Obituaries in the news

Shag Crawford

NEW YORK (AP) _ Longtime major league umpire Shag Crawford, patriarch of a family of prominent sports officials, has died. He was 90.

Crawford died Wednesday at an assisted living facility in a Philadelphia suburb, son Jerry Crawford said.

Jerry Crawford became a big league umpire in the mid-1970s, around the time his brother, Joey, became an NBA official.

Born Henry Charles Crawford, Shag called more than 3,000 games as a National League umpire from 1956-75. He worked the World Series three times, the NL championship series twice and handled three All-Star games.

In the 1969 World Series between Baltimore and the New York Mets, he ejected Orioles manager Earl Weaver in Game 4 during an argument about balls and strikes.

Crawford, one of the founders of the umpires' union, ended his active career in 1975 after getting into a dispute with baseball over the rotation of umpires in the World Series.

Crawford, who raised his family in the Philadelphia area, worked the first game at Veterans Stadium in 1971. He stood with son Jerry at home plate when the lineup cards were presented before the final game at the ballpark in 2003.

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Corbin Harney

RENO, Nev. (AP) _ Corbin Harney, a spiritual leader of the Western Shoshone who challenged the federal government _ and once his own tribe _ to oppose nuclear weapons on aboriginal land, has died. He was 87.

Harney, a fixture at anti-nuclear rallies, died Tuesday of complications from cancer near Santa Rosa, Calif., where he had hoped to finish a book, according to his family.

"Corbin was a World War II veteran and was known around the world for his activism against radioactivity and nuclear weapons," said Robert Hager, Reno-based lawyer for the Western Shoshone tribe.

Hager recalled that Harney bucked his own tribe when the federal government in the 1950s unearthed remains of Western Shoshone ancestors while digging at the Nevada Test Site north of Las Vegas.

"He was someone who just had this gentle spirit but a steely resolve that people should do the right thing," Hager said. "He thought people would eventually come around and realize the harm people were doing to Mother Earth."

Harney traveled around the world as a speaker and environmentalist. He received national and international awards and spoke before the United Nations in Geneva.

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Lady Bird Johnson

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) _ Lady Bird Johnson, the former first lady who championed conservation and worked tenaciously for the political career of her husband, Lyndon B. Johnson, has died. She was 94.

Johnson, who suffered a stroke in 2002 that affected her ability to speak, died Wednesday at her Austin home of natural causes, family spokeswoman Elizabeth Christian said. Lyndon Johnson died in 1973, four years after the Johnsons left the White House.

The daughter of a Texas rancher, she spent 34 years in Washington, as the wife of a congressional secretary, U.S. representative, senator, vice president and president.

The couple had two daughters, Lynda Bird and Luci Baines. The couple returned to Texas after the presidency, and Lady Bird Johnson lived for more than 30 years in and near Austin.

As first lady, she was perhaps best known as the determined environmentalist who wanted roadside billboards and junkyards replaced with trees and wildflowers.

She raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to beautify Washington.

The $320 million Highway Beautification Bill, passed in 1965, was known as "The Lady Bird Bill," and she made speeches and lobbied Congress to win its passage.

She was born Claudia Alta Taylor on Dec. 22, 1912, in the small East Texas town of Karnack. Lady Bird Johnson received her nickname in infancy from a caretaker nurse who said she was as "pretty as a lady bird."

At the University of Texas in Austin, she studied journalism and took enough education courses to qualify as a public school teacher. She received a bachelor of arts degree in 1933 and one in journalism in 1934.

In 1982, she co-founded the National Wildflower Research Center, later renamed the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. The center is dedicated to the preservation and use of wildflowers and native plants.

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Edward J. Kuriansky

NEW YORK (AP) _ Edward J. Kuriansky, a former special prosecutor for Medicaid fraud and New York City's commissioner of investigation under Mayor Rudy Giuliani, has died. He was 63.

The city's commissioner of investigation between 1996 and 2002, Kuriansky died Tuesday at a hospital in New York after a long-battle with cancer, said family friend Chris Godek.

As commissioner, Kuriansky helped institute a monitoring system meant to keep organized crime and corruption away from the ground zero recovery and cleanup operations.

He oversaw financial fraud and corruption cases, including a $13 million tax fraud case in the city Finance Department. Another investigation led to the arrests of 16 people accused of schemes resulting in defaults on more than $70 million in loans guaranteed by the U.S. government.

From 1981 to 1995, Kuriansky served as New York State's Deputy Attorney General and Special Prosecutor for Medicaid Fraud. He was also an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District in New York and a law clerk to U.S. District Judge Morris Lasker.

Most recently, he was senior managing director of Citigate Global Intelligence in New York.

Kuriansky was a member of the President's Advisory Board at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and was once awarded the "Prosecutor of the Year" title by the New York State Bar Association.

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Alfonso Lopez Michelsen

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) _ Alfonso Lopez Michelsen, whose presidency in the 1970s was marked by turbulence and who dedicated his final years to advocating for an agreement to free Colombia's hostages, has died. He was 94.

Lopez Michelsen died Wednesday, said an aide, Luz Farieta de Castillo, declining to give the cause of death.

The son of a president, Lopez Michelsen abandoned his career as a lawyer to enter politics, eventually winning the presidency in 1974 as the dominant, centrist Liberal Party candidate.

He led Colombia through turbulent times, when a national strike gripped the country and rioting in Bogota left dozens dead, and left office with little popular support, having failed to improve the economy and hounded by persistent accusations of corruption from his opponents.

