Sunday, August 19, 2007
Susanna 'Susie' SporidisAssociate Dean, Volunteer
Susanna Beggs "Susie" Sporidis, 48, the former associate dean of a school for students with learning disabilities, died July 31 of breast cancer at Sibley Memorial Hospital. She lived in Bethesda.
From 1993 to 1996, Mrs. Sporidis was associate dean for students at the Chelsea School, a private school in Silver Spring.
Mrs. Sporidis was born in Alexandria and was one of a set of triplets, with her sisters Grace and Augusta. She was a 1977 graduate of Alexandria's old St. Agnes High School, where she was captain of the cheerleading squad. She graduated in 1981 from Meredith College in Raleigh, N.C., and received awards in college for modern dance.
For several years, she worked in human resources in New York. In 1985, she completed a diploma program in personnel management at New York University. She returned to the Washington area in the late 1980s.
She was a member of St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Washington. She volunteered at Grace Episcopal Day School and in 2001 helped found WWLAX, a support program for the Walt Whitman High School boys' lacrosse team. She helped plan and organize annual alumni games.
Mrs. Sporidis had battled breast cancer for 16 years.
Survivors include her husband of 26 years, John A. Sporidis of Bethesda; two sons, Taso W. Sporidis of St. Mary's City and John E. Sporidis of Blacksburg, Va.; her mother, Mary Elizabeth Beggs McCrea, and stepfather, Joubert Stein McCrea, of Alexandria; and four sisters, Barbour "Barbie" Frank of Alexandria, Lilian Koebke of North Potomac, Grace "Mimi" Larsen of Rosholt, S.D., and Augusta Castle of Goodlettsville, Tenn.
-- Matt Schudel
David O. CloseCIA Far East Specialist
David Olaf Close, 76, a Far East specialist who worked for the Central Intelligence Agency for 31 years and spent a decade as an independent CIA contractor specializing in training, died Aug. 13 at George Washington University Hospital after a stroke. He was a Fairfax County resident.
Before his retirement in 1986, Mr. Close worked in the office of the director of intelligence. He had served in the directorates of operations, intelligence and science and technology during his career.
He received agency awards for honorable service and career achievement.
He was born in Newark and raised in West Orange, N.J. He was a 1952 graduate of George Washington University and spent two years in Army intelligence.
Mr. Close was a member of Fairfax National Golf Club, where he was captain of the retired men's league for 10 years. He was a member of the Northern Virginia Retired Men's Golf Association, and he also volunteered for tournaments it sponsored.
He also was president of the Linden Square housing association in Fairfax.
His marriage to Mary Milton Close ended in divorce.
Survivors include his wife, Mary Hart Close of Fairfax, whom he married in 1998; a daughter from his first marriage, Carol Mattey of Bethesda; a brother; and three granddaughters.
-- Adam Bernstein
Frances Leonie BouquetNurse, Interior Decorator
Frances Leonie Nassetta Bouquet, 55, who worked as a registered nurse on the psychiatric ward at Inova Fairfax Hospital and also spent 30 years helping people redesign their homes, died Aug. 4 of brain cancer at her home in Fairfax County.
Mrs. Bouquet was a stay-at-home mother who home-schooled her son for many years. She worked as a nurse for a year before retiring last year because of ill health.
Interior decorating was an avocation that allowed her to help people, said her husband, Byron Bouquet. "She would go into people's homes and use what they had to change the environment not only for usefulness, but for the aesthetics," he said.
Mrs. Bouquet, a native of Washington, grew up in Annandale and graduated from W.T. Woodson High School in Fairfax. She returned to school after 35 years and received a nursing degree from Northern Virginia Community College in 2005.
She was a member of the Church of the Apostles in Fairfax and had attended Immanuel's Church in Silver Spring and Christ Our Shepherd Church in the District. She took part in Christian women's study groups and activities.
A calligrapher for seven years, Mrs. Bouquet designed greeting and Christmas cards.
Using her own experiences, she became an advocate for home-schooling. Her son recently turned 18 and made Eagle Scout, accomplishments that she felt blessed to have seen, said her husband, of Annandale, from whom she was separated.
Survivors include her son, Joshua Philip Bouquet of Fairfax; her father and mother, Francis C. and Laurette Talbot Nassetta of Gainesville; a brother, Peter Nassetta of Fairfax; and four sisters, Michele Combest of Aurora, Colo., Denise Nassetta of Front Royal, Va., Jennifer Lawler of Burke and Lauren Bell of Nags Head, N.C.
