Dr. Dorothy Lavinia Brown was a conduit for social change. She was the first black woman to become a surgeon in the South, the first black woman elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives and the first single adoptive parent in that state.

Born out of wedlock and abandoned by her mother, Brown's exact birth date is unknown. She was raised in orphanages and foster homes, but was smart enough to graduate from Bennett College for Women and Meharry Medical College.

Brown interned for a year at Harlem Hospital in New York City, yet was rejected when she applied for a surgical residency. At the time, many in the medical profession did not believe a woman, let alone a black woman, could handle the rigors of surgical training. Brown turned to Dr. Matthew Walker, Meharry Medical College's longtime chief of surgery, for help.

Against the advice of his staff, Walker asked Brown to join the faculty. She became a professor of surgery in 1957, a job she held until 1983, and was the second black woman to be named a fellow of the American College of Surgeons. Brown also held the position of chief of surgery at Riverside Hospital in Nashville for 25 years.

Her tenure in the political arena was short-lived, but remarkable. During the height of the civil rights era, Brown was elected as an independent to the state House of Representatives. During her one term in office (1966-1968), she co-sponsored a bill that created "Negro History Week," which grew to become Black History Month. She also introduced legislation to legalize abortion in cases of rape or incest. Abortion wasn't fully legalized until the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe vs. Wade decision in 1973.

Brown never married, but in 1957, she became the first single parent to adopt a child in Tennessee. She named her infant daughter Lola Denise, and later adopted a son, Kevin, as well. For her many contributions to society, she received a humanitarian award from the Carnegie Foundation in 1993.

Brown died on June 13 of congestive heart failure. She was approximately 90 years old.

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In the world of canoeing, Verlen Kruger was legendary. Although he was 41 years old when he took his first canoeing trip, Kruger eventually paddled over 100,000 miles across two continents -- more miles than anyone else in the history of the sport.

Born in Pulaski County, Ind., Kruger dropped out of school when he was 14 to help earn money for his family. After being drafted into the U.S. Army, Kruger convinced his superiors to let him take the pilot exams. Despite his lack of formal education, Krueger graduated at the top of his class at the Army Air Force Flight Training School and went on to become a flight instructor. He served a tour of duty flying P-51s over Japan and Korea during World War II, then returned to the states to launch a successful plumbing business in Lansing, Mich.

Kruger first chanced upon the sport of canoeing in 1963 while fishing in the backwoods of Ontario. Over the next four decades, he earned 11 Guinness World Records for long-distance canoe travel. From 1980 to 1983, Kruger and his friend Steve Landick spent three years paddling around and through North America; the 28,043-mile excursion was the longest journey ever made by canoe. He opened Kruger's Canoes, a company that designs, builds and sells homemade canoes, in the early 1990s and ran it until his retirement last year. In 1997, he was inducted into the American Canoe Association Hall of Fame.

Kruger died in his sleep on Aug. 2 from prostate cancer. He was 82. To honor his memory, a canoeing event was scheduled to take place over the Labor Day weekend under the Mackinac Bridge in Michigan.

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Larry Desmedt, a legendary custom motorcycle builder and stunt rider who went by the name Indian Larry, died on Aug. 30 of severe head injuries he sustained in an accident. He was 55.

Indian Larry was performing one of his signature stunts last Saturday during the Liquid Steel Classic and Custom Bike Series in Concord, N.C. He was standing on the seat when suddenly the motorcycle began to wobble. Unable to maintain his balance, Indian Larry fell off the bike before it crashed. He was not wearing a helmet.

Born in Cornwall-on-Hudson, N.Y., Indian Larry was a teenager when he bought his first motorbike, a 1939 Harley Knucklehead, for $200. He took it apart and spent the next nine months learning how to put it back together again. He later moved to California and apprenticed under hot rod builder Ed "Big Daddy" Roth.

