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Obituaries
'One Dynamic Lady:' Norma Powell Raised Bar for Minority Staff
Norma C. Powell, a retired administrative assistant to four CWA vice presidents died unexpectedly of a heart attack Feb. 2 at a hospital in Birmingham, Ala., after being admitted for pneumonia. She was 66.
"Norma inspired workers to organize by using herself as an example of someone who came from a family with few economic resources, yet was able to achieve and to rise up in the union," said District 3 Vice President Noah Savant, who once worked for Powell as a CWA representative.
"She was a true trade unionist, very gifted in mobilizing and organizing," said retired District 3 Vice President Jimmy Smith, the last VP she worked for, helping organize 9,000 Cingular workers.
Savant and Smith attended Powell's funeral in Birmingham with a host of CWA leaders.
"Norma became the first African American administrative assistant in District 10," now part of 3, said Booker Lester, administrative assistant to Savant, who also came up under Powell's tutelage. "She was one dynamic lady who was a pathfinder for African Americans."
Walter Andrews, president of the CWA Minority Caucus, knew Powell from 1978. "After Districts 3 and 10 came together to form one district in 1986, she became a mother to us all in all nine states."
Indeed, she did rally the troops in all nine - Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, North and South Carolina, Georgia and Florida - for bargaining mobilizations behind major contracts at AT&T, BellSouth, Sprint and elsewhere, to elect union-friendly candidates and to lobby for the union's legislative agenda.
Andrews said the CWA Minority Caucus Conference, Aug. 25-28 in Chicago, will this year be dedicated to Powell's memory.
Born in Chicago April 27, 1938, Powell signed on as a long distance operator there with Illinois Bell. In 1971, she moved to Birmingham, Ala., to work for South Central Bell and served as a steward and member of CWA Local 10902's executive board.
She joined the staff as a CWA representative in Birmingham in December 1974. District 10 Vice President Mitch Roshto, now deceased, elevated her to administrative assistant in June 1980. She continued in that job when Theodore Volk succeeded Roshto in 1983, moved to the District 3 Decatur, Ga., office after consolidation of the two districts, and continued as an administrative assistant under District 3 Vice Presidents Gene Russo and Jimmy Smith. She retired to Birmingham in April 1999.
Powell is survived by a son, Michael of Indian Trail, N.C.; three sisters, Gertrude Coleman, Mary Frances Coleman and Carolyn Edwards, all of Birmingham; two brothers, Richard Baker of Moreno Valley, Calif., and Ronald Coleman of Birmingham, and two granddaughters.
Don Hoak: District 1 Health Care Pioneer
Donald Hoak, a retired CWA representative and pioneer in organizing health care workers in District 1, died suddenly Jan. 14 while on a trip to Florida with his wife. He was 70.
A charter member of Buffalo, N.Y., Local 1122, he worked for New York Telephone Co. from the early 1950s as a switchboard equipment technician. He was active as steward and chief steward from 1968 to 1971, won election to the executive board in December 1972, became local vice president in December 1975 and president in 1978.
He bargained contracts for the Visiting Nurses Association in Buffalo and organized several other units. In 1983, he helped organize 700 registered nurses at Buffalo General Hospital and soon thereafter 622 service and maintenance workers at DeGraff Memorial Hospital.
"He totally supported the nurses," said CWA Representative Ellen Gallant, then a District 1 organizer. "He sent nurses from VNA to Buffalo to talk to them."
She remembers Hoak as "a sweetheart of a man and a very popular union leader."
The workers at the two hospitals formed Nurses United/CWA Local 1168 that represents more than 5,000 employees at what is now the Kalieda Health System.
Hoak's effort was rewarded with CWA's President's Annual Award in 1983, and the Western New York CWA Council's Eugene J. Mays Award.
Always active in Democratic politics, he was a member of Gov. Mario Cuomo's Labor Committee. He also served on the executive board and was a trustee of the Buffalo AFL-CIO.
Hoak joined the staff as a CWA representative in Cheektowaga, N.Y., in February 1986. He moved with that office in December 1993 to Buffalo and retired in 1995.
