Obituaries

Ray W. NightingaleAgricultural Economist

Ray Wiley Nightingale, 72, an agricultural economist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, died May 31 of metastatic melanoma at his home in Bethesda.

Dr. Nightingale, who worked in the Economic Research Service of the USDA, retired from the agency in 1997 after 22 years.

He was born in Danforth, Maine, and served in the Army from 1956 until 1958. He graduated from Clark University on the GI Bill in 1960. He received a master's degree from the University of Massachusetts in 1962 and a PhD at Cornell University in 1968, both in agricultural economics. His research took him and his family to New Delhi for a year.

Dr. Nightingale served as an economics professor in Lebanon at the American University of Beirut from 1968 to 1975.

He traveled extensively and enjoyed many summers with his wife and family in Greece.

He has been a Washington area resident since 1975.

Survivors include his wife of 47 years, Maria Stylianou Nightingale of Bethesda; two children, Roger Nightingale of Durham, N.C., and Malina Koerschner of Annapolis; a sister; a brother; and four grandchildren.

-- Yvonne Shinhoster Lamb

Raymond F. 'Bud' KeithHHS Equal Opportunity Employee

Raymond F. "Bud" Keith, 68, a senior official with the Department of Health and Human Services who also was heavily involved in promoting athletic programs for the blind and visually impaired, died June 14 at Capital Hospice in Arlington. He had prostate cancer.

Dr. Keith spent 22 years with the department, where he was an equal-opportunity specialist in the Office for Civil Rights. He retired in 1996.