2022 made a long list

Nadler was a baker who in 1963 founded the eponymous Nadler’s Bakery. Born in Zug, Switzerland, he apprenticed as a pastry chef and served in the Swiss Army, then immigrated to the United States and, this time in the U.S. Army, was stationed at Fort Sam Houston. When he decided to open a bakery, he came back to San Antonio. Good move — in 2011, he was named the World’s Baker of the Year by the Italy-based International Union of Bakers and Bakers-Confectioners. He died at age 91 on Jan. 1.

Charles McGee

McGee was a pilot in the 332nd Fighter Group and as such, one of the last living Tuskegee Airmen. Black servicemen in America’s segregated military were typically relegated to noncombat jobs in World War II, but this unit was the great exception. Originally from Cleveland, Ohio. McGee flew 409 combat missions in three wars and retired a colonel in 1973 after 30 years in the Air Force. President George W. Bush presented him the Congressional Gold Medal and President Trump recognized his honorary promotion to brigadier general. McGee visited Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph just weeks before he died at 102 on Jan. 16.

Rick Malone

Malone was a theater artist and co-founder of San Antonio’s Classic Theater, retiring only when the pandemic forced it to close. He and his wife, Diane Malone, were married 62 years and moved to San Antonio, her hometown, after his Army career. They worked for nearly every local theater company and co-founded the Classic in 2008 with five other partners. Rick Malone died at 81 on Jan. 18.

Dr. Fernando Guerra

Guerra, a pediatrician, was the director of the San Antonio Metropolitan Health District from 1987 to 2010. Born and raised in San Antonio, he was a battalion surgeon in Vietnam and taught at the University of Texas Medical Branch before opening his own practice here. The city approached him to run its public health agency, where he handled crises that included the AIDS epidemic and Hurricane Katrina’s fallout. He died on Jan. 21 at 82.

James “Jim” Dublin

Dublin was involved in major economic development projects, including deals that landed the Toyota plant on the South Side in 2003 and kept the Spurs in San Antonio in 1993 when the team was for sale. Born in Conroe, he majored in journalism at Trinity University and became the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce public affairs director in 1973. Dublin helped establish the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation (now greater:SATX), the Texas Research & Technology Foundation, BioMed SA and the Alamo Bowl. He died on Feb. 22 at 73.

John Esquivel

Esquivel, a longtime street performer known as Hispanic Elvis, was a larger-than-life figure, dancing and singing near Mi Tierra Café in Market Square and other downtown locations. When asked why he impersonated Presley, he told the Express-News in March that it was simply because “Elvis was the one and only.” Esquivel died on March 31 at 76.

Eugene Habiger

Habiger had a wide-ranging military, academic and civic career. He oversaw U.S. strategic nuclear forces, revamped security at the U.S. Energy Department, then ran the San Antonio Water System. In the Air Force, he worked with Soviet leaders to reduce the nuclear footprints of the United States and the Soviet Union. He made SAWS a more efficient operation as president and CEO starting in 2001, but stepped down in 2004 over differences with board members over the utility’s future. Habiger died on March 18 at 82.

Warren Beemer

Beemer was an energetic faith leader, first at Cornerstone Church and starting in 2013 as lead pastor at Healing Place Church San Antonio in Boerne. In 2004, Beemer helped rescue seven Texas children abandoned in a Nigerian orphanage during a mission to deliver supplies there. He was killed at 52 in a traffic accident in Louisiana on April 1 while on his way to visit relatives in Baton Rouge, where he grew up.

Leroy “Swede” Svendsen Jr.

Svendsen was a legend in Air Force special operations, running a commando operation in Vietnam in which he flew more than 100 missions in support of U.S. Army special forces. He was born in Chicago and first enlisted in the Navy at age 14. Honorably discharged in 1946, he began training as a pilot at Randolph AFB the following year. Svendsen rose through the Air Force ranks to retire as a two-star general in 1980. He died on Feb. 14 at 93.

Dorothy Price Collins

Born in Nacogdoches in 1932, Collins was an educator and a civil rights and NAACP activist who fought for equality in San Antonio. In the 1960s, she led protests outside Joske’s Department Store downtown that resulted in the integration of its Camellia Room. In 1963, Collins was among the first Black teachers at Winston Elementary School. A board member for the National Coalition of 100 Black Women and the Alamo Area Alliance of Black Educators, she was inducted into the San Antonio Women’s Hall of Fame in 2004. Collins died on April 9 at 90.

James Lee Bynum

Bynum was a retired Air Force senior master sergeant and one of the last Tuskegee Airmen in San Antonio. Born in Lexington County, S.C., he grew up in Philadelphia and served a 30-year military career that took him from Japan to Washington to Paris. In 1971, he became the postmaster at Lackland AFB. He died April 29 at 101.

Bob Krueger

A New Braunfels native, Krueger was an East Coast academic, Texas politician and American diplomat admired for high intellect and strong public values. He served as provost and dean at Duke University, won election as a Democrat to two terms in the U.S. House and later to the Texas Railroad Commission, and was President Carter’s “ambassador-at-large” to Mexico and the U.S. ambassador to Burundi in the Clinton administration. Krueger repeatedly ran unsuccessfully for a U.S. Senate seat; appointed to one by Gov. Ann Richards, he held it only a short time. He died April 30 at 86.

