William Breckner
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP)—William “Bud” Breckner, a former fighter pilot and prisoner of war in Vietnam who retired from the Air Force as a major general, has died in a car crash. He was 74.
State troopers said Breckner was driving home when he lost control on a curve and slid into some trees early Saturday.
In the late 1970s, he was assigned to the Air Force Academy, where he served as deputy commandant and later as vice commandant of cadets.
The Ohio native began his career as an Air Force fighter pilot in 1955 and went on to fly missions in Vietnam. In July 1972, he was captured after his plane was shot down over Hanoi, and he spent nine months as a prisoner of war.
He had participated in Air Force Academy booster groups, pilot organizations, military groups at the Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce and was on the Colorado Springs Airport advisory board.
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Grits Gresham
NATCHITOCHES, La. (AP)—Grits Gresham, noted outdoorsman, writer and television personality, died Monday after a lengthy illness, his family said. He was 85.
Gresham, who served as field host and producer for “The American Sportsman” television series on ABC, died at his home on the banks of Cane River Lake.
Gresham’s affable personality and love for the outdoors combined with his trademarks, a driftwood hat and white muttonchops, made him a recognizable figure around the world. Entertainers such as Bing Crosby, Burt Reynolds, Jonathan Winters and Andy Griffith joined him on hunting and fishing trips as did Olympic decathlon gold medalist Bruce Jenner.
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Alain Robbe-Grillet
PARIS (AP)—Alain Robbe-Grillet, an avant-garde author who dispensed with conventional storytelling as a pioneer of the postwar “new novel” movement in France, died Monday. He was 85.
Robbe-Grillet died at Caen University Hospital in western France, where he had been admitted over the weekend for cardiac problems, hospital officials said.
He was among the most prominent of France’s “new novelists” that emerged in the 1950s, which included Nobel Prize laureate Claude Simon, Michel Butor and Nathalie Sarraute. The group’s experimental works tossed aside traditional literary conventions like plot and character development, narrative and chronology, chapters and punctuation.
A trained agronomist, Robbe-Grillet in the 1940s suddenly felt drawn to writing, he explained years later. He wanted to tell a story “beyond the norm, in which the hero struggles within unhinged space and time.” He was also a filmmaker.
Robbe-Grillet’s best-known works of fiction included “Les Gommes” (The Erasers) of 1953, a novel about a detective investigating an apparent murder who ends up killing the victim—and seen as the debut of the “new novel.” Two years later, he won France’s Critics Prize with “Le Voyeur” (The Voyeur), about the world seen through the eyes of a sadistic killer.
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Mickey Renaud
WINDSOR, Ontario (AP)—Mickey Renaud, an ice hockey player with the junior league Windsor Spitfires, died Monday after collapsing at his home in Tecumseh, the team said. Renaud was 19.
Renaud, a fifth-round draft pick by the NHL’s Calgary Flames, was taken to a hospital with no vital signs and attempts at resuscitation were unsuccessful, team physician Dr. Roy Diklich said.
Renaud was pronounced dead in the emergency room at Windsor Regional Hospital, the Ontario Hockey League team said on its Web site. An autopsy was scheduled later Tuesday, police said.
Renaud, the captain, was in his third year with the Spitfires and had 21 goals and 41 points in 56 games this season.
The 6-foot-3, 220-pound center showed solid development last season, when he scored 22 goals and amassed 54 points in 68 OHL games.
Mark Renaud, his father, played 142 NHL games with the Hartford Whalers from 1979-1980 through 1982-83, and 10 games with the Buffalo Sabres in 1983-84.
