Honoring Matthew D. Wood
Matthew "Matt" was born January 5, 1984. He was a calm delightful baby. He grew into a fun loving spirited child. Always smiling and spreading laughter wherever he went. He loved camping, fishing, any outdoor activities and harassing his little sister. His adolescent years posed a bit of a struggle, ADHD and drugs entered this part of his life with avengence. Still the happy and involved kid he hid it well. He played trumpet, participated in school musicals, wrestling, football, Boy Scouts and church involvement. After a month long program in Rehab Dec.1999, he returned home. He went back to High School where he was a Sophomore. The drugs returned to his life the minute he went back. Frustrated and unsure of what else he could do to combat this and not knowing there were still many options for him, he took his life by suicide in our family garage on February 15, 2000. He had just turned 16 years old. He left behind many many friends and family.
We do this walk to honor him on this 20th year of his death. And for all of those in this struggle.
PEACE OUT!
Honoring Beth Ann Murrow
October 1965 - March 2019 Vibrant, Kind and Fun!
Best Friend Ever - Until we meet again xoxo
Honoring Emalyn Mercer
Honoring Chuck Schmidt
Business man. Family man. Philanthropist. Force of nature.
Honoring Craig Talbert
Honoring Ada Schuler
Honoring Martin Zolondick
Honoring Kathleen Janecka
Honoring Frankie Zeh
Frankie, along with her husband David, was a vibrant part of the Key West family for many years and a shining light for all who loved her. Never one to meet a stranger, she collected people of all stripes and called them all "honey." She was a wonderful chef, artist and hostess of fabulous parties. Far from superficial, Frankie was always there in times of need and fiercely committed to her upstanding values of justice and compassion. She shared her passions and skills with many causes, including Cooking With Love, Tropic Cinema and many others.
Honoring Lewis A. Prescott, Jr.
Lewis was employed by Tower Iron Works in Providence for 26 years, and retired as a Division Manager. He was then instrumental in founding Anhyro, Inc., a North American subsidiary of a Danish firm, engaged in the manufacture of food process equipment and served as its CEO for 15 years before retiring in 1987. He was the author of many technical magazine articles in the food, ceramic and textile industries, and held several U.S. patents. An avid Amateur radio operator for over 60 years, he held the FCC license for station W1RFQ. After his retirement, he took up the hobby of making Mid-18th Century Queen Ann furniture reproductions and some of his work has been featured in national woodworking magazines. His mother, Faith A. Jenks, was a seventh generation descendent of Joseph Jenks, founder of the City of Pawtucket, and an eighth generation descendent of John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley, Mayflower passengers who landed at Plymouth, MA in 1620.
Honoring Dayami Estevill
Honoring Phatback
Honoring Dr. John
Honoring Elijah Cummings
Honoring Arthur Moniz
"I try to convey a feeling of quiet and calm in a world of noise and fast pace: a peacefulness that comes from being alone but not lonely. I like the structures which seem to stand with dignity, the test of time, the textures of old wood, the bark of trees, rocks and such."
Mr. Moniz was born in 1945 in New Bedford, Massachusetts. He attended school in New Bedford and then went on to Massachusetts College of Art and the Museum School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. His paintings depict a wide range of interests, from Florida to Japan and of course the New England area, where he still lives with his wife and business partner, Cheryl. His other passions are his two children and four grandchildren.
His style of painting is a combination of graphite drawing with transparent watercolor washes over the highly detailed renderings. This style of "graphite and watercolor" has evolved over the years and creates images which are soft and subtle yet show remarkable details and textures. He also works in oils and pen and ink to create works of art with the same attention to the fine details and textures of the subjects.
He was a brilliant artist and a humble man who was loved and admired by many. He will be greatly missed.
Honoring Lonn Taylor
Lonn Taylor, a Smithsonian Institution historian who was an authority on “The Star- Spangled Banner” — both the national anthem and the flag that inspired it — and later became known as a colorful storyteller about life in Texas, died June 26 at his home in Fort Davis, Tex. He was 79.
He had complications from diabetes, his wife, Dedie Taylor, said.
Mr. Taylor, whose academic expertise ranged from Southwestern furniture to Asian culture to vexillology (the study of flags), began his museum career in Texas and came to Washington in 1984 as a historian and director of public programs for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.
Garrulous, given to laughter and often dressed in a bow tie, Mr. Taylor was a lively presence during his 18 years at the museum on the Mall. He had a major role in
preparing several of the history museum’s permanent exhibits, including “Within These Walls,” which opened in 2001.
The exhibit examines 200 years of the nation’s history through the prism of an 18th- century house from Ipswich, Mass., and the people who lived in it: British colonial subjects, anti-slavery activists, Irish immigrants and transplanted Kansans.
“An exhibit is actually a manipulation of concept, artifacts, labels and design elements into sequential visual elements,” Mr. Taylor told the Victoria Advocate, a Texas newspaper, in 2006. “Developing the concept is the hardest part. You have to boil your story down to basics.”
