Baldwin, N.Y.
Mr. Moore earned a bachelor's degree in economics in 1950 from Mount St. Mary's College in Emmitsburg.
In 1950, he began his newspaper career as a district circulation manager for Newsday Inc. in Garden City, N.Y., before enlisting in the Air Force that year.
From 1950 to 1954, Mr. Moore edited an Air Force weekly newspaper and after leaving the service joined the staff of The Frederick News, where he was a reporter for a year.
Mr. Moore began his career on The Evening Sun in 1955, working as a reporter, rewrite man and finally an assistant city editor.
A versatile writer, Mr. Moore covered such diverse stories as the annual Maryland State Fair in Timonium, the 1956 National Soap Box Derby in Akron, Ohio, that featured a Baltimore challenger who eventually lost the race, and local and national politics.

Joseph B. Kelly, writer and authority on horse racing, dies at 94

Joseph B. Kelly, the longtime racing editor of the old Washington Star who was a thoroughbred historian and was known as the dean of Maryland turf writers, died Nov. 26 of cancer at a hospice in Timonium, Md. He was 94. The death was confirmed by his son, Baltimore Sun reporter Jacques Kelly. Mr. Kelly began his career in 1943 in the sports department of the Sun, where he covered general sports for three years before joining the racing beat. On Oct. 30, 1947, Mr. Kelly and his newsroom colleague, Jim McManus, later known as ABC sportscaster Jim McKay, made broadcasting history when they appeared on the first program televised by a Baltimore TV station. The reporters covered the fifth and sixth races from Pimlico Race Course for WMAR (Channel 2). “I wasn’t fazed at all or the least bit nervous because TV then didn’t have the impact that it does today,” said Mr. Kelly, who described the broadcast 50 years later in a 1997 interview with the Sun. He returned to the airwaves in 1948, when he was present at the first televised Preakness. Citation won the Preakness that year and remained Mr. Kelly’s all-time favorite horse. Mr. Kelly left the Sun in 1951 to work for a horse racing association. In 1955, he joined the Washington Star, where he wrote a column and was racing editor. When the paper folded in 1981, Mr. Kelly was media director at Laurel Park until 1984.

Tom Hoy, October 20, 2012

Tom joined the old Washington Star in 1953 at age 17. It was a 14-year career that saw him cover a lot of the nation's triumph and tragedy. He made a beautiful, poignant image of a shrouded Jacqueline Kennedy hugging her children at their father's gravesite – choosing to go tight rather than do what everyone else did – go wide to include the eternal flame marking the President's resting place.

 The now-famous shot
Photo: Tom Hoy

Wilmott "Bin" Lewis; Star Production and Business Manager - September 10, 2012

Willmott Harsant Lewis, Jr., aka Bin passed away peacefully Sept.10, 2012 at the Genesis Health Center in Lebanon, NH surrounded by loved ones.
Bin grew up in Washington, DC, graduated from St. Paul’s School in 1945 and attended Yale University. Bin then went to work for the Washington Evening Star for 25 years in many capacities including Production Manager and Business Manager. He was also a director and vice president of the Washington Star Communications. In 1980 he moved to the Upper Conn. River Valley to be publisher of the Valley News. He ran the Valley News until 1993 taking it from an evening paper to a morning paper and adding a Sunday edition. He is credited with taking both newspapers to the forefront of technology in the industry. He was one of the founders of the “PAGE”, Publishers Associated to Gain Economies that he co-founded to help the small newspapers.
Bin always felt it important to give back to the communities that he was involved in. In Washington he served on many boards including Suburban Hospital, National Capital Gun Club, and the American Newspaper Publishers Association. . He had a great presence in the Upper Valley including Rotary International, United Way President, Steering committee that started ILEAD (Institute for Lifelong Education at Dartmouth), President Eastman Community Board, The Montshire Museum, and Lebanon College.

Raymond Franklin Fristoe, 100, of Luray, Saturday, Sept. 8, 2012.

