Blossom Galbiso, 45, a schoolteacher whose reintroduction of an old plantation game helped spawn a national craze, died Tuesday of a heart condition in Honolulu. She earned the nickname "mother of POGs" when she reintroduced the old plantation game to Hawaii schoolchildren in 1991. The POGs sidewalk game craze and the cardboard disks with printed logos became hot commodities. "POGs" took its name from a dairy's passion-orange-guava drink. The dairy's milkcaps were used in the game.
Mary Custis Lee deButts, 94, granddaughter of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, died Monday in Upperville, Va. She was an artist who studied in New York, Paris and Florence, Italy.
Eugene "Bird" Daughtery, 55, the lead singer of the Intruders, who had hits in the 1960s with "Cowboys to Girls," died Sunday of kidney and liver diseases in Philadelphia. The Intruders' biggest record, "I'll Always Love My Mama," sold 2 million copies.
Andy, Albin, 86, a Russian-born actor, died Tuesday in Los Angeles. He appeared in "North By Northwest," the classic suspense-thriller starring Cary Grant and directed by Alfred Hitchcock. His other film credits included small roles in "1776," "Pocketful of Miracles" and "Please Don't Eat the Daisies."
He appeared in the television series "McHale's Navy," "Man From U.N.C.L.E." and "Bonanza."
Charles Harold Pierce, 85, a retired supervisor of the National Weather Service's Boston office, died Dec. 23. He accurately predicted the path of the devastating hurricane of 1938 that brought 100-mph winds up the Connecticut River Valley, and killed 600 people in New England.
Collie Leroy "Lee" Wilkins Jr., 51, a Ku Klux Klansman who was a key figure in Alabama's bitter civil rights struggle, died Dec. 23 in Birmingham. In March 1965, civil rights worker Viola Liuzzo, a white Detroit housewife, was fatally ambushed by klansmen on U.S. 80 as she ferried black demonstrators between Selma and Montgomery. He was acquitted of murder in the shooting but was later convicted in federal court of civil rights violations and served six years of a 10-year sentence.