russell dunham,medal of honor recipients dies at 89

Russell Dunham, a World War II Army veteran who received the Medal of Honor, the military's highest decoration for valor, after he assaulted three German machine gun emplacements, killed nine German soldiers and took two prisoners on a snowy morning in 1945, died Monday at his home in Godfrey, Ill., of congestive heart failure. He was 89.

On Jan. 8, 1945, Tech. Sgt. Dunham's company, part of the 3rd Infantry Division, was facing a formidable German force at the small town of Kayserberg, France, on the Franco-German border. The men were issued white mattress covers as camouflage in the deep snow.

Heavily armed, Dunham scrambled 75 yards up a snow-covered hill toward three German machine gun emplacements. He took out the first bunker with a grenade.

Advancing toward the second, he glanced around to call up his squad and a bullet hit him in the back, tearing open a 10-inch gash. As he struggled to his feet, a grenade landed nearby; he kicked it away before it exploded.

He then crawled through the snow to the machine gun and lobbed his own grenade into the bunker, killing two Germans. His carbine empty, he leaped into the foxhole and hauled out a third enemy soldier by the collar.

In excruciating pain, his mattress-cover overcoat now stained a conspicuous red, Dunham ran 50 yards to the third machine-gun emplacement and took it out with a grenade. As German infantrymen began scrambling out of their foxholes, Dunham chased them down the back side of the hill. He and his elder brother Ralph, who was in the same unit, encountered a fourth machine gun; the older Dunham took it out.

Dunham was born in East Carondelet, Ill., on Feb. 23, 1920, and grew up in Fosterburg, Ill. When he was about 16, he went to live with brother Ralph in St. Louis, and the two young men made a Depression-era living selling soup and tamales on the street and in bars.

After the war, Dunham worked for 32 years as a benefits counselor with the Veterans Administration in St. Louis.

His marriage to Mary Dunham ended in divorce. His second wife, Wilda Long-Bazzell Dunham, died in 2002.

Survivors include a daughter from his first marriage, Mary Neal of Cobden, Ill.; two stepchildren, Annette Wilson of Godfrey and David Bazzell of Jarreau, La.; three sisters; and three granddaughters.

other hot stories:
carrie underwood sex joke
marvin webster human eraser dies at 56

horton foote dies at 92

Horton Foote, the Pulitzer Prize- winning American dramatist who received an Academy Award for his 1962 screenplay adaptation of the classic novel “To Kill a Mockingbird,” died today in Hartford, Connecticut. He was 92.

His death was confirmed by the actress Hallie Foote, who is currently co-starring in the stage adaptation of “To Kill a Mockingbird” at Hartford Stage.

Foote, who lived in Pacific Palisades, California, would have turned 93 on March 14.

Foote took Harper Lee’s Pulitzer-winning story about a racially divided Alabama town of the 1930s and helped turn it into one of the masterworks of American cinema. Gregory Peck won an Oscar for his portrayal of Atticus Finch, the lawyer who defends a black man accused of raping a white woman. The American Film Institute ranks “To Kill a Mockingbird” 25th on a list of the 100 greatest U.S. movies.

In screenplays for such movies as “Tender Mercies,” “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “The Trip to Bountiful,” and in plays like “The Young Man From Atlanta” and his nine-play cycle “The Orphans’ Home,” Mr. Foote depicted the way ordinary people shoulder the ordinary burdens of life, finding drama in the resilience by which they carry on in the face of change, economic hardship, disappointment, loss and death. His work earned him a Pulitzer Prize and two Academy Awards.

Here is a portion of his obituary, written by Wilborn Hampton; the complete version will be posted at nytimes.com Wednesday evening.

In a body of work for which he won the Pulitzer Prize and two Oscars, Mr. Foote was known as a writer’s writer, an author who never abandoned his vision or altered his simple, homespun style even when Broadway and Hollywood temporarily turned their backs on him.

In screenplays for such movies as “Tender Mercies,” “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “The Trip to Bountiful,” and in plays like “The Young Man From Atlanta” and his nine-play cycle “Orphans’ Home,” Mr. Foote depicted the way ordinary people shoulder the ordinary burdens of life, finding drama in the resilience by which they carry on in the face of change, economic hardship, disappointment, loss and death. His work earned him a Pulitzer Prize and two Academy Awards.

Frank Rich, who as theater critic of The New York Times was one of Mr. Foote’s champions, called him “one of America’s living literary wonders.” Mr. Rich wrote that his plays contained “a subtlety that suggests a collaboration between Faulkner and Chekhov.”

Mr. Foote, in a 1986 interview in The New York Times Magazine, said: “I believe very deeply in the human spirit and I have a sense of awe about it because I don’t know how people carry on. What makes the difference in people? What is it? I’ve known people that the world has thrown everything at to discourage them, to kill them, to break their spirit. And yet something about them retains a dignity. They face life and don’t ask quarters.”

Mr. Foote spent most of his life writing about such people in a simple, homespun style. In more than 50 plays and films, most of which were set in the fictiional town of Harrison, Texas, he charted their struggle through the century by recording the daily, familial conflicts that filled their lives.

He often seemed to resemble a character from one of his own plays. Always courteous and courtly, he spoke with a slow Texas drawl. He enjoyed good food and wine but would usually opt for barbecue and iced tea or fried chicken with a Dr Pepper when he was home in Texas. He was a jovial man with a wry humor, and his white hair and robust frame gave him the appearance of a Southern senator or one’s favorite uncle, the one who always had a story.

Albert Horton Foote Jr., one of three sons of Albert Horton Foote and the former Hallie Brooks, was born March 14, 1916, in Wharton, Texas, a small town about 40 miles southwest of Houston that was once surrounded by cotton fields. His father was a local haberdasher and his mother, who was from an old Southern family, taught piano.

Although he boarded a train for Dallas at the age of 16 to pursue a career as an actor, Mr. Foote never really left home. From his first efforts as a playwright, he returned again and again to set his plays and films amid the pecan groves and Victorian houses with large front porches on the tree-lined streets of Wharton. His inspiration came from the people he knew and the stories he heard growing up there. “I’ve spent my life listening,” Mr. Foote once said.

related story:Horton Foote Dies

cori daye desmond found dead

A dead woman found near a San Bernardino Mountains highway was identified Tuesday as 28-year-old Cori Daye Desmond of Torrance, last seen at a Redondo Beach nightclub.

Investigators turned their attention to the South Bay after Desmond's 1998 Jeep Wrangler was found near the Bac Street Lounge on Artesia Boulevard. She was last seen at the bar early Sunday, relatives and authorities said.

San Bernardino County sheriff's detectives worked much of the day with Redondo Beach police, seeking clues in the area where the vehicle was found, said Jodi Miller, a spokeswoman for the Sheriff's Department.

On Tuesday evening, investigators were expanding their focus to Manhattan Beach, where Desmond worked at Beaches, a restaurant and bar, Miller said. The North Torrance High School graduate had worked a Valentine's Day shift at Beaches before going to the Redondo Beach bar. She knew friends at Bac Street and previously worked there, said her cousin, Thomas Desmond.

Desmond's body was found near a turnout on California 330 below Running Springs on Monday afternoon. A driver reported seeing what appeared to be a human foot protruding from a bag, officials said.

Police are looking for any tips.Anyone with information is asked to contact Sgt. Tony De Cecio or Det. Trevis Newport. If you know anything, be sure to call one of the two numbers.

1. 909-387-3589
2. 1-800-78-CRIME