Four years later he sought re-election and was beaten by Conservative Belisario Betancur.

Retired from politics, he analyzed Colombia's political landscape in frequent columns for the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo and emerged as an unofficial mediator in Colombian conflicts.

In 1984, he met with the drug lord Pablo Escobar in Panama _ an encounter that may have been authorized by the government _ in an unsuccessful attempt to broker an agreement that would see cocaine kingpins abandon their business.

In recent years, he was a firm advocate for a deal to swap all rebel-held hostages for imprisoned rebels, known as the "humanitarian agreement," earning the gratitude of hostages' relatives.

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Edwin Mirvish

TORONTO (AP) _ Edwin Mirvish, the theater producer and flamboyant Canadian businessman known as "Honest Ed" because of his popular Toronto discount store, has died. He was 92.

Mirvish died Wednesday at St. Michael's Hospital, his family announced.

His Toronto theater career began in 1963, when he purchased and saved from demolition the stately Royal Alexandra Theatre. He also bought and restored the Old Vic, one of England's most famous theaters, and with his son, David Mirvish, built the Princess of Wales Theatre in Toronto in 1993.

Their theater productions introduced Canadian audiences to such musical blockbusters as "The Lion King," "Mamma Mia!" and "Miss Saigon."

But before he became a producer, Mirvish was a savvy _ and shrewd _ business man. He opened his discount emporium in 1948 at Bathurst and Bloor _ the heart of Toronto's immigrant district. His first newspaper ad read: "Our building is a dump! Our service is rotten! . . . But. . .!!! Our prices are the lowest in town!"

By the 1950s, the store, which sported 23,000 light bulbs and took up an entire city block, had become so successful that neighbors were complaining about noise and traffic.

In 1962, Mirvish, who acknowledged he knew nothing about theater, bought the Royal Alexandra and spent nearly $475,000 restoring the 1907 theater to its former glory. Twenty years later, he purchased the Old Vic, the legendary London theater where Olivier, Gielgud, Redgrave and Richardson once performed. He sold the property in 1998.

Born in 1914 in Colonial Beach, Va., Mirvish came to Toronto in 1923. He was 15 when his father died and he dropped out of school to support his family.

Over the years, Mirvish picked up honorary degrees and awards, including the Order of Canada and the Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

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Robert Myers

LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Robert Myers, who was an Associated Press bureau chief in San Francisco, Honolulu and Salt Lake City during a 15-year career with the news agency, has died. He was 76.

Myers died June 22 at a Los Angeles hospital from complications of kidney failure. He had been in and out of the hospital since Christmas, his wife, Lee, said Tuesday.

Myers was with The Associated Press from 1954 to 1969.

In Hawaii, he helped cover U.S. nuclear tests in the Pacific and the 1961 disappearance of Nelson Rockefeller's son Michael, who vanished during a trip to New Guinea and was declared dead in 1964.

Myers, the son of movie producer-director-writer Zion Myers, graduated with an English degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, where he was a sports editor on the Daily Bruin student newspaper.

He was drafted for the Korean War, serving with the military police in Korea and also working as an editor for the newspaper Stars and Stripes, his wife said.

At the time of his death he was living in Los Angeles and was president and owner of Los Angeles-based Myers/Smith Inc., a management firm for professional engineering societies.

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Robert F. Simone

PHILADELPHIA (AP) _ Robert F. Simone, one of the city's top defense attorneys for 40 years, has died. He was 73.

Simone, who defended clients from the glamorous to the infamous, including crime boss Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo, died Tuesday night at Hahnemann University Hospital of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, said his brother, Joseph Simone.

Robert Simone defended Scarfo in numerous federal and city cases, developing a friendship close enough that he appeared on FBI surveillance photos at Scarfo's home and on his yacht, Usual Suspects, in Florida in the early 1980s.

Union leader John McCullough and porn-film star Linda Lovelace were among the colorful clients who sought out his legal assistance over the years.

Simone grew up in Philadelphia, attended Temple University and Temple Law School and began practicing in 1959 in a small Center City office.

He also defended himself against criminal charges that he attributed to a government vendetta and vehemently denied. He was convicted in 1992 in a mob-related racketeering and extortion case, and served nearly three years in prison. He had had his license to practice law restored and was again working as a defense lawyer when he became ill.

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Jimmy Skinner

DETROIT (AP) _ Former Detroit Red Wings coach Jimmy Skinner, who lead a team starring Hall of Famers Gordie Howe and Ted Lindsay to the Stanley Cup in 1955, has died.

Skinner died Wednesday. Neither his family nor his team disclosed a cause of death, but Skinner had been in declining health, said Eddi Chittaro, chairman of the Windsor/Essex Sports Hall of Fame in Windsor, Ontario. The group inducted Skinner in 2006.

The Stanley Cup that Detroit won in Skinner's first year as coach was the team's seventh, and also its last until 1997. The Wings were 123-78-46 under him.

Skinner was born in 1917 in Selkirk, Manitoba, and moved to Windsor in 1945.

After a minor league playing career, he coached the Windsor Spitfires before the Red Wings made him their head coach for the 1954-55 season after Tommy Ivan left to coach the Chicago Blackhawks. Skinner coached the team through 38 games of the 1957-58 season, when the Wings replaced him with Sid Abel.

Skinner then held a variety of management jobs with the club, including scouting and farm team development. He became general manager in 1980 through 1982, when Mike Ilitch bought the team.