The tattoo-covered metal-sculptor and motorcycle mechanic launched the Brooklyn-based Gasoline Alley motorcycle workshop in 1991 and devoted the rest of his life to creating and riding "old school bikes." Several of his custom-built motorcycles won awards, including the "Grease Monkey," which was named Easy Rider magazine's Chopper of the Year.

Indian Larry also performed stunts in movies ("Quiz Show," "200 Cigarettes") and on television. He was a featured artist on the Discovery Channel's "Biker Build-Off" series, and once rode a motorcycle through a wall of fire on "The Late Show With David Letterman."

A memorial was held at Gasoline Alley on Sept. 19. His autobiography, "Grease Monkey, The Life and Times of Motorcycle Artist Indian Larry," is scheduled for publication in 2006. Indian Larry is survived by his wife Bambi, the Mermaid of Coney Island.

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In Colorado Springs, Colo., Dominic T. "Nick" Venetucci was known as the Pumpkin Man.

For more than 50 years, the humble farmer invited area children to visit his ranch and pick out a free pumpkin. School buses filled with kids would arrive at the Venetucci pumpkin patch every October to celebrate the annual harvest and select the perfect jack-o-lantern for Halloween.

As a boy, Venetucci dreamed of being a professional baseball player. He even landed a spot as a catcher in the New York Yankee's farm system, but returned home in the 1930s to work on his family's ranch. Over the next seven decades, Venetucci made a living selling sweet corn, alfalfa and asparagus, but he grew hundreds of pumpkins each year just for the kids.

In honor of his generosity, the Widefield School District named an elementary school after Venetucci in 1985. A bronze statue of the Pumpkin Man, designed by sculptor Fred Darpino, was unveiled in October.

Venetucci died on Sept. 7 following a stroke. He was 93.

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Elly Annie Schneider made her screen debut in the 1927 silent film "Special Delivery." But her claim to fame came 12 years later when she and three of her siblings -- Harry Doll, Daisy Doll and Grace Doll -- appeared in the family classic "The Wizard of Oz."

Born in Stolpen, Germany, Schneider was the youngest of seven children. When she moved to the Sarasota, Fla., in 1925, the diminutive actress wanted to work in show business. But at 39 inches tall, her options in Hollywood were fairly limited. So she performed in the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus and in the Christiana Bros. Circus with her brother and sisters in an act known as "The Doll Family." Under the screen names Tiny Earles and Tiny Doll, Schneider also took bit parts in the films "Sailors Beware," "Three-Ring Marriage," "Be Big" and the 1932 cult classic "Freaks."

The Doll Family traveled to California in 1939 to work on "The Wizard of Oz." All four played members of the Munchkin cast that sang and welcomed Dorothy (Judy Garland) to Munchkinland. Schneider and her siblings then returned to Florida, and to circus life. They continued performing until the late-1950s. Grace died in 1970, Daisy in 1980 and Harry in 1985.

Schneider, 90, died on Sept. 6 of heart failure. With her passing, only nine members of the original 124 Munchkins cast remain.

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Al Baldwin was a man with a mission: to protect the tourists and residents of Australia's Gold Coast from skin cancer and sunburns.

Known as the "Suntan Man," Baldwin spent three decades walking along the area's sandy beaches and spraying people with a machine filled with protective lotion. Some say he sprayed nearly 3 million beachgoers. This philanthropic effort made Baldwin an unofficial ambassador for Australia and a tourism icon. It also earned him the Commonwealth Seniors Medal.

Raised in a New Zealand orphanage, Baldwin moved to Sydney in the early 1950s and opened his own restaurant. In 1968, he relocated to the Gold Coast in Queensland to manage the Broadbeach Hotel and to run a company that rents out beach equipment to patrons of Surfers Paradise.

Baldwin died on Aug. 31 of lymphatic cancer. He was 74. Hundreds of mourners in bathing suits gathered at the beach to honor his memory. They set up a beach chair bearing his sunglasses, cap and suntan-spraying machine, then scattered his ashes in the surf.

