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Ramona Shepherd Adams MSW’64 PhD’69, a Utah leader in the changing roles of women during the 1960s, died June 21. She was 92.
Adams was born December 17, 1921, in Paris, Idaho. She and her husband, Wendell Ellison Adams, were married for more than 73 years. She was the mother of eight children.
When her youngest child started kindergarten, she realized she had about 40 years ahead of her and began her professional career. In 1962, she enrolled in a master’s degree program in social work at the University of Utah, where she received her degree in 1964 and a doctorate in education in 1969. She also received the U Alumni Association’s Philip and Miriam Perlman Award for Excellence in Student Counseling.
When Adams returned to school during the 1960s, she noticed that many women were planning only for the first half of their lives, and that a number of young women were leaving the U after only attending for a couple of years. Later, if they found themselves in a position of having to work, they usually qualified for the lowest paying jobs. Adams, who was an author, a professor, and a leader in her church and community, had endless conversations encouraging women to stay in school, get their degree, and go to work.
She was preceded in death by sons Graig and John. She is survived by her husband, children Stan (Arlene), Ann (Dee) Bradshaw, Doug (Jody), Richard (Susan), Wendy Mendenhall, and Kathy (Jeff) Sidwell; 43 grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and her sister, Au-Deane Cowley (Carter).
Frank “Set” Branham BS’54 died May 17 in St. George, Utah, after a short battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 88. As a football player for the University of Utah in the early 1950s, Branham finished his career as the school’s third leading all-time scorer at the time.
Branham was born September 25, 1928, in Prestonsburg, Kentucky, to Lewis and Fanny Branham. He was raised by his mother; his father, Lewis Branham, died in 1934 of tuberculosis.
When he was a teenager, Branham and his mother left Prestonsburg to work in the bomber plant in Detroit before returning to his hometown, where he graduated from high school as All-American in football, basketball, and baseball. Branham was recruited to the University of Miami and later to the University of Utah on a football scholarship. He played halfback and led the division in scoring in 1954, played on the U’s basketball team for two years, and received a bachelor’s degree in physical education from the U.
Branham played professional football for two years for the Saskatchewan Roughriders in the Canadian Football League before knee injuries ended his athletic career. After football, he worked in the insurance business for many years and retired in St. George.
Branham is survived by his wife, Judy, children Georjane (Sue Hudson) and F.D. Blade (Ralph Laramie), grandsons Derek (Shea) and Dylan Anderson, and niece Judy Branham.
Gale Dick, retired University of Utah physics professor and co-founder of the Utah environmental group Save Our Canyons, died July 18, of natural causes. He was 88.
Dick was born June 12, 1926, in Portland, Oregon, and attended Reed College, Oxford University (as a Rhodes Scholar), and Cornell University. He served in the U.S. Navy at the end of World War II. He joined the U’s physics department in 1959 and researched matter theory. During his decades as a professor at the University, he also served as department chair and dean of the Graduate School.
Dick’s love of the Wasatch Mountains prompted him to co-found Save Our Canyons in 1972 and work to protect wilderness. After his retirement, he served as president of the organization until earlier this year. After traveling the world, Dick told a friend, “The most amazing place I’ve ever been, the most stunning place in the world, is the Lone Peak Cirque, without a doubt. It is truly a magnificent and wonderful place.”
Among his many honors were the Pfeifferhorn Conservation Leadership Award, the Norma Matheson Award for Outstanding Volunteer Service, and the League of Women Voters of Salt Lake Community Service Award. In addition to his environmental advocacy, Dick found time for music and community service. He was a violinist in various chamber music groups and was one of the founders of the Chamber Music Society of Salt Lake City. He also was an avid outdoorsman.
Dick is survived by his wife, Ann, their children Tim (Jane), Robin (Svenn), and Steve (Karen), seven grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. A memorial service will be held in early fall. In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to Save Our Canyons or the charity of your choice.
Cynthia Moore Fehr BFA’51, a Salt Lake City artist, died July 8 of natural causes. She was 85. Fehr used a photorealism style, in which a scene is painted as it would look if photographed, and her watercolor paintings depicting Utah’s towns, buildings, and landscapes hang in galleries and libraries across the state.
Fehr was born September 2, 1928, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Daniel Chadwick Moore and Marion Fox Moore Bryan. She was educated in Salt Lake City schools and received a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from the University of Utah. That same year, on September 4, she married John William Fehr, a decade-long editor at
The Salt Lake Tribune. He died in 2010.
Cynthia Fehr was a member of Pi Beta Phi Sorority, Salt Lake Junior League, the National Watercolor Society, Westminster College Women’s Board, PEO Chapter X (an international women’s organization that provides educational opportunities for female students worldwide), and the Utah Water Color Society, where she served a term as president.