-- Yvonne Shinhoster Lamb
A. Marie BankheadLabor Department Employee
Agnes Marie Smallwood Bankhead, 81, a former Labor Department equal employment opportunity investigator, died Aug. 6 at her home in the Charles County town of Newburg. She had multiple myeloma.
Mrs. Bankhead worked at the Labor Department from 1951 to 1954 and from 1962 until retiring in 1983.
During her career, which began in 1943, she also worked for the Agriculture Department, the Treasury Department and the Veterans Administration. She was a clerk and typist before advancing to other positions.
She was a native of Tompkinsville, in Charles, and a 1942 graduate of the old Bel Alton High School, an all-black school in the era of segregation. She was class valedictorian.
She later attended Howard and George Washington universities, among other schools.
She was raised Catholic and in 1978 became a born-again Christian. Most recently, she attended New Life Church in La Plata.
Her memberships included Aglow International, a Christian women's organization. She was a former chapter president of Toastmistress International.
She was a tutor and coordinator of the Charles County Literacy Council and a volunteer for the Hospice of Charles County.
Her interests included dressmaking and tailoring as well as donating household goods to an extension of the Tutwiler Clinic in Mississippi, which provides health care to the poor.
Her marriage to Charles A. Bankhead ended in divorce.
Survivors include a daughter, Bonnie M. Bankhead of Washington; and two sisters, A. Cornelia Bowman of Washington and Florence Folks of Trenton, N.J.
-- Adam Bernstein
Vladimir Walter SkubyAir Force Lieutenant Colonel
Vladimir Walter Skuby, 83, an Air Force lieutenant colonel whose specialty was intelligence and Soviet affairs, died Aug. 12 at Capital Hospice in Arlington. He had kidney failure. He was a resident of Springfield.
Col. Skuby flew 19 combat missions as an Army Air Forces pilot in Europe during World War II. During the Vietnam War, he was an Air Force combat group adviser on flight operations to the South Vietnamese air force.
He was an air attache at the U.S. embassies in Moscow and Warsaw before his final active-duty assignment, with the Defense Intelligence Agency.
After his military retirement in 1977, he spent about five years as a Soviet affairs specialist at the defense contractor BDM Corp.
Col. Skuby was born in Brooklyn, N.Y.; his father was a Russian Orthodox priest.
He completed high school in Ambridge, Pa. He was a graduate of the University of Maryland and received a master's degree in international relations from George Washington University. He also graduated from the Armed Forces Staff College, Defense Intelligence School and the Air War College.
He was fluent in Russian and Polish.
His military decorations included the Legion of Merit, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Bronze Star, four awards of the Air Medal and the Air Force Commendation Medal.
He was a member of St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Washington, where he was a former parish council president and secretary. He was a lifelong member of the Fellowship of Orthodox Christians in America.
Survivors include his wife of 56 years, Eleanor Jankura Skuby of Springfield; two sons, Mark Skuby of Mount Laurel, N.J., and Coast Guard Capt. Timothy Skuby of Chestnut Hill, Mass.; two sisters; and six grandchildren.
-- Adam Bernstein
Joseph T. DavisIRS Official
Joseph T. Davis, 81, who was assistant commissioner for policy and management at the IRS before retiring in 1992, died Aug. 6 of Alzheimer's disease in a nursing home in Boise, Idaho. He was a former resident of Washington.
Mr. Davis was born in Nashua, N.H., and graduated from Saint Anselm College in Manchester, N.H. He joined the Navy during World War II, and after completing his service he worked as a civilian for the Navy and was chief of civilian operations in Barstow, Calif., and in the Philippines.
In 1970, Mr. Davis joined the executive program of the IRS and was the assistant regional commissioner in San Francisco. He moved to Washington with the IRS in 1973.
He attended graduate school at Georgetown University.
In retirement, he was a consultant to the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue. He moved to Idaho in 2000.
His marriages to Cora Genten and Peggy Davis ended in divorce.
Survivors include seven children from his first marriage, Howard Davis of Oakland, Calif., Patricia Cobb and Peggy Davis, both of Boise, Mary Davis of Tempe, Ariz., Betsy White of San Diego, Rick Davis of Star, Idaho, and John Davis of Seattle; two children from his second marriage, Sarah Davis of Baltimore and Natalie Davis of Silver Spring; and 10 grandchildren.
