Obituaries

-- Patricia Sullivan

Clarence J. Sargent

CIA Geophysicist

Clarence J. Sargent, 91, a geophysicist with the CIA's Office of Scientific Intelligence from 1951 to 1973, died of cardiac arrest May 19 at Inova Fairfax Hospital.

Geophysics is a branch of earth science. During Mr. Sargent's CIA career, he assessed foreign technology advancements in military radio navigation and detection as well as satellite communication systems.

On one assignment, he set up communication monitoring stations in Iran.

Clarence John Sargent, a Fairfax County resident, was a native of Negaunee, Mich., and a 1939 mathematics graduate of Northern Michigan University. He later did graduate work in physics and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other schools.

He served in the Army Air Forces during World War II as a navigator for long-range bombers in the Pacific. During the war, he also helped start a navigation school at what is now Rosecrans Memorial Airport near Saint Joseph, Mo.

He settled in the Washington area after the war and became a Bureau of Standards geophysicist.

He was a member of Fairfax United Methodist Church, the Order of the Elks and the American Legion.

His avocations included golfing.

Survivors include his wife of 63 years, Nell Kisloski Sargent of Fairfax County; two daughters, Joan Griffey of Fairfax County and Barbara Rohweder of Leonardo, N.J.; a sister; six grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.

-- Adam Bernstein

Dorothy S. Byrne

Church Treasurer, Volunteer

Dorothy S. Byrne, 71, a member and former treasurer of St. Stephen's United Methodist Church in Burke, died May 15 at her home in Annandale. She had brain cancer.

Mrs. Byrne, whose husband served in the Navy, was a former president of a club for the wives of officers in the Judge Advocate General's Corps. She was also a former president of the Stone Haven Civic Association in Annandale. Fairfax County Supervisor Sharon S. Bulova (D-Braddock) nominated Mrs. Byrne as volunteer of the year in 1990 for her work on a comprehensive land-use plan for the Annandale District.

Dorothy Schopp was born in the Bronx, N.Y., and spent her high school years in Waterloo, N.Y.

She was a 1958 cum laude graduate of Syracuse University, where she concentrated on journalism advertising. Soon after she graduated, she and her husband became owners and operators of the Gowanda (N.Y.) News and Observer newspaper.

She later accompanied her husband on his military assignments and at one point was columnist for the NATO base newspaper in Keflavik, Iceland. They settled in the Washington area in 1976.

Survivors include her husband of 50 years, retired Navy Capt. Edward M. Byrne of Annandale; two children, Kathryn Byrne-Laube of Richmond and Edward M. Byrne Jr. of Golden, Colo.; a brother; and a sister.

-- Adam Bernstein