Obituaries

She also was a Red Cross volunteer, giving more than six gallons of blood during her lifetime and checking in with "shut-ins" over the phone.

Mrs. Pierce was born in La Grande, Ore., and won a scholarship to Reed College in Portland. She was unable to attend Reed because of the Depression and received a business college certificate in La Grande in 1934.

The next year, she came to the Washington area as an Interstate Commerce Commission stenographer.

She was a troop leader for scouting groups and in later years participated in senior Olympics. Her avocations included playing piano and sewing.

Her marriage to William R. Pierce ended in divorce.

Survivors include three children, Raiford S. Pierce of McLean, Meredith P. Dozier of Herndon and Alycon T. Pierce of Falls Church; three grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.

-- Adam Bernstein

Arnold ShostakPhysicist

Arnold Shostak, 93, a physicist who promoted many of the early developments in radio astronomy, died of respiratory failure Aug. 4 at Inova Alexandria Hospital. He lived in Fairfax County.

Dr. Shostak was director of the electronics research program at the Office of Naval Research, where he invested in research for the development of the maser and laser, submarine detection, microelectronics, the atomic clock and radio astronomy.

Many of the major radio telescopes constructed in the 1960s, including those operated by the University of California and the California Institute of Technology, were built with support from Dr. Shostak's office. These instruments eventually mapped the skies and uncovered such phenomena as quasars and clues to dark matter, a still-mysterious constituent of the cosmos that is of greater mass than the totality of all stars.