1926 births

Naomi Meier [″Sally″] (November 17, 1926 – July 15, 1989) was an outfielder who played from 1946 through 1953 in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Listed at 5 ft 5 in (1.65 m), 115 lb., Meier batted and threw right-handed. She was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana.Well-traveled Naomi Meier moved around for a while, as the AAGPBL shifted players as needed to help teams stay afloat. Basically a line drive hitter and speedy base runner, she collected over 25 stolen bases in five of her eight seasons in the league. An instinctive player with good hands and a strong throwing arm, she also was capable of playing well all three outfield positions. But her best attribute may have been able to adapt and perform well for nine teams and thirteen different rosters in a span of eight years.Meier entered the league in 1946 with the Rockford Peaches, playing for them one and a half years before joining the Fort Wayne Daisies (1947). Then she found herself on the move again, this time to the Peoria Redwings (1948) and Chicago Colleens (1948), and then the Muskegon Lassies (1949), Racine Belles (1949), Kalamazoo Lassies (1950), followed by a new trip to Fort Wayne (1950–1952). She later was part of the Battle Creek Belles (1952) and played her last season for the Muskegon Belles (1953).In her rookie year, Meier appeared in 103 games and hit a .249 batting average with a career-high 49 runs batted in while scoring 44 times. Her most productive season came in 1948, when she posted career numbers in hits (100), at-bats (450), runs scored (54), stolen bases (55) and games played (127), adding a .222 average and 47 RBI. She raised her average to a career-high .261 in 1950, while collecting a second-best 34 stolen bases in 99 games.In 1951, Meier suffered a season-ending compound fracture of her right ankle while sliding into second base. Used sparingly in 1952, she hit .229 and stole 25 bases in 111 games during the 1953 season, her last in the league.A .258 career hitter, she reached the postseason with the Peaches (1946), Lassies (1949) and Daisies, collecting a .208 average (21-for-201) with one double, seven runs, seven RBI and six stolen bases in 27 games. In 690 games at outfield, she committed only 73 errors in 1226 chances for a .941 fielding average.In 1988 she became part of Women in Baseball, a permanent display based at the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York, which was unveiled to honor the entire All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. It was not really a well known fact until filmmaker Penny Marshall premiered her 1992 film A League of Their Own, which was a fictionalized account of activities in the AAGPBL. Starring Geena Davis, Tom Hanks, Madonna, Lori Petty and Rosie O'Donnell, this film brought many of the real AAGPBL former players a rebirth of celebrity.
Naomi Meier died in Fort Wayne, Indiana, at the age of 62.

Robert Lee Flanigan (August 22, 1926 – May 15, 2011) was an American tenor vocalist and founding member of The Four Freshmen, a jazz vocal group.
The Four Freshmen originated in early 1948 when brothers Ross and Don Barbour, then at Butler University's Arthur Jordan Conservatory in Indianapolis, Indiana, formed a barbershop quartet called Hal's Harmonizers. Flanigan was a cousin of the Barbours and joined The Harmonizers beginning on September 20, 1948, becoming their lead vocalist. He also played trombone and double bass.
In 1950, The Four Freshmen got a break when band leader Stan Kenton heard the quartet in Dayton, Ohio, and arranged for an audition with his label, Capitol Records, which signed The Four later that year. In 1952, they released their first hit single "It's a Blue World". Further hits included "Mood Indigo" in 1954, "Day by Day" in 1955, and "Graduation Day" in 1956.
Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, The Four Freshmen released a number of recordings, made film and television appearances, and performed in concert. The group eventually lost their mainstream following with the advent of the British pop bands of the 1960s. The group continued to perform under the management of Flanigan, who maintained rights to The Four Freshmen name and was responsible for the group's changing cast of performers. Flanigan retired as a performer in 1992, but continued his involvement with the group for several more years.
He died of congestive heart failure at his home in Las Vegas, on May 15, 2011, aged 84.