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Through the lens of Edward Thomas Adams' camera, the world existed in stark contrasts -- black and white, young and old, life and death.

In a career spanning four decades, the Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist covered 13 wars and published his enduring images in newspapers and magazines around the world. Adams shot pictures of presidents, dictators, religious figures and soldiers, but he was best known for a photograph taken in Saigon on Feb. 1, 1968.

On the second day of the Tet Offensive, Adams and an NBC news crew heard gunfire. They followed the noise to a street corner where South Vietnamese soldiers were leading a handcuffed Viet Cong captive to Lt. Col. Nguyen Ngoc Loan, chief of the South Vietnamese National Police. Assuming the prisoner was about to be interrogated, Adams raised his camera to capture the moment. Instead, he took a picture of Lung shooting the prisoner in the head. (Adams later learned that the prisoner was a Viet Cong officer responsible for slaughtering an entire family.)

The Saigon execution picture earned Adams the 1969 Pulitzer Prize. He'd eventually receive more than 500 honors, including the Robert Capa Award and three George Polk Memorial Awards.

Born in New Kensington, Pa., Adams first worked as a photographer for his high school newspaper. After graduation, he served for three years as a Marine Corps combat photographer during the Korean War. Adams joined The Associated Press in 1962 and worked on and off at the wire service for 14 years. He also shot pictures for Time magazine and Parade. In the final chapter of his life, he took pictures of celebrities and launched Barnstorm: The Eddie Adams Photojournalism Workshop.

Adams died on Sept. 19 from complications of Lou Gehrig's disease. He was 71.

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Christopher Reeve, a veteran actor who was best known for playing Superman, died on Oct. 10 of heart failure. He was 52.

The native New Yorker was only nine years old when he first tread the boards at the McCarter Theater in Princeton, N.J., during a production of "Yeoman of the Guard." After graduating from Cornell University, Reeve played the evil Ben Harper on the CBS soap opera "Love of Life." He studied at The Juilliard School (his roommate was Robin Williams), and landed his first Broadway role in "A Matter of Gravity," a play starring Katharine Hepburn.

Although he was relatively unknown at the time, Reeve's handsome face and athletic, 6-foot-4-inch body made him the ideal choice for the title role in the 1978 movie "Superman." He performed most of his own stunts and portrayed the Man of Steel in three sequels. Not wanting to be typecast as a superhero, Reeve next portrayed a time-traveling playwright in the 1980 romance "Somewhere in Time," a bumbling actor in the 1992 farce "Noises Off…," an American politician in the 1993 Merchant Ivory period piece "The Remains of the Day," and a famous war reporter in the 1994 political comedy "Speechless."

Reeve's professional and personal life took an unexpected turn in 1995. While riding in an equestrian competition in Culpeper, Va., he was thrown from his horse. The accident fractured the top two vertebrae in his neck, damaged his spinal cord and left him a quadriplegic. Determined to walk again, Reeve endured years of operations and physical therapy. He eventually regained sensation in his index finger, his left leg and areas of his left arm.

Reeve then went to Washington, where he lobbied Congress for better insurance protection of catastrophic injuries. He campaigned for an increase in funding for stem cell research in the hope that scientists may one day develop treatments and cures for paralysis. With his wife Dana, he opened the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Resource Center, a facility in Short Hills, N.J., that teaches paralyzed people how to live more independent lives.

Reeve also returned to show business. He made his directorial debut in 1997 with "In the Gloaming," an HBO film that received five Emmy nominations and won four Cable Ace Awards. The following year, Reeve acted in a remake of the Alfred Hitchcock classic "Rear Window," a performance that earned him a Screen Actors Guild award for best actor. He shared his life story in the books "Still Me" and "Nothing Is Impossible: Reflections on a New Life"; the audio versions, which Reeve narrated, received Grammy nominations. His star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is located at 7021 Hollywood Blvd.

