Obituaries
Bill Estes, 57
Bill Estes, 57, Milwaukee regional manager for Wisconsin Public Radio, died unexpectedly at home April 13.
For the past 19 of his 35 years with the state public broadcasting networks, Estes oversaw the Milwaukee regional office, served as local morning host on WHAD, and chaired the network’s statewide marketing team.
In 2002, Estes received the University of Wisconsin-Extension Award for Excellence “for connecting Wisconsin’s people with vital information and cultural resources.”
Before moving to Milwaukee in 1989, he served as Wisconsin Public Radio’s manager of public information.
“Bill’s skills in promotion, branding and community relations made him a huge contributor to the success of our statewide public radio networks,” said Phil Corriveau, director of Wisconsin Public Radio. “He was in the business of winning friends for Wisconsin Public Radio, and he did so naturally, with an open and welcome personality to all who knew him. He will be greatly missed.”
Estes loved summer sailing and winter skiing. He is survived by his wife, Cheryl Ward, two step-sons, three brothers and a sister.
David Schenk
David T. Schenk, 50, who was the top technologist for both the public TV station, WTVP, and public radio station, WCBU-FM, in Peoria, Ill., died unexpectedly from heart failure Feb. 29 in a Peoria hospital. He had undiagnosed heart disease, WTVP said.
He had just recovered from successful cancer surgery, and his mother had died little more than a month earlier, according to reports.
Schenk was executive director of communications and engineering support at Peoria's Bradley University, licensee of WCBU-FM, for which he was chief engineer. He was also chief technology officer for pubTV station WTVP, previously based on the university's campus. He oversaw WTVP's transition to digital transmission and made WCBU the city's first station airing multichannel HD Radio.
"David was the consummate engineer and “techie,” but he tempered that with his background as a program producer," said WTVP President Chet Tomczyk. "This gave him a unique insight into the technical side of the equipment and its ultimate use in storytelling and content creation."
He was a group ride leader with the Wheelmen Bike Club and a youth soccer referee.
He was survived by his wife, Donna, and children, Calvin and Anna.
Online tributes are collected by www.mem.com.
Kirk Browning
Kirk Browning, 86, the director who began putting performances on TV almost 60 years ago at NBC and continued with PBS broadcasts as recently as a month ago, died of cardiac arrest Feb. 10 [2008] in New York. MORE
Phil Collyer
Philip W. Collyer, 68, a producer at Boston's WGBH for nearly 50 years and the first director of its Caption Center, died Jan. 27, 2008, of complications of leukemia.
In recent years he was e.p. of the WGBH Auction and its wine-auction spinoff. “He was a great organizer of large production teams and motivated them with his humor and calm command under pressure," said Vice Chair Henry Bector. "It’s hard to imagine ’GBH without him.”
“He had an uncommon ability to treat volunteers with such deep respect that their commitment to WGBH grew with each encounter with him," said Edye Baker, auction manager.
Collyer began volunteering at WGBH in 1959, while he was in college, and afterwards moved from master control into studio work on such programs as Eleanor Roosevelt's Prospects of Mankind.
He led the project that made Julia Child's The French Chef the first TV program captioned for deaf viewers and created the Captioned ABC Evening News, aired without commercials on pubTV five hours after the ABC-TV broadcasts.
In 1973, Collyer demonstrated his flexibility in creating a captioned version of President Nixon's second inaugural speech. WGBH didn't have rights to broadcast the original feed but he acquired a Spanish version and added captioning in English, the Boston Globe reported.
Outside of work, he was a Little League umpire and tennis tournament official.
Collyer was survived by his wife of 44 years, Marie; a son; three daughters; nine grandchildren; a sister and a brother.
Memorial gifts may be made to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.and blood and platelet donations may be made to the American Red Cross.
WGBH's alumni site features a longer profile with remembrances by colleagues.
Larry Jessup
Larry Jessup, a longtime technician at PBS who was the second employee hired by the network, died Jan. 28.
Starting in October 1970 until last month he held a variety of technical positions, most recently maintenance technician in PBS's Satellite Operations Center.
The PBS Board adopted a resolution Jan. 29 expressing to his family its sympathy and appreciation for his dedicated service.
"Larry's dedication to public broadcasting and his belief in its mission made him an extremely valuable member of PBS's technical family," the board said.
A service was held Jan. 28 in Bethesda, Md.
His wife, Ruth, and son, Stanton, died earlier. He is survived by his daughter, Beth, and a grandson, Thomas.
Memorial contributions in lieu of flowers may be made in his name to the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Rescue Squad, 5020 Battery Lane, Bethesda, MD 20814, or to Montgomery County SPCA, P.O. Box 637, Washington Grove, MD 20880.
Zoel Parenteau, 75
Zoel J. Parenteau Jr., a key figure in two midwestern public TV stations, died Jan. 10, 2008, at age 75.
Parenteau launched Kansas City's pubTV station, then known as KCSD and operated by the public schools, in 1961. His title changed to g.m. and the call letters to KCPT when a separate nonprofit took charge later.
In 1972, he moved to KPTS in Wichita, Kan., and managed it for 25 years. He was a member of the executive committees of the boards of the Central Educational Network and the National Association of Public Television Stations, according to the National Public Broadcasting Archive, which has a collection of his papers.
Parenteau's longtime program director, Jim Lewis, was ousted after an extended period of staff protests, and Parenteau retired soon afterward in 1996.
He was the first chair of the state's Kansas Public Broadcasting Council in 1993-94.
Parenteau was a past president of the Wichita Rotary Club and remained involved in its activities until his death.
A Pittsburgh native, he received a bachelor's degree in speech and drama from the University of Connecticut and a master's in TV-radio-film from the University of Iowa.
He served as a producer-director for Atlanta pubTV station WETV (now WPBA) before moving to Kansas City.
Survivors include his daughter Peri Parenteau Saner and her husband Steven.
Memorial donations maybe given to the Wichita Children’s Home, 810 N. Holyoke, Wichita, KS 67208.
Sarah-Maud Sivertsen, 100
Philanthropist Sarah-Maud Sivertsen, age 100, whose family made the first big donation to the St. John’s University radio station that grew into Minnesota Public Radio, died Jan. 12, 2008, in her home in St. Paul. She was the last surviving granddaughter of lumber tycoon Frederick Weyerhaeuser, according to the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
With her husband, Robert, who survives her, she made essential donations that helped the college station put a strong signal in the Twin Cities and develop MPR. "Without them, it would absolutely not have worked,'' MPR President Bill Kling told the Pioneer Press.
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.
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.
Web page posted Feb. 5, 2007
Copyright 2007 by Current Publishing Committee