Carey Latimore

Latimore was a civil rights scholar and author of books on African American history. An independent thinker and tenacious researcher, he chaired Trinity University’s history department for nine years and served on the Alamo Citizen Advisory Committee. Latimore aspired to create a civil rights institute in downtown San Antonio to promote discussion on racial reconciliation and a deeper understanding of the Alamo and the complex history of Texas. He died of cancer on July 26 at 46.

Kenneth Platt

Platt was a retired Air Force tech sergeant and one of three Pearl Harbor veterans in San Antonio. He was known for his gravelly voice and genial manner at local veterans’ gatherings but had only been able to talk about his wartime experience after meeting other veterans in the 1980s. Bullets from a strafing Japanese plane narrowly missed Platt at Schoefield Barracks during the Dec. 7, 1941, attack that plunged the U.S. into World War II. He fought elsewhere in the Pacific Theater before settling in San Antonio in 1943. Platt died on Aug. 3 at 101.

John Vargas Jr.

Vargas was a young father who received one of the first double-lung transplants after becoming ill with COVID-19. He graduated from Jay High School and worked in the oil fields in West and South Texas until taking a job at a call center in San Antonio to be closer to his two daughters. In June 2020, he caught COVID-19 and his health deteriorated for months. When he received two new lungs in October 2020, doctors said it would likely buy him 10 more years of life. After only two years, his body rejected the lungs, and he died July 28 from respiratory failure at 36.

Heinz Bachman

When he died on Aug. 27, Bachman was 100, one of two known Pearl Harbor veterans in the San Antonio area. On Dec. 7, 1941, he was an Army Air Corps enlistee at Hickam Field on the island of Oahu. After Bachman moved to San Antonio with his wife and son, few people were aware he was a survivor of the attack until in recent years. First responders from area police and fire departments paraded their vehicles by his modest Northwest Side house to salute him on his most recent birthday.

Lowry Mays

Considered a risk-taker and fearless entrepreneur, Mays was the San Antonio businessman who co-founded Clear Channel Communications, now known as iHeartMedia. One of the country’s largest radio station operators, with holdings in the U.S., Europe, Mexico, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the company drew criticism for squeezing out competitors. Mays and his late wife started the Mays Family Cancer Center at UT Health San Antonio and the Mays Business School at Texas A&M University, making donations in the millions to the university, which was his alma mater. He died on Sept. 12 at 87.

George Irish

Irish was a publisher of Texas newspapers, including the San Antonio Light, a philanthropist and civic leader. He worked at the Hearst Corp. for 29 years and was publisher of the Beaumont Enterprise and the Midland Reporter-Telegram as well as the Light. Hearst closed the Light in 1993 to buy the rival Express-News from Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. Irish then led the Hearst Newspapers Group and two of the Hearst family’s philanthropic foundations. He supported local charities and civic works, including the San Antonio Symphony and the historic San Fernando Cathedral. He died on Sept. 13 at 78.

Vincent Di Maio

Di Maio was a San Antonio-based, world-renowned forensic pathologist. He was credited with raising the professional standards of the Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office and designing its 52,000-square-foot headquarters during his tenure from 1980 to 2006. He was an expert witness for multiple high-profile criminal cases including the 2007 murder trial of music producer Phil Spector in Los Angeles, where Di Maio testified for the defense. He died on died Sept. 18 at 81 after a long battle with COVID-19.

Joci Straus

Straus was a philanthropist, arts advocate and civic leader who raised millions of dollars to restore the Majestic and Empire theaters to save them from demolition. The spaces were dubbed the Joci Straus Performing Arts Center in 2013 in her honor. Her son, Joe Straus, served as speaker of the Texas House from 2009 to 2019. Joci Straus was born in Wilkes-Barre, Penn. but spent most of her life in San Antonio. She was appointed to the National Endowment for the Arts by President Ronald Regan and served on the National Council on the Arts. She died on Oct. 8 at 91.

Lucky

Lucky, one of the oldest Asian elephants in the country, found a home at the San Antonio Zoo in 1962. She was born in Thailand in 1960 but at 4 months old was taken to Brookfield Zoo in Chicago, arriving in San Antonio two years later. Until 1992, visiting children could ride Lucky. When the zoo let Lucky live alone, it was sued by the Animal Legal Defense Fund, accused of violating the Endangered Species Act. In 2016, the suit was dropped after Lucky got two new friends, Asian elephants named Nicole and Karen. Lucky far outlived the average lifespan of an Asian elephant but at 62, her quality of life had declined and she was euthanized on Nov. 1.

Pedro Rodriguez

Rodriguez transformed the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center into an organization with a global reputation and a focus on cultural preservation. The center is devoted to Chicano, Latino and Native American arts and culture and Rodriguez joined it in 1998. Under his leadership, it developed new theater pieces that toured the U.S. and Mexico, launched the longest-running Latino film festival in the country, CineFestival, and started the Tejano Conjunto Festival and the Guadalupe Dance Company. Rodriguez was an Army veteran, an activist, a painter and a Chicano studies professor, and helped found the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture. He died on Dec. 1 at 86.

Solomon John “Sol” Casseb III

Casseb was a highly regarded retired state district judge who was widely praised for his mediation of thorny civil family cases. The Republican jurist, who grew up in San Antonio, was also a drummer, performing with his brother in The Court Jesters, a band made up of lawyers. He was appointed by then-Gov. Rick Perry to the 288th District Court bench in 2008 and held it until 2018. He remained a visiting judge in Bexar and neighboring counties. He died on Dec. 7 at 74.

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claire.bryan@express-news.net