Shirley Elder Lyons, 85, reporter and Tip O’Neill biographer

Shirley Elder Lyons, 85, of Portsmouth, N.H., a former Washington political reporter, died on Sunday, September 18, 2016, of complications of Parkinson's disease.

Born in California, she was raised in Seattle. She graduated from Stanford University in 1954 and went to Washington, D.C., as a reporter, first for The Washington Post, later for the Washington Daily News and the Washington Star. She was co-author of two books: Tip, a Biography of Thomas P. O'Neill Jr., Speaker of the House and Interest Groups, Lobbying and Policymaking.

She moved to Sandwich, New Hampshire, in 1981 with her husband, Richard L. Lyons, but continued working part time as a reporter for the Boston Globe's New Hampshire Weekly.

In Sandwich, Shirley was president of the Friends of the Samuel Wentworth Library, a member of the Bearcamp Valley Garden Club, the New Hampshire Music Festival, Sandwich Historical Society, the Society for the protection of New Hampshire Forests and the Over the Hill hikers. She worked as a writer and co-editor on the book of Sandwich history published in 1995 by the Sandwich Historical Society.

When Shirley Elder Lyons received the New Hampshire Bar Association’s Print Media Award in 1993 for the second consecutive year, she had already spent four decades in a career that took her from California to covering Congress to the Granite State.

As a correspondent for the Globe’s New Hampshire Weekly, she examined campaign funding, interviewed politicians, and profiled top judges and lawyers – only to subsequently report on ethics woes some of them faced.

She also reported on the achievements of women who pushed for gender parity in New Hampshire’s elected offices and legal community. Mrs. Lyons’s profile of the first woman to serve as president of the state bar association was among the pieces that led to the award.

“My philosophy is we have a responsibility to educate people and to tell people in simple terms about complex legal issues,” she told the Globe in a January 1993 interview.

Attribution: Bostonglobe.com, Legacy.com

Richard Stakes, Former President/CEO, 1923-2016

Richard Stewart "Dick" Stakes, age 93, of Hilton Head Island, passed away September 11, 2016 at home surrounded by his family and caregivers. Born June 27, 1923 at the family home in Luttrellville, Virginia to the late Nettie Lee Reynolds and the late Thomas Edward Stakes. Dick served in the U. S. Army during WWII winning the Bronze Star Medal as an artillery forward observer. He graduated from Benjamin Franklin University in Washington DC with a BS degree in Financial Management. Dick was recalled during the Korean War and served in Germany as a lieutenant in the artillery. After returning to Washington, DC, he worked for WTTG(TV), in the accounting department subsequently becoming business manager. He left WTTG in 1956 to join Evening Star Broadcasting, ultimately becoming president and chief executive officer. In 1976 he moved from the broadcasting arm when he was elected president and chief executive officer of the Washington Star newspaper. In 1977, he left the Star to become executive vice-president of WSPA, Spartanburg, SC. Dick retired from Summit Communications, Winston-Salem, NC in 1988 when he and his wife, the late Christine Beuchert of Washington, DC, came to Hilton Head Plantation. Dick was a founder and board member of the Institute of Broadcast Financial Management (now MFMA), and belonged to numerous industry organizations. He was a founding member the South Carolina Yacht Club. Dick loved boating the waters around the Northern Neck of Virginia and Hilton Head, dining out with friends and rocking in his favorite chair on the back porch in his Hilton Head "paradise".

Attribution: Legacy.com