Didier Bellens (9 June 1955 – 28 February 2016) was a Belgian businessman. Until 15 November 2013, he was the CEO of Belgacom, the leading telecommunications company of Belgium. He was married and had three children. He died on 28 February 2016.
Paul Vergès (5 March 1925 – 11/12 November 2016) was a Réunionese politician. Born in Ubon Ratchathani, Siam to a French diplomat father and Vietnamese mother. Vergès founded the Communist Party of Réunion in 1960, a party which he led until he retired in 1994. He made a political comeback at the 2005 European Parliament elections, when he was elected as the third candidate on the list of the French Communist Party, part of the European United Left–Nordic Green Left group. Vergès sat in the European Parliament's Committee on Development.
Vergès killed the political opponent of his father, Alexis de Villeneuve, on 25 May 1946. He was condemned for the crime to a sentence of 5 years in prison.Vergès was an MP in the National Assembly of France from 1957 to 1959, from 1987 to 1988 and from 1994 to 1997. He was a Senator in the French Parliament from 1997 to 2005 and again since 2012. From 1980 to 1990 and from 2005 to 2008, he was a member of the European Parliament. He was president of the regional council of Réunion from 1999 to 2011, regional councillor since 2011, mayor of Le Port from 1972 to 1990 and general councillor of La Réunion from 1956 to 1968 and again from 1986 to 1999.
In the European Parliament, he was also a member of the Subcommittee on Human Rights, a substitute for the Committee on Regional Development, vice-chair of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly and a substitute for the delegation for relations with the countries of Central America.
Vergès died the night of 11/12 November 2016, at the age of 91. His twin brother was the lawyer Jacques Vergès.
Benoîte Groult (31 January 1920 – 20 June 2016) was a French journalist, writer, and feminist activist.
Robert Coull Wellins (24 January 1936 – 27 October 2016) was a Scottish tenor saxophonist who collaborated with Stan Tracey on the album Jazz Suite Inspired by Dylan Thomas's "Under Milk Wood" (1965).
Thomas Gene Fisher (April 4, 1942 – November 21, 2016) was an American Major League Baseball pitcher. Nicknamed "Big Fish", the 6'0", 180 lb. right-hander was signed by the Baltimore Orioles as an amateur free agent before the 1962 season. He played briefly for the Orioles in 1967.
Fisher had a record of 10–6 with a 3.04 earned run average for the Triple-A Rochester Red Wings when he was called up to Baltimore in September 1967. His career minor league record at the time was 65–33, a winning percentage of .663. He made his major league debut in relief on September 20 against the Washington Senators at D.C. Stadium. He pitched 1.1 scoreless innings, walking two batters. His second big league action came two days later, in a home game against the Boston Red Sox. He hurled two more scoreless innings, striking out one batter, All-Star catcher Elston Howard.
On April 30, 1969 he was traded by the Orioles along with pitcher John O'Donoghue to the Seattle Pilots, and never again made it to the major league level. His lifetime ERA for 3.1 innings stands at 0.00.
Thomas Arden Butters (April 8, 1938 – March 31, 2016) was an American professional baseball player who spent parts of four seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) with the Pittsburgh Pirates, then had a lengthy career as a college sports administrator at Duke University. He is best remembered for his time at Duke and for being a key figure in the financial success of the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament.
Gordon Richard Massa (September 2, 1935 – July 16, 2016) was an American professional baseball player who appeared in eight games as a catcher and pinch hitter for the 1957–1958 Chicago Cubs of Major League Baseball. A left-handed batter who threw right-handed, he stood 6 feet 3 inches (1.91 m) tall and weighed 210 pounds (95 kg).
After graduating from Elder High School in Cincinnati, Massa attended The College of the Holy Cross, where he starred in baseball and football. In 1955 he led the Crusaders in home runs and runs batted in as the team posted a 13–4 record and qualified for the NCAA Division I College baseball tournament. Overall, Holy Cross won 42 of 53 games during Massa's time on the varsity. In football, he played center and linebacker and was selected by the New York Giants in the tenth round of the 1957 National Football League Draft.
But Massa chose professional baseball as his destination and signed with the Cubs on June 24, 1957. Three months later, after prepping with the Des Moines Bruins of the Class A Western League, Massa made his MLB debut, starting at catcher and notching two hits, both singles, in four at bats with one run batted in against Hal Jeffcoat of the Cincinnati Redlegs. All told, Massa collected seven hits in 15 at-bats with three RBI during his first trial with the Cubs. The following year, he was sent to the Class B Illinois–Indiana–Iowa League for further minor league seasoning, and he batted .316 to earn his second late-season call-up to the Cubs. He went hitless in two at-bats.
Massa returned to the minors for good in 1959, and retired in late 1963 after seven seasons in the Cub farm system, pitching in 24 games as well as handling catching chores.He was elected to the Holy Cross Athletic Hall of Fame in 2005.Massa died July 16, 2016, aged 80, in Cincinnati.
Robert Gordon Addis (November 6, 1925 – November 15, 2016) was an American professional baseball player. The outfielder appeared in 208 Major League Baseball games over four seasons (1950–53) for three National League teams. He threw right-handed, batted left-handed, and was listed as 6 feet (1.8 m) tall and 170 pounds (77 kg).
Fred Charles Richards (November 3, 1927 – March 18, 2016), nicknamed "Fuzzy", was an American professional baseball player. Richards, a first baseman, played eleven seasons of minor league baseball and appeared in ten games played in the Major Leagues for the Chicago Cubs in the waning weeks of the 1951 season. He threw and batted left-handed, stood 6 feet 1 inch (1.85 m) tall and weighed 185 pounds (84 kg).
Born in Warren, Ohio in 1927, Richards signed with the Cubs in 1946 as a 19-year-old. He had finished his sixth season in the Cubs' farm system when he was called to the Majors in 1951. Ironically, 1951 had been Richards' worst pro season, as he batted only .223 in 120 games split between the Class A Des Moines Bruins and the Triple-A Springfield Cubs. In his first at bat on September 15, facing Sheldon Jones, he flied out to center fielder Willie Mays of the New York Giants, but overall he collected eight hits (including two doubles) in 27 at bats during his Major League audition. Richards would split 1952 between Des Moines and Springfield again, but he never returned to the Major Leagues.
Margaret Anne "Peggy" Kirk Bell (October 28, 1921 – November 23, 2016) was an American professional golfer and golf instructor known for her strong advocacy of women's golf. She was elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame, class of 2019, in the lifetime achievement category.Born in Findlay, Ohio, Peggy started playing golf at age 17. She took to the game immediately and quickly won a number of titles. She played college golf at Rollins College. She was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma. She played the ladies amateur tour in the 1940s before the development of a professional tour, winning three Ohio Amateurs and the 1949 Titleholders Championship and North and South Women's Amateur. She was also a member of the 1950 U.S. Curtis Cup team.
At that time she competed as Peggy Kirk, and in 1953 she married her high school sweetheart, Warren "Bullet" Bell, who had played professional basketball with the Fort Wayne Pistons before turning to business. Warren died in 1984.
In 1990, she was voted the Bob Jones Award, the highest honor given by the United States Golf Association in recognition of distinguished sportsmanship in golf. She became the first woman voted into the World Golf Teachers Hall of Fame in 2002.
Bell owned the Pine Needles Resort in Southern Pines, North Carolina. Her older daughter, Bonnie, is married to former PGA Tour member Pat McGowan. Bell died there in November 2016 at the age of 95.