-- Yvonne Shinhoster Lamb
Thelma W. PetersClerk-Typist
Thelma Walker Peters, 92, a clerk-typist in Walter Reed Army Medical Center's human resources department in the early 1970s who retired from the Labor Department in 1980, died July 22 at Copper Ridge, a nursing facility in Sykesville, Md.
She had Alzheimer's disease and dementia and had also suffered complications from a stroke. She was a Silver Spring resident.
Mrs. Peters was born in Springdale, W.Va., and completed business college in Charleston, W.Va., in 1936. She settled in the Washington area in 1939 and became a telephone operator for the old Bell Telephone Co.
In the 1940s, Mrs. Peters worked for the D.C. police department, where she became an administrative secretary.
She briefly was a secretary at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory before spending years as a homemaker.
Mrs. Peters was a member of Woodside United Methodist Church in Silver Spring and did volunteer work at East Silver Spring Elementary School.
Her avocations included sewing and gardening.
Her husband, Lewis B. Peters, whom she married in 1949, died in 1972.
Survivors include a daughter, Dolores Peters "Lola" Davis of Clarksburg; a sister, Wanda E. Gregory of Kingsville, Md.; and two brothers, Chester W. Walker and W. Earl Walker, both of Springdale.
-- Adam Bernstein
Edward W. KraheCartographer, Cyclist
Edward Winters Krahe, 79, who spent 36 years as a government cartographer and retired from the Defense Mapping Agency in 1983, died Aug. 10 at a daughter's home in Parkton, Md. He had multiple myeloma.
Mr. Krahe spent much of his career with the Naval Oceanographic Office in Suitland before his section was consolidated into the mapping agency in Brookmont.
After retiring, he organized weekly bicycle rides with fellow retirees. He was a founding member of the Oxon Hill Bicycle Club and had pedaled 4,000 miles across the country during a nationally organized bicycle trip to celebrate the U.S. bicentennial in 1976.
Mr. Krahe was born in Kittanning, Pa., and spent part of his childhood with his extended family on the family farm at Alum Rock, Pa., during the Depression.
In 1934, his family moved to Washington, and he graduated from Eastern High School in 1946. As a young man, he was an Eagle Scout.
During the Korean War, he served in the Navy as a shipboard electronics technician in the North Atlantic and the Caribbean.
Mr. Krahe was a self-taught auto mechanic, sailor and blacksmith for his family's horse. He learned to fly a private plane and owned a 1947 British-made BSA motorcycle.
He participated in the Big Brother mentoring program and also was a member of the National Capital Lyme Disease Association. He had developed the disease.
He had homes in Clinton and Shrewsbury, Pa.
Survivors include his wife, Mary Lou Goodall Krahe, whom he married in 1953, of Clinton and Shrewsbury; four children, Chris Krahe of Cheltenham, Daniel Krahe of Golden, Colo., Kathy Shaffer of Parkton and Diane Krahe of Missoula, Mont.; two sisters, Connie Wilcox of Porterville, Calif., and Karen Daniels of Waldorf; and one grandson.
-- Adam Bernstein
Paul CascaranoJustice Department Official
Paul Cascarano, 76, a retired official with the Justice Department's National Institute of Justice, died Aug. 8 of a heart attack at Reston Hospital Center. He lived in Alexandria.
Mr. Cascarano joined the National Institute of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice, the research and development branch of the Department of Justice that was later renamed the National Institute of Justice, in 1968. He was named an assistant director of the agency in 1985 and helped create training and dissemination programs to help criminal justice agencies apply new research to their crime-fighting.
He developed regional training programs and national conferences that brought together professionals from many fields, including police detectives, emergency room doctors, prosecutors and mayoral representatives.
Mr. Cascarano oversaw development of new technology programs, including standards for the testing and certification of police body armor. He also supervised publications and the development of a series of videos about crime control.
He was instrumental in the development and operation of the National Criminal Justice Reference Service database.
After his retirement in 1999, he became a volunteer with the Travelers Aid Society at Reagan National Airport.
Mr. Cascarano was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and served in the Army from 1952 to 1954. He was a graduate of the City College of New York and received a master's degree in business administration from the City University of New York in 1957. Before joining the National Institute of Justice, he was a systems analyst at Systems Development Corp. in Santa Monica, Calif.
Survivors include his wife of 50 years, Ann Cascarano of Alexandria, and two brothers.
-- Matt Schudel