Obituaries

Author and advocate for public schools Gerald Bracey, 69, died suddenly.

This is a huge loss to those of us concerned with the wrongheaded trends going on in public education.
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Comedian Soupy Sales, born Milton Supman, 83, has died after suffering many health problems in recent years:

His greatest success came in New York with "The Soupy Sales Show" — an ostensible children's show that had little to do with Captain Kangaroo and other kiddie fare. Sales' manic, improvisational style also attracted an older audience that responded to his envelope-pushing antics.

Sales, who was typically clad in a black sweater and oversized bow-tie, was once suspended for a week after telling his legion of tiny listeners to empty their mothers' purse and mail him all the pieces of green paper bearing pictures of the presidents.