Saturday, July 15, 2006; B06

Joe B. HighChemist

Joe B. High, 85, a former Defense Department chemist who later co-owned a chemical information company in Alexandria, died July 1 at ManorCare Health Services in Normal, Ill. He had myelodysplastic syndrome, a blood disorder.

He was born Joseph Benton High in Brunswick, Ga. He attended Emory University and Georgia Tech before serving in the Army from 1944 to 1954. He was a first lieutenant in Germany, doing intelligence work in the Signal Corps and running a Defense Department laboratory.

After his military service, he graduated from George Washington University and received a master's degree in chemistry. He worked for the Defense Department as a chemist until 1985. From then to 1997, his company did computer work for the Defense Department.

A former resident of Alexandria, Mr. High moved to Illinois in 2002.

There are no immediate family survivors.

Dolores Elizabeth Donaldson, 68, a dancer and a legal and executive secretary, died of septicemia June 27 at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring.

She worked for the Nixon & Vanderhye law firm in Arlington in 2001 and 2002. Previously, she was a secretary at the Washington law firms of Cushman, Darby & Cushman and Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman.

Mrs. Donaldson was born in New York City and attended Hunter College. She studied at a Harlem dance studio and danced in the Cotton Club review troupe, which toured the East Coast.

She moved to Washington in 1979 and began working as a secretary for Marshall B. Coyne, owner of the Madison hotel.

Her marriages to Kenneth E. Burrell and Charles Warner ended in divorce.

Survivors include her husband of 14 years, Gerald K. Donaldson of Silver Spring; a son from her first marriage, Kenneth Earl Burrell Jr. of Sacramento, Calif.; and a brother.

Frances Gladys Goldstein London, 83, who helped run a Washington firm that represented office furniture manufacturers, died June 22 of complications from pneumonia and congestive heart failure at the Delray Medical Center in Delray Beach, Fla.

Mrs. London and her husband operated London Associates, from which she retired in 1980.

Mrs. London was born in Birmingham, Ala., and she married in 1942. The couple lived in Birmingham for 20 years and in Bethesda for nearly 44 years. They had a second home in Boca Raton, Fla.

Mrs. London was a member of the Washington Hebrew Congregation. She was active in the congregation's Sisterhood and led the first United Jewish Appeal mission to Israel in 1968.

She enjoyed golf, tennis, swimming and bridge. She was a member of Lakewood Country Club in Rockville.

Survivors include her husband of 63 years, Herbert P. London of Washington and Florida; four children, Sandra L. Feldman of Potomac, Jeff London of Rockville, Bruce London of Washington Grove and Ellen London Pizzo of Greenwich, Conn.; nine grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.

William Raber Boenning, 81, an electrical engineer and communications security expert who held senior management positions at the National Security Agency before retiring in 1980, died June 27 at the Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care in Towson. He had myelomonocytic leukemia, a chronic blood disorder.

Mr. Boenning worked in code-breaking for Naval intelligence during World War II before joining a predecessor agency to the NSA in 1949.

In the late 1960s, he was assigned to the Air Force's office of space systems as assistant deputy director of research and development. He worked on matters related to improving capabilities of American spy satellites, and received an Air Force award for meritorious civilian service.

In the early 1970s, he was program manager of the Guardrail project, an airborne ground-and-air communication system.

After his NSA retirement, Mr. Boenning formed a consulting company, Boenning Associates, and worked with Volunteers for Medical Engineering, a group that applies engineering solutions to medical problems affecting mobility and human mechanics.

Mr. Boenning, a Columbia resident, was a Baltimore native and electrical engineering graduate of Johns Hopkins University.

During World War II, he was assigned to a code-breaking section called Communications Supplementary Activity-Washington.

After the war, he became one of the early employees of Engineering Research Associates, a pioneering computer company started by CSAW veterans. During his two years there, he worked on early magnetic recording devices used in cryptanalytic work.

He was a contribution author of "High Speed Computing Devices" (1950), a book supervised by ERA officials that summarized computing capability at mid-century.

He was also a member of Tau Beta Pi engineering honor society and the Phoenix Society, a group of retired NSA employees.

Survivors include his wife of 61 years, Audrey Schoenhals Boenning of Columbia; two sons, Dr. Douglas A. Boenning of Kensington and Dr. Keith A. Boenning of Reisterstown, Md.; a brother; and three grandchildren.