Raymond Franklin Fristoe, 100, of Luray, died on Saturday, September 8, 2012, at his home.
He was born on May 8, 1912, in Front Royal and was a son of the late Clarence Edwin Fristoe and Ester Maggie Triplett Fristoe.
Mr. Fristoe graduated from Massanutten Military Academy and served as a Merchant Marine during World War II. He retired in 1977 from the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C., and worked as a proofreader for the Washington Star Newspaper . He was a member of the Main Street Baptist Church, Lafayette Lodge 137 A.F.&A.M. and the Luray American Legion, all of Luray, and was a former member of the Bentonville Baptist Church.
On March 21, 1981, he married Jean Housden Fristoe, who survives.
Published in Northern Virginia Daily on September 12, 2012

John F. Stacks, Writer and Editor, Dies at 70

John F. Stacks, a former reporter and senior editor at Time magazine and the author of a well-regarded biography of James B. Reston, the influential editor and columnist for The New York Times, died on Tuesday in Manhattan. He was 70. The cause was prostate cancer, his son Benjamin said. In “Scotty: James B. Reston and the Rise and Fall of American Journalism,” an admiring but not uncritical biography published in 2003 to mostly positive reviews, Mr. Stacks traced the career of one of America’s most powerful Washington journalists while chronicling the passing of an era in which the press and politicians shared a more intimate relationship than they do today. To Mr. Stacks, Mr. Reston’s career — stretching from the 1930s into the early ’90s — was emblematic of how journalism changed over his own lifetime. “What I tried to do in this book was to show how fabulous his reporting was when he was in his heyday and how much the country benefited from that kind of information, that kind of subtlety,” Mr. Stacks said in a 2003 interview with the PBS program “NewsHour.” “And I think we’re missing that today.” Mr. Stacks wrote three other books, one as a ghostwriter for John J. Sirica, the federal judge who presided over the trial of the Watergate burglars. The book, “To Set the Record Straight,” a memoir published in 1979, was a best seller. Mr. Stacks was just a few years out of Yale when he joined Time in 1967. He was part of an ambitious generation of Ivy League-educated journalists who had entered the field expecting to wield influence with powerful figures and instead played a role in toppling them. Mr. Stacks was rising through Time’s ranks in 1973 when he was sent to Washington to help manage the magazine’s coverage of the widening Watergate scandal. He was later appointed Time’s chief of correspondents and held the posts of executive editor and deputy managing editor at the magazine. He interviewed a number of world leaders, including Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela and Fidel Castro. John Fultz Stacks was born on Feb. 3, 1942, in Lancaster, Pa., to Helena and Harry Stacks, the editor of The Lancaster Intelligencer Journal. He received a bachelor’s degree in political science from Yale in 1964 and went to work for The Washington Star, a daily newspaper that closed in 1981. Mr. Stacks married Dora Jo Aungst in 1964. They had two sons. The older, John Jr., was killed in a car accident in 1988. The marriage ended in divorce in 1985, the same year Mr. Stacks married Carol Cox, a psychotherapist, who survives him. Attribution: By LESLIE KAUFMAN, NYTimes

Henry E. Nichols, Friday, July 20, 2012; Lawyer, Real Estate Columnist

Henry E. Nichols, a retired lawyer who had a private practice in Washington and specialized in real estate law, died July 20 at the Carriage Hill Bethesda assisted living facility. He was 88. He had complications from a fall, according to his wife, Mary Ann Nichols. Mr. Nichols moved to the Washington area in the late 1940s. He had a private real estate practice in Washington until the mid-1980s. He wrote a column on real estate that appeared in the old Washington Star newspaper. From the early 1970s until 1990, Mr. Nichols served as chairman of the board for the Hamilton Federal Savings and Loan Association. He was also an original member of the board of the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. Henry Eliot Nichols was born in New York City and was a graduate of Yale University and the University of Virginia law school. He served in the Army Air Forces during World War II. In his spare time, he judged weightlifting and physique competitions. His memberships included the Cosmos Club.

Lorraine Fricka, 30 years at the Star, May 5, 2012

Lorraine Ann Rich Fricka, formerly of Washington, DC, passed away peacefully at Taylor Melfa House, Denton, MD, where she resided for the past three years. Born in Bath, Maine, she was the only child of the late Fred P. and Laura A. Dalton Rich, and step-daughter to the late Edward J. Bernier. Much of Lorraine’s early years were spent in Prince Edward Island, Canada, where she was raised by her maternal grandmother. She returned to the States to reside with her mother and step-father in Rockland, Maine, where she graduated from Rockland High School. Memories from high school, she always said, were her best and most favorite. The family moved to Brunswick, Maine, where Lorraine worked as a bookkeeper at Montgomery Ward’s. She also worked at the Bath Iron Works and attended nursing school at Deering Nursing School in Farmington, Maine. Lorraine proudly and honorably served her country in the United Sates Navy as a Pharmacist’s Mate, Second Class, and was based in Bainbridge, MD and Camp Lejeune, NC. Lorraine moved to Washington, DC in the late 40’s and graduated from the Washington School for Secretaries. She also attended a modeling school. Lorraine began her career at the Evening Star, later renamed the Washington Star, in the advertising department in the early 50’s.

