J. Russell Coffey, 109, the oldest known surviving U.S. veteran of World War I, died Thursday at the Briar Hill Health Campus in North Baltimore, Ohio, where he had lived for the past four or five years, said Gaye Boggs, nursing director at the nursing home.
More than 4.7 million Americans joined the military in 1917-18. Coffey never saw combat because he was still in basic training when the war ended. The two remaining U.S. veterans are Frank Buckles, 106, of Charles Town, W.Va.; and Harry Richard Landis, 108, of Sun City Center, Fla., according to the Veterans Affairs Department.
After the war, Coffey taught junior high and high school in Phelps, Ky., and Findlay, Ohio. He then taught physical education at Bowling Green State University from 1948 until 1969.
Frank Capra Jr., 73, the son of the legendary Hollywood director who rose through the ranks to become a movie producer and for the past decade was president of EUE Screen Gems Studios in Wilmington, N.C., has died.
Capra died Wednesday of prostate cancer in Philadelphia, said his son, Jonathan, on Thursday.
In a Hollywood career that began as a second assistant director on the TV series “Dennis the Menace” and “The Rifleman,” Capra became an associate producer on the films “Play It Again, Sam,” “Marooned” and three “Planet of the Apes” outings.
Emory Sekaquaptewa, 79, a university professor, anthropologist, judge, artist and the “Noah Webster of the Hopi Nation,” died Dec. 14. He was 79.
Tribal officials confirmed the death. The location and cause of death were not disclosed.
Sekaquaptewa was a pioneering champion of preserving his native language.
Born at Hotevilla, Ariz., on the Hopi Nation’s Third Mesa in 1928, Sekaquaptewa was believed to be the first native American to attend West Point.
He was the first Hopi tribal member to earn a law degree from the University of Arizona, where he became a noted research anthropologist in its Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology and also taught courses including Hopi Language and Culture during a teaching career that spanned nearly 40 years.
He also opened a silversmith shop with his brother.
