2018 deaths

Rose Laurens, previously billed as Rose Merryl (born Rose Podwojny; 4 March 1951 – 29 April 2018), was a French singer-songwriter, known for her 1982 single "Africa", a top-three hit in several European countries. She was also famous for portraying the character of Fantine, on the original 1980 French concept album of Les Misérables, singing "L'air de la misère" and "J'avais rêvé d'une autre vie" two songs later adapted into English as "On My Own" and "I Dreamed a Dream" respectively.

Lewis C. Holder (October 10, 1923 – March 29, 2018) was an American football end who played one season with the Los Angeles Dons. He played college football at the University of Texas, having previously attended Woodrow Wilson High School in Dallas, Texas.

James Dickey (March 22, 1934 – February 17, 2018) was an American college football player and coach. He served as the head football coach at Kansas State University from 1978 to 1985, compiling record of 24–54–2. In 1981, he redshirted 18 players, including eight seniors and almost all of his best players. With all of those players returning the following season in 1982, Dickey led Kansas State to their first bowl game appearance in school history, the Independence Bowl, where they lost to the Wisconsin Badgers. 1982 was also the first winning season for the program since 1970 under head coach Vince Gibson.After opening the 1985 season with two consecutive losses to I-AA teams, Dickey was forced to resign on September 15. Assistant athletic director Lee Moon coached the team for the remainder of the season posting a 1–8 record.
Dickey was the father of the former Kansas State quarterback and former head football coach at the University of North Texas, Darrell Dickey. He died on February 17, 2018, at the age of 83.

Marguerite Claude Françoise Xenakis (née Gargouïl; 27 September 1930 – 12 February 2018) was a French novelist and journalist, born in Blois, Loir-et-Cher. She started her literary career in the early 1960s, and became better known during the 1980s, when she started working at Le Matin de Paris, a daily newspaper, and for Télématin, a breakfast television news show. She chaired the judging panel for the literary prize 30 Million Friends.
In 1953, she married Iannis Xenakis, who later went on to become an important classical composer of the post-war avant-garde. Their daughter Mâkhi Xenakis, sculptor and painter, was born in 1956.

Daniel Willett Foster (March 4, 1930 – January 25, 2018) was the John Denis McGarry, Ph.D. Distinguished Chair in Diabetes and Metabolic Research and Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School at Dallas. He was Chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine for 16 years. He was a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. He was a Master of the American College of Physicians. He was also a former member of the President's Council on Bioethics.

Carilda Oliver Labra (6 July 1922 – 29 August 2018) was a Cuban poet. She was born in Matanzas and died there as well.Oliver Labra studied law at the University of Havana. She was also known to excel at drawing, painting and sculpting.Known as one of the most influential Cuban poets, her work is focused upon love, the role of women in society, and herself. Oliver Labra received numerous national and international prizes including the National Poetry Prize (1950), National Literature Award (1997) and the José de Vasconcelos International Prize (2002). Me desordeno, amor, me desordeno might be her most famous poem. Other works such as Discurso de Eva ("Eve's Discourse") also show a profound literary technique.
Her debut collection in 1943, Lyric Prelude (Preludio lirico) immediately established her as an important poetic voice. At the South of My Throat made her famous: the coveted National Prize for poetry came to her in 1950 as a result of the popular and notorious book, At the South of My Throat (Al sur de mi garganta) 1949. In honor of the tri-centennial of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz in a contest sponsored by The Latin American Society in Washington D.C., in 1950, she had also received the national Cuban First Prize for her poems. Her work was highly praised by Gabriela Mistral, the Chilean poet and first Latin American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1945. In 1958, Oliver Labra published Feverish memory (Memoria de la fiebre) which added to her notoriety as a blatantly erotic woman. The book concerned a theme which has dominated her poetry—lost love, as it was written after the untimely death of her second husband.

Sidney McLarty Willhelm (October 5, 1934 – September 30, 2018) was an American sociologist, who authored several books on race and urban affairs, and many online articles containing analyses of current events often in a historical context.

Thomas Stephens (August 29, 1935 – July 12, 2018) was a professional American football player who played tight end for five seasons for the Boston Patriots of the American Football League (AFL).

Lonnie Royce (Lon. R.) Shelby (August 2, 1935 - April 8, 2018) was an American academic, and Professor Emeritus of Speech Communication and former Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at the Southern Illinois University. He is known for his work on Mediaeval architects and design, especially on the work of Lorenz Lechler, Mathes Roriczer, Hanns Schmuttermayer, Taccola and Villard de Honnecourt. He is also known for coining the term constructive geometry.

Aaron Robert Schwartz, better known as A. R. Schwartz or "Babe" Schwartz (July 17, 1926 – August 10, 2018), was an American politician, lawyer, and lobbyist who served in the Texas House of Representatives from 1955 to 1959 and in the Texas Senate from 1960 to 1981, representing his native Galveston, Texas. He was known for being a liberal "yellow-dog" Democrat.