Obituaries

David Neill SummersPublic Relations Specialist

David Neill Summers, 45, a public relations specialist with federal agencies and later in the private sector, died Dec. 10 at Johns Hopkins Hospital from complications of AIDS. He lived in Washington.

Mr. Summers came to Washington in 1988 as a media specialist with a production company. Three years later, he joined the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as a public relations specialist. He later worked at the Education Department as a special assistant in the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services before becoming the office's director of communications and media support services.

In 1999, he became vice president of Widmeyer Communications in Washington. He managed a team that worked with federal agencies and Fortune 500 companies. Mr. Summers joined the communications firm of MDB Inc. as managing director in 2002. He moved briefly to Atlanta in 2005 to start his own company but returned to Washington when his illness worsened.

He was born in Denver and grew up in Round Rock, Tex. In his youth, he played several woodwind instruments and piano. He attended Texas A&M University and worked in banking and office management in Texas before moving to Washington.

His interests included biking, tennis, bowling and cooking.

Survivors include his companion, Karl Maxwell of Washington; his father and stepmother, Donald Summers and Sylvia Summers of Coupland, Tex.; and three brothers.

Jane Knight DommelStudent Adviser

Jane Knight Dommel, 85, a native Washingtonian who advised students taking correspondence courses, died Dec. 15 of kidney failure at her home in Gaithersburg.

She was born at her family's home in Georgetown and was a 1938 graduate of the Western High School (now Duke Ellington School of the Arts).

During World War II, Mrs. Dommel was a telephone operator at the British Embassy. After several years as a homemaker, she joined the McGraw-Hill publishing company in 1964 as an adviser of students taking correspondence courses with the company's materials. She retired in 1984.

She lived in the District until she moved to Gaithersburg in 1985. She was a member of Christ Church, an Episcopal church in Georgetown, and the Western-Ellington Alumni Association.

She was known in her Georgetown neighborhood for her fudge, which she sold in small packets during Lent to raise funds for her church.

Her husband of 44 years, Fred W. Dommel, died in 1985.