Hackney family thanks WL community
Brian Hackney died last week after two-year battle with ALS that brought more than 60 community
By Nicole DeCosta

The West Linn Tidings, Aug 28, 2008


STAFF FILE PHOTO / Vern Uyetake / West Linn Tidings

West Linn resident Brian Hackney is shown here in his West Linn home in January. Hackney suffered from ALS and died on Aug. 15 at the age of 51.



Grace.

Love.

Laughter.

Dignity.

Those are the four words Julie Hackney wrote to describe her late husband Brian Hackney after he died from complications from ALS on Aug. 15. He was 51.

The Web site where she posted these comments – www.bhackney.com – was created so friends, family and community members could stay informed of the West Linn resident’s two-year battle with the disease.

And Brian often used voice recognition software and an adapted computer to post journal entries to the site as he lost his mobility.

About 60 people helped the Hackneys – meals, fund-raising, yard work – as Brian’s condition progressed, saying that ALS didn’t spell out a dreadful disease, but rather “Alltogether. Love. And Support.”

Hackney’s sister, Diane Diamantis of Florida, helped with public relations surrounding the many community fund-raisers for Brian.

She said that from Brian’s disease she has learned, “that not enough people really know what it is or what it is like.”

ALS – Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis – is a neurodegenerative disease that causes motor neurons to die, eliminating the ability of the brain to initiate and control muscle movement.

The condition was first brought to international attention in 1939 when baseball great Lou Gehrig retired from the sport after being diagnosed with ALS.

Brian – a father to two teen-age daughters who was born in Georgia and later moved to Oregon – told those around him that he wanted to have “no bad days.”

“Instead of having the attitude that you are dying from ALS, you are living with ALS,” he told the Tidings in a January 2008 interview.

And Diamantis said everyone Brian encountered picked up on his generosity and positive attitude.

“Everyone I came in contact with,” she said, “made a point to tell me what a wonderful person he was, always smiling – a southern gentleman.”

Diamantis said that Brian was patient to the end, even through frustrating communication efforts that made it difficult for others to understand him.

“He kept a twinkle in his eye, and while he still could communicate – a wry sense of humor,” she said.

Those close to Brian described him as a “helper” and very loyal. Earlier this year, Brian’s longtime friend Ken Keating of SW Portland described Brian’s situation as “the caregiver now (needing) care.”

Through their Web site last week, Julie and her daughters, Megan and Paige, said they’d like to thank everyone for their thoughts, prayers and support for the past two years.

They wrote, “It has made a difficult journey easier know we had a community behind us.

“Brian will continue to live in all our lives. He has touched a community that will forever be changed.”



http://www.westlinntidings.com/news/...86454686435100

Bob Labbance, 1952-2008
Reformer.com



Friday, August 29
Robert Edwin Labbance gave me my first golf writing assignment in 1996, and plenty thereafter. So I always gave Bob all the credit, or blame, for my subsequent golf-writing career.
He was my George Bailey -- if it hadn't been for Bob, I probably wouldn't have wound up playing golf in Australia, or Iceland, or Italy, or Ireland, or even as much as I have in New England. He lit the fuse.

Bob was the editor at Vermont Golf magazine at the time I made a remarkable discovery. I had quit playing golf before moving to Vermont in 1991, to the point of selling my clubs at a garage sale. But once here and eventually enticed back out onto a golf course, I found I couldn't get enough of it.

There was only one thing to do with this addiction -- turn it into a vocation. So I sent Bob a query letter out of the blue suggesting that I was about to rededicate my writing life to the subject of golf, and it seemed only logical to begin in my adopted state.

Bob took me up on it, up to a point. The parent company, Divot Publications, was launching a New York golf magazine, and Bob suggested I might have the properly skewed viewpoint to write about a goofy annual tournament in Chesterton, N.Y., called the Dalai Lama Golf Classic.

