William P. Harsh, 83, a former president of the American Royal Association horse and livestock show and retired executive of Hallmark Cards Inc., died Sunday in Kansas City, Mo. He headed the horse and livestock show in the 1970s. An exhibition hall at the American Royal complex is named in his honor.
William Moffett, 62, the Huntington Library director who opened scholarly access to the Dead Sea Scrolls photographic archive, died of cancer Monday in San Marino, Calif. In 1993, he received the American Library Association's Immroth Memorial Award for Intellectual Freedom and the Special Libraries Association's Professional Librarian of 1993 award.
Homer C. Pickens, 91, who nursed a singed Smokey Bear after the cub was rescued from a forest fire, died Sunday in Albuquerque, N.M. The former director of the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish kept Smokey at his house in 1950 after the cub was rescued from a fire in south-central New Mexico. The bear became the Forest Service's national fire prevention symbol.
Mohammed Reda, 74, a comedian famous for his roles as a simple and kind Egyptian peasant in hundreds of films and plays, died of a heart attack Tuesday in Cairo. Millions of Egyptians have watched him daily during the Muslim holy month Ramadan in the successful television series "Living Next Door."
Noel Rockmore, 66, a New Orleans artist known for his paintings of jazz musicians, died Sunday in Kenner, La. Living in New Orleans' French Quarter for more than 30 years, he painted hundreds of pictures of Preservation Hall jazz musicians. In 1968, Louisiana State University Press published "Preservation Hall Portraits," a book featuring several dozen of Mr. Rockmore's paintings. In 1952, Mr. Rockmore's work was included in an exhibit of drawings at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, and he was commissioned by Life magazine to produce a series of paintings on American life. His work also was exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Hirschhorn Museum, Whitney Museum and Museum of Modern Art.
William Way Watkins, 83, a member of the research team that helped develop nylon, died of Parkinson's disease yesterday in Newton Square, Pa. In 1936, Watkins joined E. I. du Pont. The company's research team developed nylon six years later. He was also the research manager for the development of Orlon and Dacron fibers. He retired in 1974.
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