Hoak is survived by his wife, Joan; five daughters, Joan Kidd of Niagara Falls, N.Y., Sue Lopez of Tucson, Ariz., Kim Nero of Bethel Park, Pa., Shelley McDonald of North Tonawanda, N.Y., and Donna Crum of Wheatfield, N.Y.; two sisters, Joan Ryan and Janet Schuh, both of Buffalo, and 10 grandchildren.
'Nobody Didn't Like' Guild's Harry Culver
Harry S. Culver, one of the Newspaper Guild's top three officers from 1977 to 1987, who spent 35 years as a United Press International reporter, died Feb. 13. He was 82.
"Harry chaired many a contentious Guild convention, including my first one, with charm and wit," said TNG-CWA President Linda Foley. "But beneath his 'aw shucks' down-home demeanor, there was a tough, committed, savvy union leader. Maybe that's why nobody didn't like Harry Culver."
Born in Chickasha, Okla., Culver began his journalism career on the staff of the Daily Oklahoman at the University of Oklahoma, where he earned a masters' degree in journalism and experienced his first strike in 1942.
He served as a captain, flight leader and B-17 pilot during World War II, then became a Guild member in 1950 when he went to work for United Press in Oklahoma City as a political and legislative reporter.
He was elected to the United Press National Committee in 1955 and the following year, for the first time, represented the Guild at the bargaining table. He served two terms as president of his local, the Wire Service Guild, four as secretary-treasurer and three years as chair of the WSG national organizing committee.
In 1962, he won election as a delegate to TNG's 1962 convention, and in subsequent years chaired its Bargaining, Finance and Constitution Committees.
He served as national coordinator of WSG's 1969 strike against Associated Press and, in 1972, won major gains as head of the UPI pension negotiating committee.
Also chair of the Guild's political committee, in 1973, he was elected an international vice president.
He became TNG's international chairperson in 1977, one of the Guild's three principal officers, along with its president and secretary-treasurer, and as such chaired the Guild's conventions and meetings of its executive board. He held that position until he retired from service to TNG in 1987 and became public information officer for the Oklahoma state budget committee.
He received many awards in his lifetime and in 1979 was inducted into the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame.
Culver is survived by his wife Mattie Lee Culver, daughters Linda Slott and Peggy Dubois, son David, two sisters Vivien Boyce and Genevieve Smith, brother Pat, 10 grandchildren and one great grandchild.
Norma C. Powell, a retired administrative assistant to four CWA vice presidents died unexpectedly of a heart attack Feb. 2 at a hospital in Birmingham, Ala., after being admitted for pneumonia. She was 66.
"Norma inspired workers to organize by using herself as an example of someone who came from a family with few economic resources, yet was able to achieve and to rise up in the union," said District 3 Vice President Noah Savant, who once worked for Powell as a CWA representative.
"She was a true trade unionist, very gifted in mobilizing and organizing," said retired District 3 Vice President Jimmy Smith, the last VP she worked for, helping organize 9,000 Cingular workers.
Savant and Smith attended Powell's funeral in Birmingham with a host of CWA leaders.
"Norma became the first African American administrative assistant in District 10," now part of 3, said Booker Lester, administrative assistant to Savant, who also came up under Powell's tutelage. "She was one dynamic lady who was a pathfinder for African Americans."
Walter Andrews, president of the CWA Minority Caucus, knew Powell from 1978. "After Districts 3 and 10 came together to form one district in 1986, she became a mother to us all in all nine states."
Indeed, she did rally the troops in all nine - Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, North and South Carolina, Georgia and Florida - for bargaining mobilizations behind major contracts at AT&T, BellSouth, Sprint and elsewhere, to elect union-friendly candidates and to lobby for the union's legislative agenda.
Andrews said the CWA Minority Caucus Conference, Aug. 25-28 in Chicago, will this year be dedicated to Powell's memory.
Born in Chicago April 27, 1938, Powell signed on as a long distance operator there with Illinois Bell. In 1971, she moved to Birmingham, Ala., to work for South Central Bell and served as a steward and member of CWA Local 10902's executive board.
She joined the staff as a CWA representative in Birmingham in December 1974. District 10 Vice President Mitch Roshto, now deceased, elevated her to administrative assistant in June 1980. She continued in that job when Theodore Volk succeeded Roshto in 1983, moved to the District 3 Decatur, Ga., office after consolidation of the two districts, and continued as an administrative assistant under District 3 Vice Presidents Gene Russo and Jimmy Smith. She retired to Birmingham in April 1999.
