2016 deaths

Robert O'Hearn (July 19, 1921 – May 26, 2016) was an American set designer. Though known for his productions of theatre and ballet, he was particularly associated with opera. He designed productions for the Metropolitan Opera from 1960 through 1985.
Robert O'Hearn was born in Elkhart, Indiana. He attended Indiana University, where he received his Bachelor of Arts in 1943.
From 1948 through 1952 he worked at the Brattle Theatre at Harvard University, designing numerous productions. (His work is now part of the Harvard Theatre Collection.) Having made his Broadway theatre debut in 1950 doing the set and costume design for The Releapse by John Vanbrugh, O'Hearn began working regularly on Broadway in 1953 beginning with a production of Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost.O'Hearn made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 1960 with a production of Gaetano Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore, notable for the unique conceit of having Dr. Dulcamara enter by a descending balloon. O'Hearn designed 13 productions for the Met, usually working in conjunction with stage director Nathaniel Merrill.In addition to working on Broadway and at the Met, O'Hearn designed productions for The New York City Opera, New York Shakespeare Festival, New York City Center Theater, American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Boston Opera Company, Chicago Lyric Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Ballet West, Los Angeles Civic Light Opera, and the San Francisco Ballet. He designed a production of Der Rosenkavalier for the Canadian Opera Company.In Europe O'Hearn designed productions for the Vienna Volksoper, Bregenzer Festspiele, Hamburg State Opera, as well as productions in Strasbourg, and Karlsruhe.From 1968 through 1988 O'Hearn was a professor at the New York Studio and Forum of Stage Design. Beginning in 1988 until his retirement in 2008, O'Hearn focused exclusively on teaching at the Jacobs School of Music at his alma mater, Indiana University.He died in Bloomington, Indiana on May 26, 2016.

Joe Dowell (January 23, 1940 – February 4, 2016) was an American pop singer.

Theodore George Karras Sr. (January 31, 1934 – January 26, 2016) was a National Football League (NFL) player. He played for nine seasons with four teams, winning a championship with the Chicago Bears in 1963 as a guard. Karras played college football for Indiana University. His son, Ted Karras Jr., played college football for Northwestern University and in the NFL for the Washington Redskins in 1987 and is currently the head football coach at Marian University. His brothers, Lou Karras and Alex Karras, also played in the NFL. His grandson, Ted Karras III, played college football at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, played for the New England Patriots winning two Super Bowls and now plays for the Cincinnati Bengals.

Gastón Guzmán Huerta (August 26, 1932 – January 12, 2016), a Mexican mycologist and anthropologist, was an authority on the genus Psilocybe.

Ralph Hauenstein (March 20, 1912 – January 10, 2016) was an American philanthropist, army officer and business leader, best known as a newspaper editor. His leadership has produced institutions such as the Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies at Grand Valley State University, the Hauenstein Parkinsons and Neuroscience Centers at Saint Mary's Hospital and the Grace Hauenstein Library at Aquinas College.

Alvera Mickelsen (1919 – July 12, 2016) was an American academic, author, and women's equality activist. Mickelsen, an evangelical Christian, spent her professional life advocating "that being a feminist is a Christian responsibility," despite resistance from some sectors. She published numerous books and scholarly articles on the topic of women's equality within Christianity. Alvera Mickelsen joined her colleagues to co-found Christians for Biblical Equality (CBE) in the late 1980s, a non-profit organization of churches and individuals which advocates for the equality of women within the church, as well as in their homes and society. Additionally, Mickelsen was a longtime professor of journalism at Bethel University in Minnesota from 1968 to 1986.Mickelsen, who was born in 1919 as one of 5 children of Swedish immigrant parents, was raised in a small farmhouse just outside La Porte, Indiana. The family moved to nearby Michigan City, Indiana, when she was nine years old. However, the Great Depression soon left her parents destitute just one year after they relocated to Michigan City. Mickelsen still graduated from high school in 1936 and became the first member of her family to enroll in college. She transferred between several colleges and universities due to scholarships, before graduating from Wheaton College in Illinois in 1942.Following her graduation from Wheaton College, she received her master's degree in journalism from Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She then became an editor for several Christian magazines and publications based in Chicago, before returning to Wheaton College as a professor. She met her husband, A. Berkeley Mickelsen, while teaching at Wheaton. The couple married in 1952 and had two daughters. Alvera Mickelsen continued to teach at Wheaton while simultaneously completing her second master's degree, this time in education, also from Wheaton.In 1965, the family moved to Arden Hills, Minnesota, where Berkeley Mickelsen had been hired as a professor of Greek, Hebrew and theology at Bethel Seminary. Alvera Mickelsen also became a professor of journalism at Bethel College (now called Bethel University) in 1968, where she taught until 1986.During the 1970s, Mickelsen and her husband, who were progressive evangelicals, became concerned by the perception of a backlash against women's rights and equality within the evangelical community. Together, Alvera and A. Berkeley Mickelsen published two books which cited Biblical passages that supported the equality of the sexes. They began touring Minnesota to debate leading pastors and theologians on the topic of gender equality within Christianity. The Mickelsens later helped to establish the non-profit group, Christians for Biblical Equality (CBE), during the 1980s. Alvera Mickelsen also served as the first chair of CBE's board of directors.After the unexpected death of A. Berkeley Mickelsen, aged 69, in 1990, Alvera Mickelsen continued to tour worldwide to promote gender equality and feminism within evangelicalism. According to Mimi Haddad, the current President of Christians for Biblical Equality, Mickelsen was once asked by a Christian radio show host how she could be both a traditional evangelical Christian and a feminist simultaneously. Mickelsen replied that the host should look up feminism in a dictionary, where the word was defined as "a belief that women should have social, political, and economic equality with men." The host replied that " 'Well, I believe in all those things', to which Mickelsen responded, 'Well, then, you are a feminist!' "Alvera Mickelsen died from natural causes on July 12, 2016, at the age of 97. She was survived by her two daughters, Ruth and Lynnell Mickelsen; her brother, Mel Johnson; and four grandchildren.

Gary Wayne Schelton (May 14, 1939 – January 7, 2016), better known as Troy Shondell, was an American singer, who achieved fame in the early 1960s. He became a transatlantic one-hit wonder, by releasing a single that made the record charts in both the US and the UK. The song, "This Time" (or sometimes billed as "This Time (We're Really Breaking Up)" ) sold over one million records, earning gold disc status. In a single year, sales were over three million copies.

Myra Yvonne Chouteau () (March 7, 1929 – January 24, 2016) was an American ballerina and one of the "Five Moons" or Native prima ballerinas of Oklahoma. She was the only child of Corbett Edward and Lucy Annette Chouteau. She was born March 7, 1929, in Fort Worth, Texas. In 1943, she became the youngest dancer ever accepted to the Ballet Russe de Monte-Carlo, where she worked for fourteen years. In 1962, she and her husband, Miguel Terekhov, founded the first fully accredited university dance program in the United States, the School of Dance at the University of Oklahoma. A member of the Shawnee Tribe, she also had French ancestry, the great-great-great-granddaughter of Maj. Jean Pierre Chouteau. From the Chouteau family of St. Louis, he established Oklahoma's oldest European-American settlement at the present site of Salina in 1796. She grew up in Vinita, Oklahoma.

Irvin Sylvan "Kip" Kipper, (November 13, 1916 – April 21, 2016) was a US Army Air Forces bomber pilot, prisoner of war, and the founder and namesake of Kip's Toyland, the oldest toy store in Los Angeles, located in the Farmer's Market since 1945.

Brian Barnett Duff (September 15, 1930 – February 25, 2016) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.