Obituaries, 2007
Henrietta Yurchenco, 91
Folklorist and ethnomusicologist Henrietta Yurchenco, an early popularizer of folk music who made recordings in Morocco, Guatemala, Appalachia and elsewhere and aired music on New York's WNYC as early as 1939, died Dec. 10, 2007, in New York, the New York Times reported.
Since 2005 she had invited friends to her apartment to sing songs opposing the Iraq war, the Times said.
John Alexander, 26
John Alexander, a former editorial assistant for NPR's Morning Edition who had moved on to Ted Koppel's Discovery Channel program died Dec. 12, 2007, in Chongqing, China, while working on four hours of documentaries there, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported.
The cause of Alexander's collapse and death at age 26 was not immediately known, the Enquirer said.
The Cincinnati native worked at Michigan Radio before becoming assistant to Nightline's executive producer, Tom Bettag, at ABC. Alexander, Bettag and other Nightline journalists moved with Koppel to the Discovery Channel in 2006.
Constance Stone, 79
A pioneer woman among entertainment publicists, Constance L. Stone, died Dec. 19, 2007, of complications of Parkinson's disease, according to her daughter, Stefanie Masters. She was 79.
She founded Stone Associates in 1972 and it became one of the entertainment industry's largest public relations firms with offices in New York, Los Angeles and London.
She represented sponsors as well as producers and broadcasters; operated a subsidiary, TelEd Inc., that developed teaching materials to accompany TV programs; and represented cultural attractions such as the landmark Treasures of Tutankhamun touring exhibit and many leading cultural institutions in Los Angeles.
Her spouse for 50 years, hernia surgeon Dr. Alexander G. Shulman, died in 1996. She is survived by her her son, Larry Shulman; daughter-in-law and producer Janis Hirsch; daughter and son-in-law, Stephanie and Tim Masters; and two sets of grandchildren.
Sean Doherty, 47
Sean Doherty, sports reporter and sports director for Pittsburgh’s WDUQ-FM for 20 years, died Dec. 8, 2007, after a long illness from complications of kidney failure, the Post-Gazette reported. He was 47.
His reports and conversations with jazz host Bob Studebaker has been a feature of WDUQ’s mornings for more than a decade. For three seasons in the 1990s he was the color announcer for Duquesne University’s basketball team on the station.
Doherty’s motorized wheelchair made him easily recognizable at Pittsburgh sporting events. A spinal injury during a high school football game left him quadriplegic.
He is survived by a brother, Michael, and four sisters, Barbara Lillard, Christine Fisher, Denise Simonik and Margaret Lynch, the newspaper said.
A mass in Doherty’s memory was to be celebrated Dec. 8 in Mt. Lebanon, Pa.
Joan Friedenberg, 53
The founding editor of the Online NewsHour, Joan Friedenberg, has died at age 53, the NewsHour said in a statement last week. She died Nov. 29, 2007, from several ailments, including Lyme disease, Washington Jewish Week said.
Her “enterprising spirit and collegial nature were critical to shaping the creative atmosphere” of the website, successor Lee Banville said in the release. "She is the one who pointed us in the right direction and gave us the freedom and drive to try and achieve what we have over these past 12 years."
The longtime journalist launched of the NewsHour’s website in 1995 and remained involved in it after leaving its full-time staff in 1998. Friedenberg produced MacNeil/Lehrer Productions' first web-connected interactive DVD in 2001. She conceived and produced the web-DVD and website for Robert MacNeil’s 2005 program Do You Speak American?
In 2003 she began a web consulting firm and completed an award-winning DVD, Changing the Face of Medicine—Profiles in Achievement, for the National Institute of Health/National Library of Medicine.
Before joining the NewsHour she worked for ABC News in London, NPR, McGraw-Hill and Swedish television, SVT-TV2.
She is survived by her husband, reporter Jonathan Salant; her son, Izzy, and her mother Lorraine Friedenberg.
Services were held Dec. 2 in Rockville, Md.
Judy Crichton, 77
Judy Crichton, the founding executive producer of American Experience, died Oct. 14 at age 77. She succumbed to complications of leukemia. MORE
Mike Fenwick, 59
Robert Michael (Mike) Fenwick Jr., midday host on WFYI-FM in Indianapolis, died Sept. 18, 2007, in Lebanon, Ky., after a brief illness. He was 59.
That was the town where Fenwick got his first radio job at age 15. After earning degrees at Georgetown College in Lexington, Ky., and the music conservatory at the University of Cincinnati, he worked in commercial radio in Cincinnati. He worked 20 years in TV news, first at Cincinnati’s Fox and ABC affiliates and then at stations in St. Louis, Greensboro, N.C., and Denver, returning to Cincinnati in 1989.
In 1997, he came back to radio and worked for two pubradio stations in the Lexington, Ky., area—the University of Kentucky’s WUKY and Georgetown College’s WRVG.
He joined WFYI-FM in Indianapolis in 2000, hosting and producing its midday show The Art of the Matter for more than seven years. He frequently narrated WFYI-TV’s Across Indiana documentaries.
Fenwick is survived by his parents, Robert Michael Fenwick Sr. and Joan Margaret Fenwick, of Louisville; his sister, Kimberly Ann Bowling, also of Louisville, and his brother Stephen, of Kansas City.
A public celebration of his life was held Dec. 15 in Indianapolis. The family requested that donations in lieu of flowers be sent to WFYI, 1401 N. Meridian St., Indianapolis, IN 46202.
James Lee Mathes, 73, and Fred Burgess, 64
Two public broadcasters active in southern California during the 1960s and 1970s, James Lee Mathes and Fred Burgess, retired to Kansas together in the 1980s. They died within seven months in 2007. MORE
David M. Davis, 81
David MacFarland Davis, 81, died [May 23, 2007] in Guyana, but he had so thoroughly parted from his pioneering public TV career that most of his old coworkers didn’t hear until August. The gentlemanly, self-contained TV exec helped start many public TV stations and production units as a Ford Foundation grantmaker and later oversaw the major PBS series American Playhouse and P.O.V. Then, 14 years ago, he began a radically different retirement in the Caribbean, where he and his second wife, Joyce, sailed from port to port in their boat, playing jazz and the blues in clubs. MORE
E. Wayne Bundy, 87
E.W. Bundy, longtime advocate for public broadcasting in the mountain states, died in Albuquerque, N.M., March 30 [2007], of complications from colon cancer. He was 87. MORE
Obituaries, earlier
Alistair Cooke, March 30, 2004
Larry Hall, Feb. 21, 2004
Louis Schwartz, May 31, 2004
Ralph Steetle, May 5, 2004
Elizabeth Campbell, Jan. 9, 2004
Rick Madden, Feb. 21, 2002
Jonathan Rice, July 22, 2001
Henry Hampton, Nov. 22, 1998
William Harley, Nov. 7, 1998
Fred Friendly, March 3, 1998
Jerrold Sandler, Feb. 24, 1995
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