Powell is survived by a son, Michael of Indian Trail, N.C.; three sisters, Gertrude Coleman, Mary Frances Coleman and Carolyn Edwards, all of Birmingham; two brothers, Richard Baker of Moreno Valley, Calif., and Ronald Coleman of Birmingham, and two granddaughters.
Don Hoak: District 1 Health Care Pioneer
Donald Hoak, a retired CWA representative and pioneer in organizing health care workers in District 1, died suddenly Jan. 14 while on a trip to Florida with his wife. He was 70.
A charter member of Buffalo, N.Y., Local 1122, he worked for New York Telephone Co. from the early 1950s as a switchboard equipment technician. He was active as steward and chief steward from 1968 to 1971, won election to the executive board in December 1972, became local vice president in December 1975 and president in 1978.
He bargained contracts for the Visiting Nurses Association in Buffalo and organized several other units. In 1983, he helped organize 700 registered nurses at Buffalo General Hospital and soon thereafter 622 service and maintenance workers at DeGraff Memorial Hospital.
"He totally supported the nurses," said CWA Representative Ellen Gallant, then a District 1 organizer. "He sent nurses from VNA to Buffalo to talk to them."
She remembers Hoak as "a sweetheart of a man and a very popular union leader."
The workers at the two hospitals formed Nurses United/CWA Local 1168 that represents more than 5,000 employees at what is now the Kalieda Health System.
Hoak's effort was rewarded with CWA's President's Annual Award in 1983, and the Western New York CWA Council's Eugene J. Mays Award.
Always active in Democratic politics, he was a member of Gov. Mario Cuomo's Labor Committee. He also served on the executive board and was a trustee of the Buffalo AFL-CIO.
Hoak joined the staff as a CWA representative in Cheektowaga, N.Y., in February 1986. He moved with that office in December 1993 to Buffalo and retired in 1995.
Hoak is survived by his wife, Joan; five daughters, Joan Kidd of Niagara Falls, N.Y., Sue Lopez of Tucson, Ariz., Kim Nero of Bethel Park, Pa., Shelley McDonald of North Tonawanda, N.Y., and Donna Crum of Wheatfield, N.Y.; two sisters, Joan Ryan and Janet Schuh, both of Buffalo, and 10 grandchildren.
'Nobody Didn't Like' Guild's Harry Culver
Harry S. Culver, one of the Newspaper Guild's top three officers from 1977 to 1987, who spent 35 years as a United Press International reporter, died Feb. 13. He was 82.
"Harry chaired many a contentious Guild convention, including my first one, with charm and wit," said TNG-CWA President Linda Foley. "But beneath his 'aw shucks' down-home demeanor, there was a tough, committed, savvy union leader. Maybe that's why nobody didn't like Harry Culver."
Born in Chickasha, Okla., Culver began his journalism career on the staff of the Daily Oklahoman at the University of Oklahoma, where he earned a masters' degree in journalism and experienced his first strike in 1942.
He served as a captain, flight leader and B-17 pilot during World War II, then became a Guild member in 1950 when he went to work for United Press in Oklahoma City as a political and legislative reporter.
He was elected to the United Press National Committee in 1955 and the following year, for the first time, represented the Guild at the bargaining table. He served two terms as president of his local, the Wire Service Guild, four as secretary-treasurer and three years as chair of the WSG national organizing committee.
In 1962, he won election as a delegate to TNG's 1962 convention, and in subsequent years chaired its Bargaining, Finance and Constitution Committees.
He served as national coordinator of WSG's 1969 strike against Associated Press and, in 1972, won major gains as head of the UPI pension negotiating committee.
Also chair of the Guild's political committee, in 1973, he was elected an international vice president.
He became TNG's international chairperson in 1977, one of the Guild's three principal officers, along with its president and secretary-treasurer, and as such chaired the Guild's conventions and meetings of its executive board. He held that position until he retired from service to TNG in 1987 and became public information officer for the Oklahoma state budget committee.
He received many awards in his lifetime and in 1979 was inducted into the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame.
Culver is survived by his wife Mattie Lee Culver, daughters Linda Slott and Peggy Dubois, son David, two sisters Vivien Boyce and Genevieve Smith, brother Pat, 10 grandchildren and one great grandchild.