Obituaries

Gene Richard Schaefer of Bradenton and formerly of Anna Maria Island died Sept. 6, 2024. He was born in Chicago, grew up in Springfield Ohio, graduated from Wittenberg University and served in the U.S. Navy as a naval lieutenant aviator.

James Donald Blessing, 82, of Atlanta, died Oct. 26, 2024, after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. Jim was born in Johnson City, Tennessee.

Retired Secret Service Assistant Director Robert 'Bob' Snow of Ashburn, Virginia, 93, passed away peacefully on March 22, 2025. Bob was born in Rochester, New York.

John B. Bestic, Jr., a two-decade resident of Pawleys Island, South Carolina, died on March 23 after a battle with pancreatic cancer. He was a retired senior Central Intelligence Agency officer and a Vietnam veteran.

Lois Critchfield of Williamsburg, VA died in late March 2025. She attended Miami Edison Highschool and Brenau College in Gainesville, GA, and she held BS and MA degrees in economics from the University of Florida.

Dick Carlson, a former journalist who led the Voice of America under Republican administrations decades before the GOP was shaped by hard-right commentators — including his son Tucker Carlson — and President Donald Trump began a push to effectively silence the U.S.-funded broadcaster, died March 24 at his home in Boca Grande, Florida.

George M. “Mickey” Kappes, 93, of Merritt Island, FL passed away on March 23, 2025.

Oleg Gordievsky, who has died aged 86, was a colonel in the KGB who served as an agent for MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, from 1974 to 1985.

Jay Rodney Hamon passed on 17 March 2025. Rodney grew up in Linthicum Maryland.