Patsy Fryman, Retired Top Staff, Dies

Patsy L. Fryman, who served 10 years as an assistant to CWA President Glenn Watts, died recently following a lengthy illness. She was 66.

An operator for Michigan Bell Telephone from 1953 to 1961 in Battle Creek, Mich., Fryman became increasingly active in CWA, rising to president of Local 4032, now part of Local 4031.

Selected for staff training by then-CWA President Joseph Bierne, in 1962, she helped organize operators at New York Telephone Co. under then-New York Area Director Morton Bahr and then worked as an organizer in the Philadelphia area.

She served as temporary staff until April 1963, when she was hired as a CWA Representative for District 4, working out of the Lansing, Mich., office. Ten years later she was named CWA's Ohio Director.

Fryman was tapped by Watts in 1975 to become his assistant in the union's Washington, D.C. headquarters. While in that position, she was named by President Jimmy Carter in January 1979 to serve on his National Commission for Employment Policies.

The election of Bahr as CWA president brought a restructuring of the headquarters staff, and in December 1985 Fryman was named assistant to Executive Vice President M.E. Nichols. She retired from the position in October 1988 to live in Plant City, Fla.

Fryman passed away Oct. 13 at the LifePath Hospice in Sun City, Fla. She is survived by a nephew, Orman Trumblee Jr. of Battle Creek.