I did, and the personal history piled up from there. Bob had said, "Maybe we could play in the tournament." We didn't, which seemed like an opportunity lost; behind any golf-writing assignment

there lurks the perpetrator's true wish -- not to lay up riches or even necessarily to produce some great literature, though either or both would be happy byproducts.
The main goal is to enter a new world once again by playing another round, at an unfamiliar course, a sense of discovery quite like the excitement of turning the pages of a new book, a sensation that never grows old.

It was Bob who inspired me to see golf that way, with his love of the history of the game -- the courses, players and the architects in particular, subjects of his many books -- and its literature, to be sure. Whenever I visited Bob's Notown Communications office in Montpelier I was stunned by the extent of his golf library. I could easily have spent days there, and naturally now wish that I had.

Bob succumbed on Sunday morning to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a mere two months after the fund-raising tournament on behalf of his family where I saw him for the last time. I was surprised then that the ALS was progressing as quickly as it was, and shocked to hear of his death.

It pains me that I can't remember the first time we actually met, possibly because we had already developed a lively relationship through editorial correspondence. Bob was the master of the terse email, all in lower case to save time even though he appeared to have more than most; he got by on about four hours of sleep a night, yet always seemed a dynamo of energy.

Whenever we met, it was surely at a golf course, and if there were many rounds together to come, there weren't enough.

A few stand out. Bob and I took a day and a night off from the annual PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando one year to play a round at the King and the Bear course at the World Golf Hall of Fame in St. Augustine, later met up with Bob's old friend, the golf course architect Bill Amick, for a dinner that fascinated me with its rich talk of the game and course design, and then we spent the night at Bob's mother's house. I suppose we traded our respective histories more in that trip than at any other time.

Then there was the not atypical media day debut of the Ragged Mountain Golf Club at the resort in Danbury, N.H. The course had been designed by Bob's friend Jeff Julian, who had two cups of coffee on the PGA Tour in 1996 and 2002 (before he, too, died from ALS, in 2004).

I have a vague recollection we played in a fivesome that day, with some of the usual fellow suspects. The recollection is vague because the usual sense of hilarity set in as early as the second hole. It didn't improve the playability of the course, which was off the charts difficult to begin with, but it did make it fun. (The course is now being redesigned by Brad Booth and Brad Faxon.)

Golf is supposed to be fun, Bob believed. In his annual Stockbridge-Cayman Invitational, which he held for over 20 years, he fashioned a homemade course from adjacent neighbors' fields and sent players out with a limit of three clubs and the Cayman golf ball, made to travel shorter distances than a regular ball.

Aside from the technical rules, Bob's Rule No. 9 summed it all up: "If you are not having fun, you are disqualified."

I played with Bob and his son, Griffin, in last year's last SCI. He was still having fun, though his real playing days were over. Now it's all over. But Bob crammed a lot of life into his 56 years. I'm glad he didn't linger through the mental torments of ALS, but I'll keenly miss his advice, his informed counsel, his encyclopedic knowledge of New England golf, his humor, his friendship.

It would nice to imagine that Bob has entered a new world once again, playing another round at a highly unfamiliar course, and again enjoying that great sense of discovery. But then I imagine his lower case email in response: "blatant sentimentality!"

Scoff away, pal. Then tee it up, and have fun.

* * *

Donations to the Labbance Family Fund can be sent to P.O. Box 53, Bloomfield CT 06002.

New Mexico painter dies at 84
The Associated Press
Article Launched: 08/29/2008 06:13:14 PM MDT


ALBUQUERQUE—Wilson Hurley, one of America's premier landscape painters, was being remembered after his death Friday for his contributions to the art world and his talent for capturing the beauty of the West. He was 84.
Hurley had been diagnosed last year with Lou Gehrig's disease, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, said his wife, Rosalyn Roembke. ALS damages the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, eventually leading to death.

He continued to paint up until January when the disease began to take a toll on him, she said. He died before dawn Friday.

His death means the painting world has "lost one of the finest," Roembke said.

"He was a great mentor to many, many artists throughout the years," she said.

