Looking in at Iowa

From The Tampa Tribune:

TAMPA - John Eastman, a former Tampa radio and TV personality who successfully sued two tobacco companies for contributing to his nicotine addiction, died Sunday at age 79. …

In 2005, he collected more than $3.2 million from Philip Morris USA and the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. …

Eastman was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in August 1928. He once told the Tribune that he started smoking at age 12.

He started his broadcast career in the early 1950s as an announcer at a Sioux City, Iowa, radio station. He worked at radio stations in Cedar Rapids; Jacksonville; Mobile, Ala.; Los Angeles; and Pittsburgh. …

From St. Petersburg Times:

He got his first taste of Hollywood as an usher at a CBS theater in Los Angeles. Mr. Eastman, a boy from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, knew he wanted to write scripts.

He co-wrote a 1965 episode of The Fugitive television show and did voiceover work. In the 1970s, he wrote a low-budget movie called Rooster. It was about cockfighting, but really, it was about “the conflict of mid-America’s system of values and attitude,” he once said. …

MUCH additional information about John Eastman from Cedar Rapids Gazette archives: It hasn’t been easy but — John Eastman Writes About Iowa and “The Fugitive” (August 23, 1964):

WHO’S John Eastman?

If you saw the Cedar Rapids Community Theater’s production of “Macbeth” last season, you undoubtedly noticed him in an outstanding performance as Macduff. If you listen to “The Iowa Story” on KCRG radio each weekday morning, you just may realize that he writes the scripts. …

This is a man who tried life in Hollywood and Miami and now has returned to the Cedar Rapids area where was born — to the home of his mother, Mrs. Hazle Gowans, in Marion — and who figures the ideal life would be at Stone City or somewhere else along the Wapsipinicon.

This is also a man who was admittedly foundering until a couple of years ago and then found himself when he found he had lymphatic cancer…

John Eastman was born in Cedar Rapids — the son of a well-known veterinarian, the late Dr. D. A. Eastman. The son intended to be a veterinarian, too, and went to Iowa State university at Ames to that end — “but then I found chemistry made me sick, actually and literally.”

So after he’d flunked out of Iowa State he went to the University of Florida to study journalism. And while he was there he wrote and produced a campus musical comedy.

Comedian Jerry Colonna was guest star and “He said he’d give me a job if I ever got to Hollywood. So I quit school the next day.”

Next chapter finds our young ex-student knocking at Colonna’s door and coming away empty-handed and so, like thousands of eager young hopefuls before and after him, he settled for something that would bring a regular paycheck until the pot o’gold.

Specifically, this was a job as a CBS usher—and Eastman recalls the glorious days when he dispensed free tickets… “I was also in charge of seat cushions under the proper people for the first ‘I Love Lucy’ show ever made,” he says gleefully now.

Then, “luckily,” he was drafted and put into air force security as a Russian linguist— fighting the good battle, of New York. His Russian now? “I could say ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ and maybe ‘Can I have a cigaret?’ “

After service it was back to Iowa and the University of Iowa campus, where he studied in the Ford Foundation project headed by that vastly successful play and movie writer, Richard Maibaum — and worked at KXIC in Iowa City and WMT in Cedar Rapids simultaneously with his
campus activities.

Of these days he recalls mostly sleepless nights and the fact that, during a short stint in the WMT weather tower, he once finger-painted the weather map on a pretty girl’s back. Fired? “No, but let us say that the relationship between the station and me was a little strained thereafter.” …

He is living and breathing Iowa history these days by reason of his “The Iowa Story” series, which is now being aired over 22 stations under auspices of the Iowa Electric Light and Power Company and the Iowa State Education Association (on KCRG each weekday morning for five minutes starting at 8:50). …

“Iowa Story” has been on the air for about a year. It has been the Eastman family’s bread and butter and allowed Eastman to proceed simultaneously with that great gamble that Is free-lance writing. He also hopes to put it on television, and he and Ken Butcher of Miami have been filming it in recent weeks.

The radio series, not so incidentally, was a prize-winner in a competition amid all advertising agencies handling public utility accounts in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. “Iowa Story” is not an academic history of the state. It’s a journalistic one says Eastman, dealing with a Lillian Russell, a Bob Feller, the Indians . . .

Image via Wikipedia

5/1/08 UPDATE: Gazette obituary here.

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UPDATE: Steve Baumgartner is actually from Oelwein, Iowa, not Maquoketa, as reported earlier.

Four videos in past month appear on Steve’s MySpace videos page.

Also, here is a photo of Steve

050514-N-5526M-012 14, April 2005 Fire controlman Steven Baumgartner from Oelwein, Iowa, assigned to Combat Systems Department aboard the Ticonderoga Class Guided Missile Cruiser USS Normandy (CG-60), fires the twin .50 Caliper Machine Gun during a pre aimed calibration (PAC) fire exercise. …

4/30 UPDATE: Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier has additional information about Steve Baumgartner from family: Former Oelwein man killed in street luge accident

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April 28, 2008

From Kansas City Star:

Kansas City, Kan., police have identified the man killed Saturday while riding a street luge as 28-year-old Steve Baumgarter of Iowa.

Authorities said Baumgarter had come to the area to participate in an unsanctioned race on Sunday. The race was canceled after his death. …

KCCI reports that he was from Maquoketa:

The accident happened about 8 p.m. Saturday in Rosedale Park and killed Steve Baumgarter, of Maquoketa.

Friends of the victim said he was a Navy petty officer 1st Class who was home on leave. …

And from KMBC (includes video news report):

According to police, Steve Baumgarter was preparing for the unsanctioned event. He was going down a road on a luge about five feet long when he lost control and hit a tree. He died on impact.

