Obituaries of note

NOBLE "THIN MAN" WATTS, 78, a blues and jazz saxophonist who led the house band at Sugar Ray Robinson's club in Harlem and played on rock 'n' roll tours with Fats Domino and Jerry Lee Lewis, died Tuesday in DeLand. Saxophonists from King Curtis to Bruce Springsteen sideman Clarence Clemons were influenced by his booming tenor sound. He released a series of singles on Baton Records, including the instrumental hits Hard Times (the Slop) in 1957 and Jookin in 1961.

FRANK SANACHE, 86, the last of the "code talkers" from the Meskwaki Indian tribe, died Aug. 21 in Tama, Iowa. He was among the "elite eight," a group of Meskwakis trained to use their language as a secret code during World War II. Twenty-nine original Navajo code talkers were presented with the Congressional Gold Medal by President Bush in 2001. The Meskwakis never received that recognition, although Sen. Tom Harkin presented Mr. Sanache with medals in 2002.

KENNETH MacDONALD, 98, a former editor and publisher who led the Des Moines Register at a time when it won many Pulitzer Prizes, died Thursday, the newspaper reported. Under Mr. MacDonald, 12 staff members won Pulitzer prizes. Mr. MacDonald worked for the Register and its afternoon sister paper, the Des Moines Tribune, for 50 years, retiring in 1977. The Tribune ceased publication in 1982.

DENNIS "D-ROC" MILES, 45, rhythm guitarist for Ice-T's band Body Count and known for wearing a hockey mask on and off stage, died Aug. 17 in Duarte, Calif. The cause was complications from lymphoma, according to a statement on Ice-T's Web site. Body Count debuted in 1991 with the controversial song Cop Killer.

BENNETT ABRAMS, 72, whose fabricated trees with lifelike burls, knots and bark, decorate casinos, hotels, shopping malls and private homes around the world, died Aug. 3 in San Marcos, Calif. He developed a technique using steel frames coated with wet mulch, molded to resemble bark and painted in naturalistic colors. His litmus test, he said, was that his trees could pass for real from as close as 2 feet away.

DAVID T. McLAUGHLIN, 72, a business executive who became president of Dartmouth College in the 1980s, a time of academic and political turbulence on its campus, died Wednesday while vacationing in Alaska. He was chairman of CBS in the late 1990s and chairman of the American Red Cross during relief efforts after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

SIR GODFREY HOUNSFIELD, 84, a British electrical engineer who won a Nobel Prize for his work in creating the computerized axial tomography scanner, the CAT scan, a diagnostic tool used in hospitals worldwide, died Aug. 12 at Kingston upon Thames, England.

GYPSY BOOTS, 89, a fitness icon, author and health guru who paved the way for generations of beatniks, hippies and health-food junkies, died Aug. 8 in Camarillo, Calif. His philosophy of clean living, exercise and healthy eating - laid out in his books Barefeet and Good Things to Eat and The Gypsy in Me - attracted thousands of fans worldwide and netted him 25 appearances on The Steve Allen Show in the early 1960s.

WILLIAM A. MITCHELL, 92, a food scientist who invented Pop Rocks, the exploding candy that became a cultural phenomenon after it hit the market in 1975, died July 26 in Stockton, Calif., his daughter said. He made the discovery by accident. He put some sugar flavoring mixed with carbon dioxide in his mouth while trying to design an instant soft drink. A chemist for General Foods Corp. for 35 years, he held more than 70 patents, including inventions related to Cool Whip, quick-set Jell-O gelatin and the drink mix Tang.

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