Frank Morgan Newcomb, 72, a retired Navy captain who later worked with defense contracting firms, died June 18 of complications of septic shock at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. He lived in Springfield.

Capt. Newcomb was born in Minneapolis and graduated from the University of Minnesota, where he was a member of the swim team. He joined the Navy in 1955, served as a supply officer in several postings and was a Vietnam War veteran. While in the Navy, Capt. Newcomb received a master's degree in management and data processing from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif.

In 1974, he was transferred to the Washington area as a naval aviation logistics officer. He was later head of the Navy logistics analysis branch at the Pentagon and was commanding officer of the Navy Regional Data Automation Center in San Diego.

At the time of his retirement from the Navy in 1982, Capt. Newcomb was chief of the Defense Logistics Standard Systems office with the Defense Logistics Agency, then at Cameron Station in Alexandria. His decorations included the Meritorious Service Medal.

After his military service, Capt. Newcomb spent 21 years as a Navy contractor. He worked for several companies before joining DCS Corp. in Alexandria in 1993. He was a logistics analyst on a naval aviation logistics program with DCS until his retirement in 2004.

He was a member of Sydenstricker United Methodist Church in Springfield and the Annapolis Naval Sailing Association, for whom he taught sailing and navigation.

His interests included swimming and reading.

Survivors include his wife of 45 years, Ruth Newcomb of Springfield; three children, Wayne Newcomb of Plano, Tex., Robin Lermo of Springfield and David Newcomb of Alexandria; and two grandchildren.

Bernice Louise Triska, 91, a former telephone operator and homemaker, died July 9 of complications of a stroke at Milner Community Health Center in Lafayette, Ind. She was a former resident of Fort Washington.

Mrs. Triska, known as Bea, was born in Tippecanoe County, Ind., and grew up in Lafayette. She joined the Bell Telephone Co. in Lafayette in 1942, working as a long-distance operator. She moved to the Washington area in 1948 and became a long-distance operator for United Press International. She was a homemaker from 1958 to 1970, when she moved back to Indiana.

Mrs. Triska was one of the founders of the Tantallon Country Club in Fort Washington, established in 1961.

Her marriages to Ralph Triska and Chris Andersen ended in divorce.

Survivors include two brothers and four sisters.

Robert Louis LeRoy, 81, a systems analyst for the State Department and the Internal Revenue Service, died of an aortic aneurysm July 1 at Montgomery General Hospital. He lived in Silver Spring.

Mr. LeRoy held a wide variety of jobs in his lifetime, retraining for new careers three times. He worked in a shipyard and as an electrician before studying engineering in college. He then became an accountant and entered the computer world in the early 1960s.

He was born in Portland, Ore., and was raised in Oakland, Calif. With his father's permission, he dropped out of high school to work in the Kaiser shipyards in Richmond, Calif., as a driller on Liberty ships at the start of World War II. When he turned 18, he enlisted in the Navy and was trained as an electrician for submarine duty.

Mr. LeRoy served on the USS Saury in the Pacific theater, but he contracted tuberculosis in 1944 and was sent back to the United States until he was discharged. He attended California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, then transferred to the former Armstrong Business College in Berkeley, from which he graduated.

Mr. LeRoy joined the IRS in San Francisco as an auditor and earned his certified public accountant certificate at night school. In 1962, he became fascinated with computers and volunteered for advanced training with the IRS, which sent him to New Hampshire to learn information technology and transferred him to Washington.

He worked for the IRS until 1965, when the State Department hired him. He retired from State in 1980 and worked in the private sector as a systems analyst for the International Monetary Fund, Unisys and several smaller organizations. By 1990, he was ready to retire a second time, and he and his wife took off on a 10-week driving tour of the United States.

They moved in 1987 to Leisure World in Silver Spring, where Mr. LeRoy was active in the Interfaith Chapel and the stroke support group. He was chairman of the budget and finance committee in their condominium association, was instrumental in computerizing the Leisure World library and was on the board of Lesiure World computer center. He was a past treasurer of Marvin Memorial Methodist Church at Four Corners in Silver Spring.

He enjoyed traveling to Europe and Asia and loved to golf, play bridge and read mysteries and action stories.

Survivors include his wife of 58 years, Mary Marjorie LeRoy of Silver Spring; three sons, Douglas LeRoy of Arlington, David LeRoy of Sacramento and Stephen LeRoy of Canton, Ga.; and five grandchildren.