One of Mr. Taylor’s most renowned projects involved the U.S. flag that flew at Baltimore’s Fort McHenry after a battle in the War of 1812. Francis Scott Key, a Washington lawyer, was aboard a British ship during the battle, attempting to negotiate the release of a prisoner.
By the dawn’s early light on Sept. 14, 1814, Key saw the 30-by-42-foot flag waving triumphantly and began to write the words of what he eventually named “The Star- Spangled Banner.” When the Smithsonian was given the flag in 1907, its size had been trimmed to about 30-by-34 feet by souvenir hunters. One of its 15 stars had been cut out.
Mr. Taylor did much of the primary research on the history of the flag, which was sewn by Mary Pickersgill of Baltimore, and on Key’s composition of what became the national anthem. He published a book about the flag in 2000 and delivered a lecture, which he called “Stalking ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’: An Adventure in Research.”
For years, the Fort McHenry flag greeted visitors near the entrance of the Museum of American History, but it grew increasingly faded and fragile with time. After an eight- year preservation effort, the flag was put back on display in 2008 in a climate-controlled chamber with low lighting and interactive screens.
Although he was long retired from the museum, Mr. Taylor appeared on “The Colbert Report” in 2014 on the 200th anniversary of the Fort McHenry battle. Just in case host Stephen Colbert asked, Mr. Taylor memorized all four verses of Key’s “The Star- Spangled Banner.”
Lonn Wood Taylor was born Jan. 22, 1940, in Spartanburg, S.C., where his father was working as a highway engineer. (“If I had been born in Texas,” Mr. Taylor told the Lone Star Literary Life website in 2018, “I would be a fifth-generation Texan.”)
He moved in 1946 with his parents and a grandmother to the Philippines, where his father found work. After nine years, the family returned to the United States, and Mr. Taylor completed high school in Fort Worth.
He graduated in 1961 from Texas Christian University and entered a graduate program in Southeast Asian studies at New York University. After a year, he moved to Austin,
renting a garage apartment next to a group of musicians, including singer Janis Joplin, with whom he became friends.
Mr. Taylor abandoned his academic studies, dabbled in journalism and wrote speeches for politicians. He made a failed attempt at running a pecan orchard.
He finally found his niche when he helped prepare exhibits for HemisFair, a world’s fair held in 1968 in San Antonio. Two years later, he became director of the Winedale Historical Complex, a group of historical buildings affiliated with the University of Texas. He later became a curator at the Dallas Historical Society and, from 1980 to 1984, was deputy director of the Museum of New Mexico. He published books on historic furniture of Texas and New Mexico and was the guest curator of a 1983 exhibit at the Library of Congress about the American cowboy.
His marriages to Mary Lou Mueller and Diane Greene ended in divorce. Survivors include his wife of 31 years, the former Edith “Dedie” Uunila, a longtime editor of the Chronicle of Higher Education, of Fort Davis.
After he retired from the Smithsonian in 2002, Mr. Taylor moved with his wife and 14,000 pounds of books to Fort Davis, about 20 miles from the artsy West Texas town of Marfa. He began to write a weekly column, “Rambling Boy,” about Texas history, writers and humor, published since 2003 in the Big Bend Sentinel.
He developed a wider following by reading his columns on Marfa’s public radio station, KRTS, delivering them in a scratchy tenor drawl.
“Lonn was, clearly and indisputably, the best storyteller Texas had,” writer Joe Nick Patoski said in an interview. “The power of storytelling came very naturally to him.”
Mr. Taylor collected many of his columns in books, including “Texas, My Texas,” “Turning the Pages of Texas” and “Marfa for the Perplexed” — a title chosen because of tourists who “came to Marfa because they read about it in the New York Times, and now that they are there they can’t figure out what the town is all about.”
Shortly before his death, Mr. Taylor completed a memoir about his childhood in the Philippines.
“I have spent countless hours listening to oddballs tell me their stories in bars, cafes, bus stations, and on the porches of country stores,” Mr. Taylor wrote in the introduction to his 2014 book, “Texas People, Texas Places,” “and for the most part they have been rewarding hours.”
Honoring Bill Frasor
Bill was born in Spring Valley, IL, to William "the Buzzard" and Mary "Grandma Sam" Frasor. He was the oldest of seven children.
Bill went on to have three of his own children - Brian, Charlie and Megan.
Bill’s professional life saw him enjoy a stint with Lockheed-Martin, before establishing a successful career with the American Trucking Association. During his tenure at ATA, he consistently set and broke nearly all annual sales records. Bill was an Army Veteran, having served honorably in the Vietnam War for the 3rd Infantry, and achieved the rank of 1st lieutenant. Bill was also hand-selected to serve in the “Old Guard” and was stationed at Arlington National Cemetery. He was a member of the American Legion and VFW and enjoyed reading, camping, hunting, horseback riding, golf, and spending time with his family and friends.