Philip D. Appleman (8 February 1926 – 11 April 2020) was an American poet and writer. He was a Professor Emeritus in the Department of English at Indiana University, Bloomington.
He published seven volumes of poetry, the first of which was Summer Love and Surf and the latest of which is Perfidious Proverbs (Humanity Books, 2011); three novels, including Apes and Angels (Putnam, 1989); and half a dozen nonfiction books, including the widely used Norton Critical Edition, Darwin and the Norton Critical Edition of Malthus' Essay on Population. His poetry and fiction have won many awards, including a fellowship in poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Castagnola Award from the Poetry Society of America, the Friend of Darwin Award from the National Center for Science Education, and the Humanist Arts Award of the American Humanist Association, and have appeared in scores of publications, including Harper's Magazine, The Nation, New Republic, New York Times, Paris Review, Partisan Review, Poetry, Sewanee Review, and Yale Review.
He has given readings of his poetry at the Library of Congress, the Guggenheim Museum, the Huntington Library, and many universities. He read several of his poems on the July 6, 2012, episode of Moyers & Company.
He was a founding member of the Poets Advisory Committee of Poets House, New York, a former member of the governing board of the Poetry Society of America, and a member of the Academy of American Poets, PEN American Center, Friends of Poets & Writers, Inc., and the Authors Guild of America.
Appleman wrote many poems drawing on the work of Charles Darwin. In 2003 he signed the Humanist Manifesto.Appleman died in April 2020 at the age of 94.

Richard Passwater (July 24, 1926 – July 10, 2020) was an American racecar driver who raced in NASCAR and USAC Stock Cars. He won the fifth race of the 1953 NASCAR Grand National Series (now NASCAR Cup Series) at Charlotte Speedway.

Leslie Eugene "Gene" Hartley (January 28, 1926 – March 13, 1993) was an American racecar driver. He was born and died in Roanoke, Indiana.
Hartley was the son of midget car driver Ted Hartley, who competed into his 60s. "Auto racing is all I’ve ever known," Gene once said in an interview at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Larret Julian "Crash" Crockett (October 23, 1926 in Cambridge City, Indiana – March 20, 1955 in Langhorne, Pennsylvania) was an American racecar driver. Crockett made 10 Championship Car starts all in the 1954 season with a best finish of 4th in the Pikes Peak International Hillclimb which counted for National Championship points at the time and finished in 11th in the 1954 points championship. Nicknamed "Crash" because of frequent racing mishaps, Crockett qualified for his first Indianapolis 500 in 1954. He finished ninth and earned Rookie-of-the-Year honors. He was killed in a racing accident at Langhorne Speedway the following spring.

Colonel James Helms Kasler (May 2, 1926 – April 24, 2014) was a senior officer in the United States Air Force and the only person to be awarded the Air Force Cross three times. The Air Force Cross ranks just below the Medal of Honor as an award for extraordinary heroism in combat.
Kasler was a combat veteran of World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. In Korea, as an F-86 Sabre pilot with the 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing, he was recognized as an ace, credited with shooting down 6 MiG-15s. Kasler flew a combined 198 combat missions and was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam from August 1966 until March 1973.
He flew a total of 101 combat missions in an F-86E Sabre and scored 6 confirmed air-to-air victories and two more damaged against MiG-15s, becoming among the first jet aces of the Korean War.

Tony Holguin (October 18, 1926 – May 14, 2009) was an American professional golfer who played on the PGA Tour and the Senior PGA Tour.
Holguin learned the game of golf while growing up in San Antonio, Texas during the Great Depression. His family, which was of Mexican descent, had no money and could not afford an automobile. He spent much time at home, practicing his putting.
Holguin served in the U.S. Army during World War II. He won the San Antonio City Championship in 1946 and 1947. He turned professional in 1948.Holguin won the Mexican Open in 1949 and 1950. His best finish in a major championship was T17 at PGA Championship in 1957. The biggest win of his career came in 1953 at the Texas Open. In 1957, Holguin tied Arnold Palmer for third place in the Texas Open. His majors resume consists of three Masters, six U.S. Opens and eight PGA Championships.
At the opening round of the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am in January 1954, Holguin set the course record of 63 at the Monterey Peninsula Country Club, now known as its Dunes Course.Like most professional golfers of his generation, Holguin earned a living primarily as a club professional. He became club pro at Midlothian (Illinois) Country Club in 1952. He also worked at Gleneagles Country Club in Lemont, Illinois and Balmoral Woods Country Club in Crete, Illinois. In 2007, he was inducted into the Illinois Section PGA Hall of Fame.Holguin was the spokesman for Fairwinds, a failed development that included a Holiday Inn and future golf course. He also was to be the teaching professional at Fairwinds. A golf course was built after the development failed, which became Balmoral Woods CC.