She is survived by her son Michael John, daughter Martha Ann, brother Henry John Moore II, stepbrother Hugh M. Bryan, nine grandchildren, and 11 great-grandchildren.
Donald Norbert Franz PhD’66, a professor of neuropharmacology at the University of Utah School of Medicine for more than 35 years, passed away suddenly at his home on July 3.
Franz was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, to Henrietta and Norbert Franz on September 23, 1932. He was a high school and college track star, specializing in hurdles and pole vault. He graduated from Butler University, served two years in the U.S. Army in Colorado Springs, Colorado, subsequently earned his doctorate in neuropharmacology from the U, and completed a two-year fellowship at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.
Franz married and later divorced Barbara Stiver, with whom he had two daughters.
Upon returning to Utah, Franz mentored graduate students and conducted research projects on the effects of drugs on the nervous system, including Parkinson's disease and other neurological disorders. He was published in numerous scientific journals and contributed chapters to
Goodman & Gilman’s The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics, the “bible” of pharmacology.
He was also an excellent skier and skied all over the world until age 78.
Franz is survived by his former wife Barbara (Don Schoenbeck); daughters Diane Naylor (John Kirby) and Beth (Galey) Colosimo; four grandchildren; his loving companion of the past 16 years, Inkeri Liisa Baren; and his sister Marilyn (Dale) Benefiel.
Herold LaMar “Huck” Gregory BA’49 died June 18 in Salt Lake City. He was 90 years old. Gregory was a champion of Utah’s musical arts, serving as executive director of the Utah Symphony for nearly 30 years.
Born November 9, 1923, in Farmington, Utah, to Elijah Binam and Julia Ellen Tree Gregory, he attended schools in Davis County. At the height of World War II, he spent three years in the U.S. Army, serving in France, Germany, and Austria, from 1942 to 1945.
He returned to Utah, enrolled at the University of Utah, and graduated in 1949 with a bachelor’s degree in radio speech and a minor in music and journalism. He then served a two-year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the East German Mission.
When he returned to Utah, he married Mary Ethel Eccles on August 15, 1951, and they had three children.
After working a couple of years at the Davis County Bank in Farmington, he returned to Berlin with his wife and young family to serve as president of the LDS East German Mission for four years. He also participated for 24 years with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, where he was a singing member for seven years and assistant to the choir president for 17 years.
Gregory served as executive director of the Utah Symphony from 1957 to 1986, was a member of Utah Symphony Chorus for 17 years, and was the Utah Symphony board secretary for 42 years. Under his tenure, the musical group started recording their work and became the first full-time symphony west of the Mississippi to have a year-round schedule. Gregory also expanded the symphony’s tours, taking them on their first international run in 1966, and reaching out to Utah schools with free concerts throughout the state. Gregory kept the symphony in the black by increasing ticket sales.
He served as executive director of the O.C. Tanner Gift of Music concert series for 19 years, from 1984 to 2003. The free concerts have been presented in Salt Lake City by the Utah Symphony and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir since 1983. From 1986 to 2014, he was employed as an assistant to Jon M. Huntsman, Sr., at Huntsman International LLC.
Gregory was was preceded in death by his parents, his wife Mary Ethel, brothers Fred (Thora), Rulon (Josephine), and LeGrande “Dan” (Barbara); sisters Fern (Milton) Hess and Helen Ruth (died at age 4). He is survived by his sister Dorothy (Robert H.M.) Killpack; daughters Vicki (Ian) McGregor and Suellen (Brad) Winegar; son Walter Gregory; and five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Bernard Ardene “Dene” Hinton BS’50 died May 22 in Bountiful, Utah.
Hinton was born in Hurricane, Utah, in 1925, to Bernard and Isabel Hinton. During World War II, he served in the U.S. Army in the Philippines and Japan, and was awarded the Bronze Star.
He attended Branch Agricultural College (now Southern Utah University) and earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Utah. He later completed a certificate in business administration from the U.
In 1952, Hinton married Lillian Schipper. Their five children include David, Kate, Kerry, Stephen, and Douglas. They also have four grandchildren.
Hinton retired from Amoco Oil as superintendent of engineering at the Salt Lake City refinery. He was devoted to his family and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where he served in many capacities.
Billy McGill ex’62, a 6-foot-9 basketball center who broke statistical and racial barriers as a college star at the University of Utah, died from natural causes on June 11. He was 74.
McGill was born on September 16, 1939, in San Angelo, Texas. He attended Jefferson High School in Los Angeles and then the University of Utah, from 1959 to 1962.
