Obituaries of note

TREVOR NELSON, 34, a producer for CBS News' 60 Minutes, died Thursday in New York City from complications from meningitis. He produced reports for correspondent Steve Kroft, including a recent story on business interests in Iraq by Vice President Dick Cheney's former firm. In three years, he produced 20 segments, 15 of which led the broadcast. Kroft called Mr. Nelson the most talented young producer he had ever worked with.

ROBERT W. READ, 71, a former curator in the botany department of the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., and founding chairman of the Naples (Fla.) Botanical Garden, died July 15 in Hollywood, Fla. Mr. Read, who worked at the Smithsonian Museum from 1973 to 1989, was active in land preservation projects in Collier County after his retirement. An expert on tropical plants, he also carried out research at the Fairchild Tropical Garden in Coral Gables.

H.E. "EARLY" HOODENPYLE, 109, Tennessee's oldest and last World War I veteran, died Thursday in Chattanooga. He served as a wagon master in the infantry at Camp Gordon, Ga., from 1917 to 1919. Last year, the Department of Veterans Affairs said there were about 5,000 living World War I veterans in the nation.

NICOLAS FREELING, 76, the British crime writer, died Sunday in France. He wrote 36 works of fiction and four nonfiction books, including two cookbooks, said his son, Conrad Freeling. His Dutch hero, Inspector Piet Van der Valk, was on the job in 13 of his crime novels, and his French protagonist, Detective Henri Castang, in 16 more. His last book, The Janeites, was published in 2002.

BOB LATFORD, 67, NASCAR's unofficial historian and inventor of its championship points system, died Wednesday in Concord, N.C.

KURT PAHLEN, 96, an Austrian-born conductor and author who went to the Americas in his quest to make classical music accessible to all, died Thursday in the central Swiss ski resort of Lenk, where he was supervising an annual festival of youth choirs, orchestras and dancing, a family spokeswoman said. After World War II, he taught and conducted in Uruguay and elsewhere in Latin America, and the United States as well as in Europe.

WILLIAM L. RUSSELL, 92, a biologist who pioneered studies into the genetic dangers of radiation, died Wednesday in Oak Ridge, Tenn. His research on the way radiation affected mice at the genetic level paved the way for the development of national and international standards for acceptable levels of human exposure to radiation. In 1976 he received the Enrico Fermi Award, one of the most prestigious science honors bestowed by the government. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

CORINNA HILTON-VAN EE, 81, a Liberian activist who founded that nation's first private school, died July 16 in Boston. The school, which accepted children of all races and backgrounds, included among its graduates Liberia's first female judge and a Catholic bishop. She also started Liberia's first recreation center and the first ballet class in the capital city, Monrovia.

KEN DAYTON, 80, former chief executive of Dayton Hudson and grandson of the company's founder, died July 19 in Minneapolis. He was the last of the five Dayton brothers to be active in managing the retail empire founded by George Draper Dayton in 1902. He retired as CEO of Dayton Hudson Corp. (now Target Corp.) in 1976, and stepped down from the board in 1983.

ELLIOT NORTON, 100, a longtime Boston theater critic who reviewed upward of 6,000 performances and was a member of the Theater Hall of Fame, died Sunday in Fort Lauderdale, family members said in Boston.

CLARA SHAVER, 103, who at age 98 became the oldest person to receive a degree from UCLA, died Tuesday in Riverside, Calif. She recalled growing up on a ranch where she churned butter by candlelight and of seeing Halley's comet not once but twice, in 1910 and again in 1986.

- Area obituaries and the Suncoast Deaths list appear in local sections.

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