Reeve was receiving treatment for a severely infected pressure wound on Oct. 9 when he suffered a cardiac arrest and slipped into a coma. He is survived by his wife and three children, Matthew, 25, Alexandra, 21, and Will, 12.

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Betty Hill devoted much of her life to the study of UFOs after she and her husband Barney were allegedly abducted by extraterrestrials in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

The couple was returning from vacation in Canada on Sept. 19, 1961 when they saw a bright light in the sky. They tried to drive away from the light, but their car's engine stalled.

What happened next is a mystery that continues to generate fascination and curiosity.

The couple arrived back at their New Hampshire home with no memory of driving for two hours. Betty's dress was ripped and stained and Barney's shoes were scuffed. Their car's exterior showed shiny patches in perfectly circular patterns. And both of their watches had stopped.

Three years and many nightmares later, the Hills recounted an identical tale of alien abduction while under hypnosis. They claimed a group of short, gray-skinned creatures took them aboard a spaceship and conducted rigorous medical examinations on them. Their story inspired John G. Fuller's 1966 bestselling book "Interrupted Journey," and the 1975 TV movie "The UFO Incident," starring James Earl Jones and Estelle Parsons.

Born Eunice Elizabeth Barrett, Betty Hill graduated from the Sanborn Seminary and attended the University of New Hampshire for two years. She dropped out of school to marry Barney, and worked as a social worker until her alien encounter.

For the next decade, Betty traveled all over the world, giving speeches and sharing her story. Her husband joined her on these speaking engagements until he died in 1969. Hill eventually retired from the lecture circuit because she said too many people with "flaky ideas, fantasies and imaginations" were making similar claims. However, her quest for knowledge about extraterrestrials never wavered. In 1995, she self-published the book, "A Common Sense Approach to UFOs."

Hill died on Oct. 17 after a battle with lung cancer. She was 85.

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Betty Jane Spencer, the lone survivor of the 1977 Hollandsburg murders, died on Oct. 26 of chronic lung disease. She was 71.

On Feb. 14, 1977, four men carrying shotguns entered her home in Hollandsburg, Ind., about 50 miles west of Indianapolis. The robbers pocketed a few items and $40 in cash, then ordered her and her four children to lie face-down on the living room floor.

That's when the shooting started.

Spencer's son Gregory Brooks, 22, and her stepsons Raymond Spencer, 17, Reeve Spencer, 16, and Ralph Spencer, 14, were executed. Betty was also shot in the back, but she survived the wound and pretended to play dead. Determined to leave no witnesses behind, one of the robbers kicked her and shot her a second time. That bullet grazed her shoulder and skull, and blew her wig off. Assuming she was dead, the gunmen left.

The telephone lines were cut so Spencer trudged through the snow and called the police from a friend's house. Authorities eventually apprehended Roger Drollinger, 24, Daniel Stonebraker, 20, David W. Smith, 17, and Michael Wayne Wright, 21, and charged them with the slayings. Spencer's testimony helped convict all four men of murder; they were later sentenced to life in prison. The notorious crime was chronicled in the 2004 book "Choking in Fear" by Mike McCarty.

The experience of surviving an armed robbery and losing her boys left an indelible mark on Spencer, one that inspired her to become a champion of victim's rights. Over the next three decades, she helped change 56 Indiana laws and founded the Parke County Victims Advocate Foundation, an organization that provides crisis counseling to crime victims and keeps them notified of court dates. Spencer also joined the National Organization for Victim Assistance, the Protect the Innocent Foundation and Mothers Against Drunk Driving. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan honored her efforts at a White House ceremony.

Spencer's resolve to keep her sons' murderers in jail never wavered. Each time the men applied for clemency, she would appear at the hearing and testify against them. Last week, Spencer videotaped her plea to the parole board for use in future hearings.

"It is her dying wish that none of the four men ever get out of jail," said her friend Kenneth Coleman. He plans to take up Spencer's fight and argue against parole for the Hollandsburg killers for as long as he lives.