McGill’s greatest success came at the U, where he was the star player of the Runnin’ Utes and made the 1961 Final Four with the team. He was one of the first African-Americans to play basketball at Utah, and he was inducted as a member of the University of Utah’s All-Century Team in 2008. His jersey, No. 12, has been retired by the Utes. McGill was the National Collegiate Athletic Association scoring leader in the 1961-1962 season with 1,009 points in 26 games (38.8 points per game),
In basketball circles, McGill is widely credited with innovating the use of the jump hook shot, a tough-to-block move that made him a dominant offensive player. As first overall pick of the National Basketball Association draft of 1962, he was selected to join the Chicago Zephyrs. After three seasons in the national association, a knee injury prevented him from continuing, and he joined the American Basketball Association for two seasons. During those five seasons, he scored a total of 3,094 points.
By the early 1970s, he was no longer playing basketball and was in debt and living on the streets in Los Angeles, which is chronicled in his autobiography
Billy “the Hill” and the Jump Hook: The Autobiography of a Forgotten Basketball Legend, written by McGill with Eric Brach (University of Nebraska Press, November 2013). In the late 1970s, with the help of a friend, he got a job at Hughes Aircraft, where he worked until 1995. Read more about McGill in the spring 2014 issue of
Continuum magazine.
Richard Lewis Stimson BS’49, a World War II veteran and recognized volunteer, passed away peacefully on July 5, at the Salt Lake Veterans Home. He was 88.
Stimson was born on October 15, 1925, in Salt Lake City, Utah, to William H. and Edna D. Stimson. Raised in humble circumstances during the Depression, he excelled at both Roosevelt Junior High and East High School, graduating in 1943. He began his college career at the University of Utah, where the admittedly “timid freshman” enrolled in the Army Specialized Training Program, which promised to fund his pursuit of an engineering degree in return for military service.
Shortly after transferring him to Stanford University’s engineering school, the U.S. Army cancelled its specialized training program, sending the 19-year-old, who had expected to be in a university classroom, instead into the 100th Infantry Division foxholes of France. Private First Class Stimson, as a member of Fox Company, 398th Regiment, sustained severe injuries in battle in the freezing conditions of France’s Vosges Mountains. He was awarded both the Purple Heart and Bronze Star for his meritorious service. He was one of only four young men from his platoon to survive.
Returning to the U after the war, Stimson graduated in 1949 with a degree in business marketing, and worked in the insurance industry and sales, and as an independent investor. Stimson was a Mason for many years, and a member of the 100th Infantry Division’s “Sons of Bitche,” recognizing a town they saved during the war. He was a member of the U’s Health Sciences Council, President’s Club, and John R. Park Society. He was honored by the U on Veterans Day 2005 for his World War II heroism, and was honored by the Veterans of Foreign Wars in 2010. Once retired, he volunteered at University Hospital and the U’s Health Sciences Center, and received the U.S. President’s Volunteer Service Award in 2002. His portrait, unveiled in 2000, hangs in University Hospital in recognition of his service and generosity. Upon his death, his financial gift to the U’s Health Sciences established a number of Stimson Presidential Endowed Chairs, including those honoring his parents. The permanent endowments will support faculty, education, research, and patient care in the School of Medicine, Department of Orthopaedics, and College of Pharmacy.
Allen Dahl Young BS’48 MS’68 died July 9. He was 84.
Young was born on January 19, 1920, in Salt Lake City, to Louie May Dahl and Lawrence Alonzo Young. He attended South High and LDS Business College, where he met Betty June Fisher. They were married on November 7, 1942, in Farmington, Utah. Young received a master’s degree in arts and education from the University of Utah.
Called into the service in 1942, he was commissioned a 2nd lieutenant in the Field Artillery and received his wings in the U.S. Air Corps. He was a member of the 339th Fighter Group, 505th Squadron stationed in England, flew the P-51 Mustang, and was shot down on his 57th mission. He was detained as a prisoner of war at Stalag Luft 1.
For his service, Young received the Purple Heart, Distinguished Flying Cross, Distinguished Service Cross, Air Medal, 3 Oak Leaf Clusters, and
French Croix De Guerre.
In Utah, Young taught school at Highland Park and Jordan Junior high schools. He was a graphics specialist for the Salt Lake School District, and retired from East High School, where he taught drafting and photography.
He was preceded in death by his wife Betty; son Scott; parents, and two sisters. He is survived by a son, Terry (Gail); daughter, Christy (Fred) Van Wagoner; sisters, Marion Wilkinson and Verna Olson; brother, Paul (Jeanne); and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.