Obituaries of note

ELIZABETH MAGID, 86, who flew planes for the U.S. military during World War II and whose poem Celestial Flight became a fixture at funerals for female pilots, died March 23 in Denver, her son said. She was among 1,074 women who became pilots in the short-lived program Women Airforce Service Pilots. She was assigned to ferry planes, some that were damaged.

KEITH CYLAR, 45, an AIDS activist who co-founded one of the largest AIDS self-help efforts in the country, was found dead April 5 at his New York City home. Mr. Cylar, who had AIDS since 1989 and also suffered from a serious heart ailment, cardiomyopathy, died of cardioarrhythmia, according to Housing Works, the organization he founded with three partners in 1990.

EILEEN DARBY LESTER, 87, a photographer who helped immortalize theatrical productions, died March 30 in Long Beach, N.Y. She took pictures of more than 500 Broadway shows and photographed stars like Olivier, Dietrich and Brando. Her photograph of the original production of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, showing Jo Mielziner's entire set, was widely published.

YVONNE "PAT" PATEMAN, 84, who earned her wings as a member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots during World War II and retired as an Air Force lieutenant colonel with service in the Korean and Vietnam wars, died April 4 in Laguna Woods, Calif. After the WASP program was disbanded in 1944, she accepted an Air Force Reserve commission as a first lieutenant and was assigned to a Volunteer Air Reserve Squadron.

JACK SMITH, 58, an Emmy Award winning correspondent during a 26-year career at ABC News, died April 7 in Greenbrae, Calif. He had pancreatic cancer. The son of former ABC anchor Howard K. Smith, he covered the White House and regularly appeared on ABC's nightly news program, Nightline, and This Week with David Brinkley.

TIMI YURO, 63, a pop singer whose throaty and soulful delivery made Hurt and other songs hits in the early 1960s, died March 30 in Las Vegas. The cause was cancer, said a niece, Michelle Duval. She signed with Liberty Records in 1959 and recorded Hurt with Clyde Otis, who had been a producer for Dinah Washington. The song, which had first been an R&B hit for Roy Hamilton in 1953, was later sung by Elvis Presley and Juice Newton.

RUSSELL REINEMAN, 86, who sold the horse War Emblem less than a month before it won the 2002 Kentucky Derby and Preakness, died March 23 in suburban Chicago. Refusing to believe that War Emblem was good enough to run in the derby, he sold the nearly black colt to the late Saudi Prince Ahmed bin Salman's Thoroughbred Corp. for $900,000 in April 2002, keeping a 10 percent stake. Twenty-five days later, War Emblem won the Kentucky Derby, the first of three $1-million races he would win for trainer Bob Baffert.

HARRY W. PARDEE JR., 84, who headed the athletic department as a founding staff member of the Air Force Academy in Colorado, died March 18 in Peabody, Mass.

JOHN A. POPLE, 78, a mathematician who became a chemist and won a Nobel Prize in 1998, died March 15 in Chicago. He was awarded the prize for a computer tool that describes the dance of molecules in chemical reactions. He was among the first to realize the potential of computers in chemistry.

SYDNEY CARTER, 88; a skeptical Christian whose song Lord of the Dance has entered many of the world's hymnals, died March 13 in London, said his publisher, Stainer & Bell. In a survey in the 1990s, Lord of the Dance was rated the fifth most popular song at school religious assemblies in Britain. His One More Step ranked No. 1, and When I Needed a Neighbor was sixth.

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