Kathryn R. Wright, 83, whose skills as a calligrapher and whose volunteer work at the White House led her to address the First Lady's Christmas cards during the Reagan administration, died of congestive heart failure July 3 at her daughter's home in Stafford. She lived in Annandale.

Mrs. Wright was a homemaker for most of her life, but after Ronald Reagan was elected president, she volunteered at the White House greetings office. In addition to hand-addressing Nancy Reagan's holiday cards, she also occasionally wrote out addresses for members of Congress. Mrs. Wright remained a volunteer at the White House through 2005.

She was born in Caldwell, Idaho, and just after World War II served in the Women's Army Corps in Europe, helping to activate two WAC units. She became the first female first sergeant in the First Infantry Division. She met her husband, an Army officer, in Germany and accompanied him on his military assignments around the world until they settled in Annandale in 1963.

Mrs. Wright also volunteered for the Retired Officers Association of Northern Virginia, the Annandale Rotary Club and the Salvation Army.

Survivors include her husband of 58 years, Albert J. Wright of Annandale; four children, Carolyn W. Keene of Alexandria, Albert J. Wright Jr. of Seattle, Marilyn P. Hamannwright of Stafford and Robert J. Wright of Waipahu, Hawaii; 10 grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.

David Charles Jordan, 59, a retired Justice Department antitrust lawyer who won a major price-fixing case against the soft-drink bottling industry, died July 6 at his home in Washington. He had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

Mr. Jordan joined Justice in 1979 and participated in the department's long-running antitrust suit against AT&T that in 1984 led to the break up of AT&T's Bell Telephone companies because of its virtual monopoly.

He was the lead lawyer in the government's successful 1988 price-fixing conspiracy case against two local soft-drink bottling executives, Morton M. Lapides and James J. Harford.

Lapides was the chief executive of Allenco, the company that formerly owned the Allegheny Bottling Co., a Pepsi bottling franchise. Harford was the former president of the Mid-Atlantic Coca-Cola Bottling Co., a chief Allegheny competitor.

The case took on a degree of notoriety when U.S. District Judge Robert G. Doumar took the unprecedented step of sentencing the Allegheny Bottling Co. to jail for three years. This was overturned on appeal, although the sentences against the executives -- brief prison terms and years of community service -- stood.

Mr. Jordan later became assistant chief of the Justice Department's health-care task force. He retired last year on disability.

He was born in Irvington, N.J., and raised in Summit, N.J. He was a 1968 economics graduate of George Washington University and a 1975 graduate of its law school. From 1968 to 1971, he was in the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone.

Early in his career, he worked in the General Accounting Office's military claims section and for the law office of Billings, Share and Jones.

He was a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington, where he sang in the choir and acted in musicals.

An Eagle Scout as a youth, he led a troop of physically handicapped scouts while in college.

Survivors include his wife of 36 years, Zeta Rosenberg of Washington, and four sisters.

David Charles Jordan, 59, a retired Justice Department antitrust lawyer who won a major price-fixing case against the soft-drink bottling industry, died July 6 at his home in Washington. He had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

Mr. Jordan joined Justice in 1979 and participated in the department's long-running antitrust suit against AT&T that in 1984 led to the break up of AT&T's Bell Telephone companies because of its virtual monopoly.

He was the lead lawyer in the government's successful 1988 price-fixing conspiracy case against two local soft-drink bottling executives, Morton M. Lapides and James J. Harford.

Lapides was the chief executive of Allenco, the company that formerly owned the Allegheny Bottling Co., a Pepsi bottling franchise. Harford was the former president of the Mid-Atlantic Coca-Cola Bottling Co., a chief Allegheny competitor.

The case took on a degree of notoriety when U.S. District Judge Robert G. Doumar took the unprecedented step of sentencing the Allegheny Bottling Co. to jail for three years. This was overturned on appeal, although the sentences against the executives -- brief prison terms and years of community service -- stood.

Mr. Jordan later became assistant chief of the Justice Department's health-care task force. He retired last year on disability.

He was born in Irvington, N.J., and raised in Summit, N.J. He was a 1968 economics graduate of George Washington University and a 1975 graduate of its law school. From 1968 to 1971, he was in the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone.

Early in his career, he worked in the General Accounting Office's military claims section and for the law office of Billings, Share and Jones.

He was a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington, where he sang in the choir and acted in musicals.

An Eagle Scout as a youth, he led a troop of physically handicapped scouts while in college.

Survivors include his wife of 36 years, Zeta Rosenberg of Washington, and four sisters.