Milestones

By Unmesh Kher, Lina Lofaro, Barbara Maddux, Kate Novack and Deirdre Van Dyk Sunday, Aug. 31, 2003
    • FIRED. ISIAH THOMAS, 42, coach of the Indiana Pacers basketball team, by newly hired president Larry Bird. The onetime Pistons star led the Pacers to the play-offs in the three years he coached the team. Observers say the fact that the Pacers never made it past the first round and a long-running rivalry with Celtics legend Bird were the probable reasons behind Thomas' dismissal. Bird's former assistant Rick Carlisle is the leading candidate to take over the job.

    ARRESTED. JEFFREY LEE PARSON, 18, for allegedly spreading a viruslike worm that, according to the FBI, infected at least 7, 000 computers; in Hopkins, Minn. The worm is a modified version of Blaster that has inundated some 500,000 computers worldwide since its release in mid-August. Parson could get 10 years in prison if convicted.


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    INDICTED. WILLIAM JANKLOW, 63, Republican U.S. Congressman from South Dakota, on charges of felony second-degree manslaughter, for allegedly speeding through a stop sign and killing a motorcyclist; in Flandreau, S.D. If convicted, the former four-term Governor could face 10 years in prison and the end of his storied political career.

    DIED. MARION HARGROVE, 83, best-selling author of See Here, Private Hargrove; of pneumonia; in Long Beach, Calif. A grinning account of yardbird misadventures during World War II, it instantly catapulted the 22-year-old North Carolina recruit to fame. The book and its sequel were made into movies starring Robert Walker. Hargrove went on to become a film and TV writer whose credits included The Music Man, I Spy, Maverick and The Waltons. Said Hargrove in 1947: "I was just an ordinary guy, writing for a small audience. Suddenly, success picked me up ..."

    DIED. JINX FALKENBURG, 84, cover girl and actress, who along with her husband journalist Tex McCrary helped pioneer the talk-show genre; in Manhasset, N.Y. The hazel-eyed, brunet beauty had appeared in several movies before finding her calling in broadcasting. The Hi Jinx radio show, with hosts Falkenburg and McCrary, first aired in 1946 and featured guest interviews as well as reports on such weighty topics as the atom bomb and venereal disease. Its success spawned a television offshoot called At Home that also starred the two. By the 1950s, the couple's franchise included two radio shows, a TV show and a column for the New York Herald Tribune. Tex and Jinx, as they were popularly known, separated in the 1980s. McCrary died in July at age 93.

    DIED. SIR WILFRED THESIGER, 93, indefatigable explorer and travel writer; in London. Born in Addis Ababa, the son of a British diplomat, he established his reputation at age 23 when he discovered the source of East Africa's Awash River, something several men before him perished trying to do. He later became the first Westerner to twice cross Saudi Arabia's vast, uncharted Empty Quarter. The punishing expeditions were chronicled in his best-selling book Arabian Sands. Subsequent years spent living in southern Iraq led to his second acclaimed book, Marsh Arabs. Thesiger continued to risk his life exploring the Middle East, Africa and Asia until he was 70, when he retired to live in a house without running water or electricity in Maralal, Kenya. His credo was: "The harder the life, the finer the person." He was knighted in 1995.