Hurley, born in Tulsa, Okla., has paintings hanging in the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, the Oklahoma State Capitol, the Albuquerque Museum, the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in Texas, the Whitney Museum in Wyoming and galleries in Santa Fe, to name a few places.

Albuquerque Museum director Cathy Wright described Hurley as a kind and generous man and a "fantastic painter."

"He could convey the grandeur of the landscape here. His paintings

were big," she said.
Hurley, a West Point graduate, also was an attorney, engineer, fighter pilot and bank founder. But through it all, since childhood, he was a painter.

Hurley's family came to New Mexico in 1935. At 13, he was introduced to the Taos and Santa Fe art communities, but it would be decades before he would turn to painting full time.

After attending Los Alamos Ranch School, where he focused on math and science, his father, former Secretary of War Patrick Jay Hurley, arranged for him to take the West Point entrance exam. He got in, graduated and arrived in the South Pacific just in time for the World War II victory celebration.

When he returned, he got his law degree from George Washington University, as his father had done.

He co-founded Citizens Bank and served as chairman and general counsel. But ultimately, Hurley gave up law, joined Sandia National Laboratories and tried to work as an engineer.

That didn't seem to fit either, so at age 40, Hurley started painting full time.

"I didn't sell a painting for five years," he told The Associated Press in a 1995 interview. "So I was flying F-100s down here for the New Mexico Air National Guard, and that gave you in those days about $6,000 a year, which was ample to live. And I was just trying to improve myself as a painter."

A breakthrough came in 1966 when he visited a Monet and Turner show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He realized he didn't have to follow anybody's style, that he could look at the world and bring it to the canvas the way he interpreted it.

His art career was interrupted by Vietnam. He was reactivated in 1968 as a forward air controller guiding air strikes. The following year, he came home and married Roembke, who also paints.

Hurley received numerous awards for his landscapes and more than 800 hundred of his paintings have gone into private and corporate collections. At least 10 museums hold collections of his work.

Hurley was inducted in to the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1996 and was declared a cultural treasure in that state in 2002. That same year, he became the Albuquerque Museum Foundation's second notable New Mexican.

http://www.lcsun-news.com:80/ci_10337840

Doc Leo: A Good Doctor, and a Better Person

One of the toughest things about getting ancient, like me, is that you start losing your friends, then finding them on the obituary page. A couple of weeks ago, I lost a friend in "Doc Leo" Pocuis.

I mentioned Doc Leo in a couple of old columns; the last, perhaps, when we compared our significant injuries from brief flirtations with in-line skates. We agreed we would leave in-line skating to others and each made generous contributions to the orthopedic wing of the medical profession.

Doc Leo was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's Disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, three years ago. It's a vicious nerve disorder that causes weakness and uncontrollable twitching, and it is almost always fatal.

He was my doctor for years before that, and when he was diagnosed, he wrote a letter to all of his patients, apologetically letting them know he would have to retire. Thanks to Doc Leo's fine sense of humor, he understood when I replied with a note that said, in part: "Sorry to hear about your condition, but who is going to take care of ME?"

Although I regarded him as a friend, I hardly knew Doc Leo. But as my physician — and as all of his patients — he knew me so much more intimately.

He knew, for example, that I began drinking too heavily when I went through my divorce, two decades ago. He first explained, cautiously, that a couple of glasses of red wine with a meal wouldn't hurt — might actually be beneficial. Beyond that, he said, alcohol was not an acceptable cure for my depression.

Later, Doc Leo whipped out a sample pack of those nifty blue pills when I told him I'd lost all confidence in myself. It was a problem I could barely admit to myself, yet he treated it with such a matter-of-fact manner that I was comfortable talking with him about it.

As all of his patients did, I placed the kind of trust in him that we reserve for those we love: our spouses, our children, our parents. Leo Pocuis kept that trust sacred for each and every one of his patients.

I spoke briefly with Doc Leo's widow, Mary, the other day. She reminded me that her husband loved to get outside. It was because he was a skier, in fact, that I originally became his patient.

