Wednesday, May 28

United States

Kimberley Chavez Lopez Byrd, teacher
Neighbors, Profiles, United States

Kimberley Chavez Lopez Byrd, teacher

Kimberley Chavez Lopez Byrd ‑ a longtime Arizona elementary school teacher ‑ died on June 26, 2020, of coronavirus after sharing a summer classroom with two other teachers who also fell ill with the disease. Kimberley Chavez Lopez Byrd, Jena Martinez-Inzunza and Angela Skillings were teaching Hayden Winkelman Unified School District's virtual summer school to kindergarten, first-grade and second-grade students from the same classroom. Lopez Byrd got sick in early June but was told she had a sinus infection, which was not odd for her, Lopez Byrd's son, Luke, told NBC News. She kept working, but she also kept feeling worse and was finally encouraged by her daughter to go to the hospital.   On June 13, Lopez Byrd tested positive for COVID-19. The next day she wa...
Reagan Henry, certified nursing assistant
Medics, Profiles, United States

Reagan Henry, certified nursing assistant

Reagan Henry, a CNA at Deerfield Retirement Community, died on June 23 from COVID-19 at Mission Hospital. His funeral was on June 27 in Asheville. The 39-year-old was known as a gentle, kind, hard worker. Reagan was the first health care worker at a nursing home facility in Western North Carolina to die of COVID-19, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services, and one of only three nursing home caregivers in the state to die of the disease. Many of the large, tight-knit family members came from Micronesia to Asheville to work in the health care field. Citizen Times
Carsyn Davis, teenager
Neighbors, Profiles, United States

Carsyn Davis, teenager

Carsyn Davis ‑- a 17-year-old Fort Myers resident and a cancer survivor with a rare, ongoing autoimmune disorder ‑-  died of respiratory failure after contracting the new coronavirus on June 23, 2020. The medical examiner's report notes that Davis attended a 100-person church event, where people were not required to wear face masks, roughly two weeks before she died in a Miami-Dade County hospital. During the nine days that followed, she was given antibiotics, hydroxychloroquine and oxygen via her grandfather's portable machine by her parents while at home. Her mother, Carole Brunton Davis, is a nurse. The hospital recommended intubation when Davis was admitted to its pediatric unit on June 19, but her parents declined the procedure, according to the county medi...
Ken Snow, soccer player
Noteworthy, Profiles, United States

Ken Snow, soccer player

Kenneth Snow ‑ an American soccer forward who was a two-time winner of the Hermann Trophy as the outstanding college soccer player in 1988 and 1990 – died of Covid-19 on June 21, 2020. He had an eight-year professional career playing indoor soccer in the United States. Ken Snow was born in Arlington Heights, Illinois. He grew up in Illinois and attended Hoffman Estates High School from 1983 to 1986 where he played soccer. While at Hoffman, Snow scored in 47 consecutive games, ranking him second, after his brother Steve Snow, on the Illinois High School Association's list of consecutive matches scored in. Ken also ranks #9 on the Illinois state career goals list with 128 goals and #16 on the season (1985) goal scoring list with 49 goals. After graduating from high s...
Mike Winkler, bus driver
Neighbors, Profiles, United States

Mike Winkler, bus driver

Mike Winkler – a bus driver with the public transportation agency King County Metro Transit in Washington state ‑ died from complications related to COVID-19 on June 17. Winkler, 71, passed away after several weeks fighting the virus. His domestic partner Karla Mestl said he contracted COVID-19 in March. Winkler drove buses for 32 years and worked most of his career out of the North Base in Shoreline. Patch
Daniel Foster, radio personality
Nigeria, Noteworthy, Profiles, United States

Daniel Foster, radio personality

Daniel Foster aka "the Big Dawg" and "Top Dawg" was an American radio personality based in Nigeria. He died due to complications from Covid-19 on June 17, 2020 Formerly an Idol series judge  he also held a similar position with the Got Talent franchise. Foster was brought up with his three siblings in Washington, D.C. by their father - their mother had died when he was ten - but was partly raised in Baltimore by his grandmother. As a teenager, Foster was rebellious, but after a stint with the Marines he attended Morgan State University where he studied Broadcasting and Drama. Foster worked with numerous radio stations including Cathy Hughes Radio One, Mix 106.5 both in America, and Virgin Island-based WTBN  before moving to Nigeria in 2000...
Lynika Strozier, scientist
Noteworthy, Profiles, United States

Lynika Strozier, scientist

Lynika Strozier ‑ an American scientist whose efforts to overcome a learning disability were described as inspirational – succumbed to the Covid 19  on June 7, 2020 at just 35 years of age. Strozier was born in Birmingham, Alabama, but moved to Chicago, with her mother, when she was a toddler. Strozier's mother was a drug addict, who was not able to care for her properly, and her grandmother raised her from age 6. She was diagnosed with learning disabilities at age 8, that profoundly affected both reading and math. According to The Chicago Tribune "when she read aloud, it was in such a halting manner that it sometimes sounded like she was gasping for breath." Her grandmother recounts being advised that Lynika's disability was so profound she shou...
Dietmar Seyferth, professor
Germany, Noteworthy, Profiles, United States

Dietmar Seyferth, professor

Dietmar Seyferth ‑ an emeritus professor of chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – succumbed to Covid-19 on June 6, 2020. He published widely on topics in organometallic chemistry and was the founding editor of the journal Organometallics. Seyferth was born in 1929 in Chemnitz, Germany and received his college education at the University of Buffalo. His PhD thesis dealt with main group chemistry under the mentorship of Eugene G. Rochow at Harvard. He spent his entire academic career at MIT, focusing initially on organophosphorus, organosilicon, and organomercury chemistry. He also contributed to organocobalt chemistry and organoiron chemistry, e.g. the popularization of Fe2S2(CO)6. He died on Saturday, June 6, 2020, due to complications from COVID-19....
Chris Trousdale, singer & actor
Noteworthy, Profiles, United States

Chris Trousdale, singer & actor

Chris Trousdale ‑ an American singer and actor – passed away on June 2, 2020 due to coronavirus. He was a member of the boyband Dream Street, working with Jesse McCartney, Frankie Galasso, Greg Raposo, and Matt Ballinger. Trousdale began his Broadway career when he was eight years old, touring with the production of Les Misérables, where he starred alongside Ashley Tisdale and after a successful run, moved to New York City at the age of ten, to join the Broadway production of the play with Ricky Martin and Lea Michele of Glee. While in New York, he joined the well known children's group The Broadway Kids (past members include Christy Carlson Romano, Jenna Ushkowitz, and Lacey Chabert) and performed in popular plays such as Beauty and the Beast, The Wizard of Oz...
Robert M. Laughlin, anthropologist & linguist
Noteworthy, Profiles, United States

Robert M. Laughlin, anthropologist & linguist

Robert Moody Laughlin ‑ an American anthropologist and linguist, and a curator at the Smithsonian Institution – died of Covid-19 on May 28, 2020. His research focused on the indigenous Maya peoples of Chiapas, Mexico and the Tzotzil language. In 1975, he published The Great Tzotzil Dictionary of San Lorenzo Zinacantán, containing 30,000 entries. He also published works on other aspects of Tzotzil culture, such as folktales and ethnobotany, and helped to found a local writer's cooperative, Sna Jtz'ibajom, and a theatre troupe. His work is credited with helping to standardize how the Tzotzil language is written and with reviving interest in indigenous languages in the region. Laughlin died of COVID-19 in Arlington, Virginia.