2009 deaths

Ralph Dana Winter (December 8, 1924 – May 20, 2009) was an American missiologist and Presbyterian missionary who helped pioneer Theological Education by Extension, raised the debate about the role of the church and mission structures and became well known as the advocate for pioneer outreach among unreached people groups. He was the founder of the U.S. Center for World Mission (USCWM, now Frontier Ventures), William Carey International University, and the International Society for Frontier Missiology.His 1974 presentation at the Congress for World Evangelization in Lausanne, Switzerland – an event organized by American evangelist Billy Graham – was a watershed moment for global mission.It was during this presentation that Winter shifted global mission strategy from a focus on political boundaries to a focus on distinct people groups. Winter argued that instead of targeting countries, mission agencies needed to target the thousands of people groups worldwide, over half of which have not been reached with the gospel message.
Billy Graham once wrote: “Ralph Winter has not only helped promote evangelism among many mission boards around the world, but by his research, training and publishing he has accelerated world evangelization."In 2005, Winter was named by Time magazine as one of the 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America. Dr. Ray Tallman, shortly after Winter's death, described him as "perhaps the most influential person in missions of the last 50 years and has influenced missions globally more than anyone I can think of."

Brigadier General Kjell Eugenio Laugerud García (24 January 1930 – 9 December 2009) was a Guatemalan military officer who served as the 36th president of Guatemala from 1974 until 1978. A member of the National Liberation Movement, he previously served as General Staff of the Army from 1970 to 1972 and Minister of national defence from 1972 to 1973 under President Carlos Arana Osorio.He was the son of a Norwegian father and a Guatemalan mother.

Frederick Earl Sontag (October 2, 1924 – June 14, 2009) was a professor of philosophy and author. He taught at Pomona College in Claremont, California from 1952 to 2009, retiring shortly before his death.

Samuel Bookatz (October 3, 1910 – November 16, 2009) was a prolific painter who defied the demands of his blue collar, Orthodox Jewish upbringing to study art in the United States and Europe. Bookatz painted in a variety of styles: for commissions with presidential, military, political, and civic portraits; for religious and secular frescoes; and mostly for his own vision. In his private art, he developed from a realistic style to impressionist paintings, later to figurative expressionist and to increasingly abstract expressionist themes.

Edward Stewart Kennedy (3 January 1912 – 4 May 2009) was a historian of science specializing in medieval Islamic astronomical tables written in Persian and Arabic.
Edward S. Kennedy studied electrical engineering at Lafayette College, graduating in 1932. He then traveled to Iran to teach at Alborz College, at that time directed by the American Presbyterian Mission. In the Persian language environment, Kennedy made a study of Persian and became fluent in the language. After four years he returned to Pennsylvania and took up study of series of exponential form related to Lambert series while at Lehigh University. He graduated Ph.D. in 1939.When war broke out he enlisted with the US Army and was sent to Tehran to serve as an attaché, given his fluency in Persian. After the war he saw Sarton and Neugebauer at Harvard as he had taken an interest in early Persian and Arabic science. Then he began to teach at the American University in Beirut (1946 to 1976). In 1951 he married Mary Helen Scanlon and together they had 3 children: Anna, Michael, and Nora. He participated at the American Research Center in Egypt until 1978 when he joined the Institute for the History of Arab Science at University of Aleppo. Edward and Mary-Helen left Lebanon in 1984.
Kennedy died in Doylestown, Pennsylvania at the age of 97.

Charles Wesley Akers (April 2, 1920 – February 1, 2009) was an American historian, author, and educator.

James Nicholas Counter III (1940–2009) was an American labor attorney, who served as the long-standing president of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers and as chief negotiator for the major studios who squared off against Hollywood's writers during a 100-day strike in 2008. Counter died on November 6, 2009, at the age of sixty-nine. He was survived by a son, Nicholas; a daughter, Samantha, and her husband, producer and screenwriter Alex Kurtzman; and a grandson, Jack.

James Morrison Wilson Jr. (July 8, 1918 – November 25, 2009) was an official in the United States Department of State who launched the State Department's annual country reports on human rights in 1975, and who served as Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs from 1975 to 1977.

Joaquín Vargas Gómez (28 September 1925 – 28 November 2009) was a Mexican media mogul and owner of MVS Comunicaciones, a conglomerate that owns a radio station group known as MVS Radio, with stations in Mexico and in many Latin American countries, as well as some in the United States. He also founded Corporación Mexicana de Restaurantes (CMR), an owner and operator of various restaurants.

Carlos González Nova (14 August 1917 – 19 August 2009) was a Mexican businessman who co-founded the Comercial Mexicana supermarket chain in 1930. Comercial Mexicana is the third largest supermarket chain in Mexico as of 2009.In 2000 Gonzáles Nova was in charge of a powerboat that killed UK singer Kirsty MacColl in a restricted beach diving area on Cozumel, Mexico. MacColl was struck saving her son from the speeding boat. It was widely reported that the boathand José Cen Yam, who took the blame for the death, was paid to do so by González Nova.