Joe Jimenez (June 10, 1926 – August 11, 2007) was an American professional golfer, best known for winning the 1978 PGA Seniors' Championship.
Jimenez, who was of Mexican American descent, was born in Kerrville, Texas. He was a 1952 graduate of Trinity University with majors in biology and physical education. Jimenez played on the PGA Tour in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. He spent many years (1964–1991) as the club pro at the Jefferson City Country Club in Jefferson City, Missouri. His best showing in a major championship was a T-45 at the 1958 U.S. Open. The highlight of his career came when he won the 1978 PGA Seniors' Championship in a playoff over Manuel de la Torre and Joe Cheves with a birdie on the first extra hole of a sudden-death playoff.
Jimenez holds or formerly held two of golf's "shoot below your age" records. At the 1991 GTE Northwest Classic, a Senior PGA Tour event, 65-year-old Jimenez became the youngest player to shoot his age or lower in a tournament on one of golf's major professional circuits by shooting a 63. This record was later broken when 61-year-old Walter Morgan shot a 60 in the AT&T Canada Senior Open Championship. Jimenez still holds the most-strokes-below-age (7) record. He shot a 62 during the 1995 Ameritech Senior Open at the age of 69.Since 1974, the Jefferson City Country Club has hosted a tournament in his honor, the Joe Jimenez Invitational He holds several Georgia-Pacific Grand Champions records.
Jiminez died at his home in San Antonio, Texas from renal failure brought on by lung cancer. He was 81 years old.

Billy Wade "Bill" Spiller (4 June 1926 – 23 September 2004) was a public broadcasting pioneer in the U.S. state of Virginia.
A native of Tulia, Texas, Spiller was working as an engineer for KATC-TV, the ABC station in Lafayette, Louisiana, when in 1963, he was recruited to become the first general manager of WCVE-TV (Channel 23) and Central Virginia Educational Telecommunications Corporation in Richmond, Virginia. The company became Commonwealth Public Broadcasting Company.
Beginning in January 1964, he worked to construct and establish the new public television station. WCVE-TV first went on the air September 14, 1964, and in the 27 years that followed, Spiller spearheaded the establishment of three additional public television stations in central and Northern Virginia, saved a financially troubled station, and stepped in to prevent public radio from disappearing from Richmond.
The community-owned public broadcasting company was established in 1961 by Thomas Boushall and a group of concerned citizens to employ television for educational purposes. The patron saints of public broadcasting in central Virginia were Spiller, Boushall, E. Claiborne Robins Sr. and Mary Ann Franklin. Mrs. Franklin first approached Boushall and Henry I. Willett, then Superintendent of Richmond City Schools, with the idea of establishing an educational television station. Boushall and Franklin then recruited Spiller, who was hired in December 1963 and began working for them in January 1964, three years before the establishment of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), of which WCVE-TV became a charter member.
WCVE's sister station, WCVW (channel 57) signed on in 1967 after Spiller successfully petitioned the FCC to grant a license for a second public television station. Richmond became the first community in Virginia to have dual public television stations, and only the eighth in the nation to do so.
In 1974, Commonwealth Public Broadcasting took over WNVT, a Fairfax public TV station on the verge of financial insolvency, to support the continuation of Northern Virginia-based educational programming. In 1981, Spiller oversaw the establishment of a second Northern Virginia station, WNVC, primarily serving the international community in the Washington area by rebroadcasting non-English language news and public interest programming. Those stations continue to operate today as MHz Networks, and are still owned by CPB.
When Union Theological Seminary announced its plans to give up its public radio license for WRFK, Spiller ensured that public radio would remain alive and well in Richmond and in 1988, WCVE-FM radio went on the air. The following year, under Spiller's leadership, the company established a Charlottesville public television station under call sign WHTJ; that station became a translator for WCVE.
Spiller's final contribution to the growth and development of public broadcasting in central Virginia occurred just before his retirement, with the addition of a 25,000 square foot (2,300 m²) TV and radio studio-office complex at 23 Sesame Street in Bon Air in 1991.
He died on September 23, 2004.