In passing
Tony De La Rosa, 72, Tejano music leader
Corpus Christi, Texas Tony De La Rosa, an accordionist who helped to shape the Tejano music industry, died Wednesday from complications following surgery, according to Rick Garcia of Hacienda Records. He was 72.
De La Rosa helped to revolutionize conjunto music by adding drums and electrifying the bajo sexto or 12-string guitar in his post-World War II band, creating a new style called tacuachito.
More than 75 records bearing De La Rosa’s name were issued on regional labels, during his heyday in the 1950s and 1960s, according to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.
De La Rosa played accordion at his shoeshine box as a teen, said his brother, Adan De La Rosa.
Ruth Frandsen, 85, pioneering journalist
Washington Ruth Gmeiner Frandsen, a veteran United Press reporter who in the mid-1940s became the first woman to cover the Supreme Court, died Thursday. She was 85.
One of just a handful of women journalists in Washington before and after World War II, Frandsen also reported on the White House and Congress.
Her coverage included Eleanor Roosevelt, political conventions and the House investigation of accused spy Alger Hiss. Perhaps her biggest story was one of her last – the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education declaring segregated schools unconstitutional.
George Bean, 79, strict CEO of Tampa airport
Tampa , Fla. George Bean, the workaholic executive who built Tampa International Airport and then ran it for 25 years, died Tuesday, his family said. He was 79.
Friends remember him as a chain-smoking, no-nonsense administrator who ran the airport he called “my baby” with an iron fist, issuing edicts banning everything from popcorn sales to curbside parking.
Fearing damage to the airport’s new carpeting, Bean banned chewing gum. For 30 years, no one did.
He also didn’t like rental-car shuttle buses or people standing outside the terminal to smoke. He subjected cabbies to a laundry list of rules banning body odor and collarless shirts and demanding that they “communicate effectively” in English.
Tampa International opened in 1971. Its hub-and-spoke layout was soon copied elsewhere. Bean retired in 1996.
Charles Kelman, 74, eased cataract surgery
Boca Raton, Fla. Dr. Charles Kelman, who developed the outpatient cataract operation that has helped 100 million people nationwide improve their vision, died Tuesday of lung cancer. He was 74.
Kelman received the National Medal of Technology from President George H.W. Bush in 1992 and was inducted last month into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio.
The idea for the outpatient cataract surgery, known as phacoemulsification, came to Kelman in his dentist’s office as he was having his teeth cleaned with an ultrasonic device. He devised a way to use a similar vibrating, ultrasonic tip to break up the cataract that affects vision and suction it out with a small needle. He introduced the procedure in 1967.
The development revolutionized cataract surgery, which previously involved a 10-day hospital stay and a painful operation.
Associated Press