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| Volume 46, Number 3, Winter 1998-99 |
An accident that can only be described as stranger than strange resulted in the death of Fred Knubel late last summer. Knubel, 62, director of public information at Columbia University, had been an NASW member since 1976. The accident occurred in a rural resort area on the east end of Long Island, NY. Knubel was bicycling along a country road when a passing motorist hit a deer, and the deer ricocheted into Knubel, who suffered severe injuries. He died after emergency surgery. A former news reporter for the Plainfield, NJ Courier-News and the Rochester, NY Times-Union, Knubel became spokesman for Columbia University in 1963. “Fred was an unusual man,” said Alan Stone, the university’s vice president for public affairs. “He brought to the workplace a sense of playfulness. Every day we called on his good judgment, impeccable writing skills, and his knowledge of the traditions of Columbia.” Friends said that Knubel was considered the dean of Ivy League University spokesmen. He was also highly respected by local newspeople for his honesty, forthrightness, and willingness to help find the best sources for news stories. Knubel became interested in science reporting while working for the university. One of his first assignments was coverage of the twentieth anniversary of the nuclear fission research done at Columbia during World War II. The subject caught his imagination and drew him into the realm of science. He was a native of Rochester, NY, graduated from Hamilton College, in Clinton, NY, and took a master’s degree in journalism at Columbia in 1959. (Contributed by Bob Cooke.)
Harold F. Osborne, an NASW member since 1954, died of complications of a stroke at age 85 in Edmonds, WA, one of two Washington State communities in which he had lived since his retirement in 1978. Osborne was born in Omaha and raised in Denver, and graduated from the University of Denver in 1934. He worked on newspapers in Denver and Salt Lake City, the Seattle Times and other newspapers, and for the Associated Press. During World War II, he served in the U.S. Navy. In the 1950s, he moved to the Washington, DC area and was in public information for the American Institute of Biological Sciences, Atomic Energy Commission, National Institutes of Health, and the Veterans Administration. His first retirement home was in Kingston, WA, the “Little City by the Sea,” which was the title of his local history of Kingston, published by Apple Tree Press in 1990. He was well-known in the area for the book, for his monthly column in the Kingston newspaper, and for his photography. In October 1993, he moved to Edmonds, WA, where he was active in the Edmonds and Washington State Historical Societies. (Contributed by Odom Fanning.)
NASW member Merle S. Goldberg, 62, a retired medical writer who was founder and former president of the National Women’s Health Coalition, died November 29 at George Washington University Hospital. She had renal disease. Goldberg retired in 1997 as executive editor and assistant director of the public relations office at the GWU Medical Center. She had lived in Washington since 1984. A former journalist, she worked in New York and Washington on issues of women’s health, family planning and reproductive rights. The organization she headed became the International Women’s Health Coalition, and she founded the first legal outpatient abortion clinic in the United States (in New York). As a freelance writer, she produced training materials on women’s health and family planning for the Department of Health and Human Services and other agencies. They have been translated into five languages and are used by ministries of health in nearly a dozen countries. Goldberg was a native of New York and a graduate of Brooklyn College. She received a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University. She worked for Newsweek, Newsday, the Newark News, the New York Herald Tribune, and other publications. At Newsday, she was one of 17 writers who contributed chapters to the best-selling sex and mystery spoof Naked Came the Stranger. While at GWU, Goldberg received the 1994 Robert G. Fenley Award for medical writing from the Association of American Medical Colleges. (Source: the Washington Post.)
NASW has also learned of the deaths of Donald G. Cooley of
Aurora, Colorado, and John R. Whiting, an NASW member since 1949.