I mentioned that Dr. Pocuis sent me a book, shortly after he retired. It was Sam Keen's "Fire in the Belly: On Being a Man." Inside, Doc Leo wrote: "When I think about having a fire in the belly, I think of you."

I thought he was talking about my frequent heartburn. The book was signed by the author, although Mary told me Doc Leo had an inordinate number books signed by their authors, and that all the signatures were strikingly similar.

She told me one other thing about Doc Leo, something her husband taught all of his friends in the past three years, something I would like to practice:

"He taught us to live in the moment, and to live each day," she said.

Memorials can be made in Doc Leo's name to ALS Association, Evergreen Chapter, 19110 66th Ave., Suite G-101, Kent, WA 98032.

Seabury Blair Jr. is the author of Backcountry Ski! Washington; Day Hike! Olympic Peninsula; Day Hike! Columbia Gorge; Day Hike! Mount Rainier, with Ron C. Judd; and a collection of columns, Stummick, Hardbody and Me.

http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2008/s...eo-a-good-and/

Lisa Carol Hollingsworth Wilson


Lisa Carol Hollingsworth Wilson, 48, died peacefully at her home Sunday morning, Aug. 24, ending a valiant struggle with a long illness.

Funeral services were held Wednesday, August 27, 2008 at Stringer & Griffin Funeral Home in Jasper, with Brother Sam Booker and Bob Samford officiating with burial to follow at Holton Cemetery in Beech Grove.

Born Dec. 31, 1959, in Jasper, as the second child of John & Carol Hollingsworth, she grew up in Jasper, attending local schools and working for her father's business, Hollingsworth Insurance Agency, on the downtown square. She later became a certified insurance agent, becoming a valued expert in writing quotes and policies. Her family became well known for providing attentive, caring service to each customer who walked in the door.

Although Lisa and her future husband grew up in the same small town, their paths had never crossed in school. While visiting Beaumont with her best friend, Tracy and husband Anthony, a young man named Jeff Wilson noticed her from across the room and decided at that moment that he was going to marry that lovely young woman. When he asked her for her phone number, he asked if she could write it down on a piece of paper. She replied that if he couldn't memorize her number, then he didn't need to know it.

Although he did memorize Lisa's number, Jeff didn't call her back immediately. Lisa didn't realize at the time that Jeff worked on an offshore oil rig for weeks at a time and had been visiting Beaumont on a brief leave. When he returned home, the first thing he did was give her a call. The two married Nov. 19, 1983 almost 25 years ago, she was my best friend as well as my wife he will tell you.

On Nov. 3, 1991 they were blessed to welcome their pride and joy Macy Michelle into their family. Lisa enjoyed many hours watching her being a cheer leader and playing in the band.

After her parents decided to retire, Lisa and Jeff bought out the Insurance Agency, later moving it to West Gibson and changing the name to Wilson Insurance Agency. It continued to thrive, due in great part to Lisa's welcoming manner and warm smile.

In 2005, Lisa was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Although she was able to remain physically active for several years, she became homebound in the last few months of her life. With her devoted husband and daughter, her parents, and later her nephew Trent Whitehead, by her side, family members and friends tag-teamed to make daily visits to keep her appraised of news and events.

An avid reader who "read everything," as she said and loved to discuss books, Lisa also was an avid gardener and animal lover. At one time, her family's menagerie included horses, cattle, turkeys, geese, chickens, dogs and cats. She extended particular kindness to the family's last remaining hen, a Rhode Island Red named Henny Penny. Henny Penny was known to pass the time settled in Lisa's lap, clucking contentedly for hours before depositing an egg as payment for the day's end. On family outings, she was an enthusiastic outdoorswoman. Every Sunday she donned her Tony Romo jersey, ready to cheer on her favorite pro football team, the Dallas Cowboys.