Leon “Lee” Cohn, news reporter and editor, dies at 82

Leon “Lee” Cohn passed away on March 19, 2012, at the Washington Home’s hospice from complications due to Lymphoma. His family, including his three children, was by his side. Lee’s passion for journalism became evident as early as grade school, when he and his friend produced a school newspaper, and never ebbed. He was a distinguished editor of his high school paper and of the Syracuse Daily Orange and upon college graduation became the one-man editorial staff for West Virginia’s weekly, the Clarksburg News. His career took root as a reporter for Congressional Quarterly and for the Washington bureau of the Wall Street Journal and as editor of Reporting on Governments and associate editor of the Kiplinger Washington Letter, his last job, which he held for 12 years before retiring in 1992. By far his favorite job, though, was reporter and news analyst on the national staff of the Washington Star, where he covered the economy from 1957-1979.

William F. Peeler, June 19, 1917 - February 12, 2012

PEELER WILLIAM F. PEELER A mainstay in the newsroom of the old Washington Star, died February 12, 2012 peacefully at home after multiple long illnesses. Mr. Peeler served as sports editor of the Star from 1961 to 1971. He ended up as news editor, editing the front page and the A section for the paper's last five years. He worked almost 30 years for the Star. Mr. Peeler started his newspaper career in 1938 as a sportswriter for the Salisbury, NC, Post. He became Sports Editor the next year. He moved to the Greensboro Daily News as assistant sports editor in 1943 and six months later was named the telegraph editor. In 1945 he joined the Allentown (PA) Morning Call, where he spent four years as telegraph editor and three years as assistant city editor before moving to Washington. As Sports Editor he persuaded the management of the Star and Gen. Pete Quesada, then running the Senators, to sponsor a Knothole Club for youngsters. Some 53,000 membership applications were sent to the Star. The kids could attend games free on some Saturdays. After two seasons the program was dropped because too many parents dropped off youngsters and left, creating the possibility of liabilities.

Robert Striar, D.C. photojournalist, dies at 88

Robert Striar, 88, a Washington photojournalist who chronicled the city’s political, cultural and social history for decades, died Jan. 28 at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda. He had complications from a broken hip. The death was confirmed by his daughter Diane Striar. Mr. Striar learned photography during Navy service in Europe during World War II before settling in the Washington area. In the late 1940s, he started City News Bureau, a photo-news syndicate that at one time had more than 100 newspaper clients. He ran the company until around 2000. His images were featured in newspapers, such as The Washington Post, and magazines, including Life. He worked closely with the late Betty Beale, who wrote a society column for the old Washington Star. He covered presidential inaugurations, funerals of statesmen, the 1963 March on Washington, embassy events and visiting dignitaries. In the 1960s, he and photographer Carlo A. Maggi published a monthly magazine, Washington Illustrated. Robert Striar, a District resident, was born in Bangor, Maine, and raised in New York’s Bronx and Queens boroughs. He made ink drawings and developed an interest in wood-burning art. His work was exhibited at the Ratner Museum in Bethesda, among other local galleries. His wife, Marguerite Minsky, whom he married in 1950, died in 2008. Attribution: washingtonpost.com (Adam Bernstein) Published: February 9

JFK In The Crossfire Credit: Robert Striar

Phil A. Gentilcore; Mailroom Foreman January 23, 2012

Philip Anthony Gentilcore, born: April 1923, passed away on Monday, January 23, 2012. He had suffered from cancer for many years and was being treated; but finally succumbed due to pneumonia. Phil served in the Navy during WWII, after which he became employed in the Star mailroom. He eventually rose to Foreman and remained in that position until the Star closed in 1981. For the last few years of his career he moved to the Washington Post mailroom. During retirement he thoroughly enjoyed family activities.

Walter McMain Oates, news photographer, dies at 84

Walter McMain Oates, a Washington news photographer who covered nine presidential administrations, died Dec. 30, 2011. He was 84. Mr. Oates started his newspaper career as a copy boy with the Washington Star, and worked for The Washington Times until he retired in the early 1990s. As a member of the White House News Photographers Association, Mr. Oates had the privilege of working many black tie events at the White House and gaining access to to presidents. Mr. Oates, also known as Mac, joined the Navy as a young man, serving his country for two years at the end of World War II. Though he loved his career and often spoke of the memories, Mr. Oates was most proud of his two children.