Friends of the victim said he was a Navy petty officer 1st Class, who was home on leave.

Investigators said Baumgarter was wearing a helmet as well as protective leather.

From Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Pamela Young grew up on a farm in Kendall, about 15 miles southeast of Tomah. After earning a bachelor’s degree from Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa in 1992, she came to Milwaukee, where she worked for Allen-Bradley and Stano Landscaping.

She earned a teaching certificate in elementary education from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 1997 and a master’s degree in exceptional education from UWM in 2004.

[She and husband James Young II] met in a cornfield in 1991 while they were working for Ciba Seeds in Marion, Iowa. ..

News obituary also includes photo of Pam Young.

From The Chosun Ilbo (South Korea):

The adoptions of the four children were arranged by Holt Children’s Services. An official with Holt said the four children were born to different unmarried mothers.

According to Holt, Ethan, Seth and Eleanor were abandoned by their mothers as soon as they were born. Carrying their one-week-old children, the three unwed mothers visited Holt and asked that their babies be adopted overseas.

Mira was three months old when her birth mother visited Holt. “That means Mira’s birth mother must have agonized for three months about whether she should raise Mira alone or abandon her for adoption,” the Holt official said.

The children were adopted by the Sueppels in different years — Ethan in 1998, Seth in 1999, Mira in 2002, and Eleanor in 2005. …

See also KCRG story by Mark Geary, Remembering The Four Sueppel Children; Gazette obituary, Sueppel, Sheryl (Kesterson), Steve, Ethan, Seth, Mira and Eleanor; or complete Gazette coverage here.

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An interesting adoption-related post with valuable links and quotes here: ‘Forever Family’ six feet under.

The couple had adopted four children from South Korea; Ethan, 10, Seth, 7, Mira, 5, and Eleanor, 3 via Holt international (”…dedicated to carrying out God’s plan for every child to have a permanent, loving family”) which says it will only pass along the information to the children’s original mothers if they ask (see S Korean adoption agency saw no problem with American parents “our agency doesn’t reach out first. Only if they contact us, we will inform them what happened,” Hong said, adding that no phone calls were received so far.”) …

4/1 UPDATE: Gazette article, Deaths of Sueppel children add to adoption debate in Korea

Also, check out Gazette blogger Alicia Ebaugh’s post, A Korean view of the Sueppel murders.

From Oral Roberts University:

TULSA - Gloria Burzynski, a sophomore on the Oral Roberts’ women’s track and field team, passed away on Friday evening after being involved in a two-car accident.

“We are deeply saddened by the loss of Gloria,” ORU Athletics Director Mike Carter said. “ORU Athletics sends its deepest sympathies to the Burzynski family. We know she will be missed.”

The Elmhurst, Ill., native joined the track team this fall after spending a season at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Burzynski competed in the throw’s events, specifically the shot put. …

A memorial service is planned for 3 p.m. at Christ’s Chapel on the ORU campus on Wednesday, March 12.

From MyFox Tampa Bay:

Tampa Bay’s 10 reports that chief meteorologist Dick Fletcher died Tuesday morning at St. Anthony’s Hospital in St. Petersburg.  He had been hospitalized since he suffered a massive stroke last week, and had not been responding to treatment, the station’s website reports. …

In 2003, Fletcher had suffered a stroke, but quickly recovered and return to his on-air position.  He had been a fixture at WTSP since 1980, and he was a native of Omaha, Nebraska.  He was a graduate of the University of Omaha, and also worked in Cedar Rapids, Denver, Corpus Christi, and Omaha before coming to the Bay Area.

According to Gazette archives, Dick Fletcher was at KCRG in 1967 (in his mid-twenties), and shared broadcast duties with Bob Brooks at that time:

KCRG TV 9 

5:45–News on 9 with Dick Fletcher
The full story behind today’s area and State happenings; weather forecast; Bob Brooks’ sports report.

From WTSP-TV:

He had an early ambition to be a television news broadcaster and started his career in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, working as a news anchor and occasionally doing the weather. …

Fletcher was born in Omaha, Nebraska and started his television career in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. In the early 70’s he began working as a full time meteorologist in Denver Colorado, before moving to Tampa and joining the staff at Tampa Bay’s 10 News in 1980. …

From Jackson Hole Star Tribune:

SHERIDAN — A judge has sentenced a Sheridan man to serve between five to 10 years in prison on a conviction of vehicular homicide.

District Judge John Fenn on Thursday sentenced Russell Lloyd DeSantis, 35. Authorities say DeSantis was drunk when he drove head on into a motorcycle driven by John A. Lindgren of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

The crash happened Sept. 3 on  …

John Lindgren’s Gazette obituary is here.

From Department of Defense release:

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Staff Sgt. Robert J. Miller, 24, of Iowa City, Iowa, died Jan. 25 in Barikowt, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when he encountered small arms fire while conducting combat operations. He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne), Fort Bragg, N.C.

Jim Wilson, Jr. died this week after cardiac arrest:

… On June 13, 2003, Diane Langton e-mailed the Wilsons. She had read about what happened and wanted to help.

Cedar Rapids is Langton’s hometown. She and her husband were born and raised there, and it pained her to have the city associated with the Wilsons’ heartache.

She was healthy, her blood type matched Jim Jr.’s, and she, too, had a son the same age as Jim Jr. “(I) would certainly wish that someone would volunteer to help save his life if necessary,” she wrote the family.

In a four-hour surgery March 16, 2004, doctors at University Hospital removed Langton’s left kidney and placed it in Jim’s body. The surgery was a success.

The Wilsons called Langton an angel.

Langton, who now has five grandchildren, said she always felt this is something God wanted done. …

Diane Langton is Assistant Librarian here at The Gazette.