Survivors include her husband, Jeff Wilson, of Jasper; her daughter, Macy Wilson, of Jasper; her parents, John & Carol Hollingsworth, of Jasper; her brother, John Clark Hollingsworth, of Berkley, CA; her father - and mother in-law, J. M. and Beverly Wilson, of Jasper; brothers - and sisters-in-law Mike & Becky Wilson, Theresa Woosley, and Steve and Judy Wilson, all of Jasper; special friend Tracy Folsom and a host of aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins.

Pallbearers were Jeffrey Wilson, Trent Whitehead, Brady Whitehead, Matt Wilson, Ryan Woosley and Colton Folsom. Honorary pallbearers were Griffin Whitehead, Mark Teague, Jesse Brewster and Mike Kinnear.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Jasper Lakes Area Humane Society; P.O. Box 1104; Jasper, Texas 75951.

Services are under the direction of Stringer & Griffin Funeral Home of Jasper.

StevenTylerFan
Female, 47 years
San Antonio, TX

Sadly, Michele Comley (my brave sister) passed away. She was the bravest person I've ever known. Her caring spirit was evident to the end. Somehow she made sure not to pass away on her daughter's birthday, she hung on until the day after. We will miss her. To the Patient's Like Me family, our family will continue to work for a cure.

Constable loses battle

02 September 2008

A LONG-serving Norfolk police officer has lost his battle with motor neurone disease.

Detective constable George Campbell died on Sunday, August 24, in the presence of his family.

Mr Campbell had been a police officer in Norfolk since 1990 after originally joining the Metropolitan Police Service in 1979.

The father of three spent most of his Norfolk career in the North Walsham area but in recent years had been based at the force's Wymondham headquarters.

Late last year he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of muscular atrophy motor neurone disease, which in less than six months rendered him immobile.

Since then, and with his support, his colleges have worked to raise funds and awareness of the disorder through various events.

These have included a 22 mile race over Mount Snowdon and a charity rugby match at North Walsham, which saw chief constable Ian McPherson line up as part of the police XV which took on a side of veteran players.

Mr Campbell leaves behind his wife Jane and children Mathew, Harriet and Kate.

Deputy chief constable Ian Learmonth said: “The news of George's death has been deeply upsetting and the officers and staff of Norfolk Constabulary send our sincere condolences to his family. We will continue to offer them our support during this difficult time.”

Mrs. Luna Mae McKinney Thomas



Mrs. Luna Mae McKinney Thomas

BURLINGTON - Mrs. Luna Mae McKinney Thomas, 73, of White Oak Manor of Burlington, passed away Friday, September 5, 2008, at the Hospice Home of Burlington, after suffering for more than 10 years with Lou Gehrig's disease.

Born in Caswell County, she was retired from Brown Wooten Mills and was a member of Deep Creek Baptist Church.

Survivors include a daughter, Tammy Albright and husband, Scott, of Burlington; a son, Jay Perkins and wife, Barbara, of Burlington; grandchildren, Jennifer Lee and husband, Bobby, Carly Albright and Bryan Boggs and Chase Albright; great-grandchildren, Savannah, Olivia and Ryder Lee and Braxton Boggs; three stepgranddaughters, Kristie Workman, Tracy Perkins, Ashley Christian; and several great-stepgrandchildren; a special friend, Shirley Jefferson; sisters, Lois Oakley and husband, Thurman, Jean Matherly and husband, Frank, Annie Ruth Perry and Ruby Talley; and brothers, Jesse McKinney and wife, Emma, Willard McKinney and wife, Mary Jean, Donnie McKinney, Roy McKinney and wife, Starr.

She was preceded in death by her first husband and the father of her children, Carl W. Perkins; her second husband, Charles Andrews; her third husband, Eulas V. Thomas Jr.; her parents, Rufus and Pearl Bryant McKinney; and brothers, Robert McKinney and the Rev. James McKinney.

The funeral will be conducted at 2 p.m. Sunday, September 7, 2008, at McClure Funeral Home Chapel in Graham by the Rev. James Moon, the Rev. Steve Pruitt and the Rev. Garland Simmons. Burial will be in Baynes Baptist Church cemetery.

