Obituaries of note

THE REV. BILLY JAMES HARGIS, 79, a radio and television evangelist and fervent anti-Communist crusader who used balloons to send his message across the Iron Curtain, died Saturday in Tulsa, Okla., the Tulsa World said. In 1950, he founded the interdenominational Christian Crusade, with the message "for Christ and against communism." His broadcast ministry spanned some 40 years on more than 500 radio stations and 250 television stations. He was ordained at age 17 in the Disciples of Christ denomination and became known during the 1950s and 1960s for his worldwide crusade and for his friendships and meetings with heads of state. He had a long-running fight with the IRS when it removed his ministry's tax-exempt status.

SIR JOHN VANE, 77, who shared the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1982 for his work in discovering how aspirin works, died Nov. 19 in Farnborough, England. He showed that aspirin inhibits the production of prostaglandins, ubiquitous hormone-like substances that are involved in body mechanisms ranging from fever to inducing labor.

ANCEL KEYS, 100, who invented the K ration diet used by soldiers in World War II, died Nov. 20 in Minneapolis. Asked in 1941 to help develop an Army ration that soldiers could carry in combat, he purchased supplies such as hard biscuits, dry sausage and chocolate bars, at a Minneapolis market. When the Army mass-produced the packages, he was surprised to see them marked with the letter K, for Keys. The K ration was born.

CELSO FURTADO, 84, Brazil's most influential economist in the 20th century, died Nov. 20 in Rio de Janeiro.

MORRIS GOLD, 85, who helped make his mother's horseradish a household name, died Monday in Oceanside, N.Y. He was the oldest of three brothers who made Gold's Horseradish a national brand in the 1970s. It now sells 17-million jars a year. Their parents were Polish immigrants who began packaging and peddling a few dozen jars from their apartment in Brooklyn.

ANGELA LEIGH, 78, a founding member and former principal dancer of the National Ballet of Canada, died Tuesday in Victoria, British Columbia.

DONALD PUDDY, 67, a veteran NASA flight director who supervised Apollo, Skylab and early space shuttle missions from Mission Control, died Nov. 22 in Houston, NASA officials said. He supervised the Apollo-Soyuz mission in 1975 that brought U.S. and Soviet spacecraft together in orbit and the landing of the first shuttle mission in 1981.

World and national headlines

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times 490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 Contact the Times | Privacy Policy Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright