Newsmakers

IUE-CWA Local 84798 member Matt Nickels received a commendation from the mayor of Dayton for saving the life of a 7-year-old boy. Nickels, 40, while driving to work at General Motors' Moraine, Ohio, truck assembly plant on Jan. 24, saw what he thought was a hand protruding from an ice-covered gravel pit. He doubled back, parked and attempted to crawl out to Kendall Hock, who had fallen through the ice when he tried to retrieve a baseball. Nickels took off his belt and reached out toward the boy, then the ice cracked and he, too, found himself in the frigid water. He swam to Kendall, lifted him out of the water, then climbed out himself - all in 8-degree weather. Paramedics took both to a nearby hospital, where they were placed in warmers. In the short time of his exposure, Nickels' body temperature had dropped to 95.6 degrees. The boy, who had been in the water longer, was kept overnight for observation. Both are fine now. What he encountered that day "scared the living daylights out of me," Nickels said. "I've got a 6-year-old and an 11-year-old - it could have been one of my kids out there."

John Howard, assistant to two vice presidents for Telecommunications, has retired. Howard, 53, came to the CWA Research Department as a college intern in the summer of 1973. After completing a master's degree at Amherst College in May 1974, he went to work for Office and Professional Employees International Union Local 153 in New York City. In October 1974, he became an editor and collective bargaining researcher for the Bureau of National Affairs in Washington, D.C. He joined the CWA Research Department in Washington in March 1977 as a staff assistant and later became an economist statistician. T.O. Moses, then vice president for Telecommunications, selected Howard to be his assistant in Dallas, Texas, in March 1995. Howard assisted in negotiations for GTE and Centel, and for the ALLTEL national pension fund agreement, and serviced the union's Sprint locals. He returned to Washington as assistant to current Telecommunications Vice President Jimmy Gurganus in September 2002.

Ken Ruth, CWA's Florida director, who bargained a half-dozen contracts with Bell South Advertising and Publishing and organized a number of public sector units in that state, has retired. In 1968, Ruth, 59, formerly a retail sales manager, went to work for Southern Bell in Coral Gables, Fla. He served as a steward and chief steward for Local 3107 and was elected secretary-treasurer in 1982. Later the same year he joined the staff as a CWA representative. He was promoted to Florida director by then District 3 Vice President Gene Russo in February 1991, transferred to the Orlando office, and continued in that post until he retired.

Doug Thompson, administrative assistant to the vice president of District 2, has retired. Thompson, 56, studied electronics at a technical school in New York City shortly after graduating high school in his native Belize. After working briefly as a press operator, stock clerk and dispatcher, in December 1977 he became a computer technician for ITT World Communications in New York and served CWA Local 1172 as a steward, chief steward and president. He was hired as a CWA representative in the District 1 headquarters in New York in December 1986, transferred to the District 2 Richmond, Va., office in March 1992, and in February 1997 was tapped by District 2 Vice President Pete Catucci to serve as his administrative assistant in Washington, D.C. For a number of years he served as staff liaison to the CWA Convention Appeals Committee. Thompson has returned to Belize for his retirement years.