The family will receive friends at the funeral home on Saturday from 6 until 8 p.m., and at other times at the home of Jay and Barbara Perkins, 3052 Union Ridge Road, Burlington, N.C.

Memorials may be made to The ALS Association (Lou Gehrig's disease) Development Department, 27001 Agoura Road, Suite 250, Calabasas Hills, Calif. 91301 or to The Hospice Home of Burlington, 914 Chapel Hill Road, Burlington, N.C. 27215.

Condolences may be sent to www.mcclurefuneralservice.net

Mary Anne Woods-Walker
Published: September 03. 2008 4:00AM PST

Jan. 30, 1944 - August 20, 2008
Mary Anne Woods -Walker of La Pine, passed away August 20, 2008 from complications of ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease). She was 64.

Mary Anne was born January 30, 1944 in Ashland, Oregon, to parents, Marcus and Erma Woods. She grew up with her two sisters, Brenda and Christina. Mary Anne graduated from Ashland High School in 1962. In 1974 she married Carl (Leon) Walker and they lived happily together for 34 years. Mary Anne worked as a secretary for the Ashland School District for more than 30 years. In her spare time she enjoyed baking, gardening, sewing, and canning. her family could always count on enjoying her famous pickled asparagus, which she canned with Leon. Of all of the things that Mary Anne enjoyed, nothing was better than spending time with her family.

Surviving are her husband, Carl (Leon) Walker of La Pine, children, Lori Prettyman-Norris and husband, Richard of Happy Valley, Mary Lee Culp and husband, John of Springfield, Doug Prettyman and wife, Deanna of Brownsville, stepsons, Patrick Maillet of Redding, California, Didier Maillet of Paris, France, 13 grandchildren, one great-grandchild, siblings, Brenda Gibson and husband, Edward of Ashland, and Chris Walch and husband, Willard of Ashland.

A memorial service will be held at 11:00am, Sunday, September 7, at Memory Gardens in Medford. A gathering will follow at the Rogue Regency.

Contributions in Mary Anne's memory can be made to the ALS Association.

Llanrwst bids fond farewell to world’s worst Elvis
Sep 10 2008 by Hywel Trewyn, Daily Post

THE funeral of a man who called himself one of the “world’s worst” Elvis impersonators brought the village of Llanrwst to a standstill yesterday.

Villagers looked on as a procession of fellow entertainers paid tribute to Larry Kewley, a much loved son of the Conwy Valley village.

Bus driver Larry died suddenly last month aged 59, while attending a family christening in Galway, Ireland.

He had recently been diagnosed with motor neurone disease.

Yesterday afternoon the Catholic Church, at Eglwys-y-Bugail Da, Llanddoged Road, was full of family members and friends who had come to pay their last respects to the entertainer.

Larry was given a lively send-off before the service as two splendid black horses pulled his hearse around the market town of Llanrwst.

The Old Orleans-style funeral cortege was accompanied to the church by five members of the Red Rose Brass and Silver Bell Band playing Elvis’s The Old Rugged Cross. Town crier David Price led the mourners.

Tom Jones lookalike John Prescott, 43, from Ty’n y Groes was among the mourners.

He said: “Larry was brilliant. He was always having a laugh.” He said Larry would often visit him with different people.

“He did a lot of fundraising for charities such as St David’s Hospice,” he added.

Arthur Evans, 62, Larry’s former boss at Crosville buses, now Arriva buses, said: “He was a very charitable fella and would do anything for anybody.”

Former colleague Simon Court, 41, said: “He was a top fella.”

Larry and other impersonators raised many thousands of pounds for local charities, along with his late wife Phyllis.

The funeral service was conducted by Father Damian Grimes and the organist was Tristan Lewis.

The hymns were Morning has Broken, O Lord my God, When I in Awesome Wonder and The King of Love my Shepherd Is.

Donations for the Motor Neurone Disease Association were accepted.