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Cara Dunne-Yates was blinded by cancer, but that didn't stop her from obtaining an Ivy League education, raising a family or winning several medals as a Paralympic athlete.

Born and raised in Chicago, Yates was less than a year old when she was diagnosed with retinal cancer. Although she lost both her eyes to the disease by the time she was five, Yates still learned to ride a bike and ski on her own. Using a team skiing technique, however, Yates was able to participate in competitions by following the sound her of sighted partner's skis. In 1988, she won a bronze medal in alpine skiing at the Paralympics in Innsbruck, Austria.

With a guide dog by her side, Yates became president of her class at Harvard University and earned a bachelor's degree in East Asian studies. After graduation, she worked as a volunteer ski instructor at a school for the disabled in Utah. Yates was training for an upcoming winter event when cancer returned -- this time in her cheekbone.

After a year of treatment, she enrolled at UCLA Law School. Yates joined the university's cycling team and competed as a tandem racer with her sighted partner Scott Evans at the 1996 Atlanta Paralympics. There she won a silver medal in the mixed tandem kilometer race and a bronze medal on the 200-meter sprint. She also met Spencer Yates, the sighted partner of another blind cyclist. They wed in 1998.

Yates had just finished competing in the 2000 Paralympics in Sydney, Australia, when she was diagnosed with cancer for a third time. While undergoing chemotherapy, she received the 2002 True Hero of Sports Award from Northeastern University's Center for the Study of Sport in Society. She served as co-president of the New England Retinoblastoma Family Foundation and recently began writing her memoirs.

Yates died on Oct. 20 of cancer at the age of 34. She is survived by her husband and two young children.

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Dr. Hiltgunt Margret Zassenhaus, a retired physician and author who was nominated for the 1974 Nobel Peace Prize, died on Nov. 20 of pneumonia. She was 88.

Born in Hamburg, Germany, Zassenhaus earned a bachelor's degree in Scandinavian languages from the University of Hamburg. She was taking premed courses in 1940 when the Third Reich's Department of Justice ordered her to read and censor the letters written by Jews that requested food from friends and relatives. Zassenhaus was told to either black out their pleas or destroy the correspondence. With the help of shipping agents, she smuggled the letters out of the country.

Unaware of her activities, the Gestapo then ordered Zassenhaus to utilize her specialized language skills to monitor the 1,200 Danish and Norwegian resistance fighters forced to live in German prison camps. Instead, she used her position to get past the SS officers and secretly deliver suitcases filled with food, books, medicine and other forbidden supplies.

Zassenhaus kept a card file that listed all of the Scandinavian prisoners she encountered at the 52 prisons and camps. She entrusted the list to a Danish sea captain who gave it to the Swedish Red Cross. In 1945, Zassenhaus's list was used by the Red Cross to locate and rescue political prisoners before the Nazis could execute them.

After the war, Zassenhaus completed her medical degree at the University of Copenhagen. She immigrated to America and served her internship and residency at City Hospital in Baltimore. Zassenhaus ran her own medical office for many years, then became a best-selling author. Her memoir, "Walls: Resisting the Third Reich," was named one of the 25 best books of 1974 for young adults by the American Library Association.

The Towson, Md., resident received numerous honors for her wartime efforts, including the Red Cross Medal, the Order of the Dannebro and the Cross of the Order of Merit. A 1974 nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, Zassenhaus was also inducted into the Hall of Fame of Maryland and knighted by the kings of Norway and Denmark.

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Pierre Berton, an historian, television personality and obsessed storyteller, died on Nov. 30 of heart failure. He was 84.

Born in 1920 and raised in the Yukon, Berton worked in the Klondike mining camps while at university. After completing four years of military service, he launched a career in journalism. Berton quickly worked his way up the ranks at The Vancouver Sun, and was only 21 when he became the youngest city editor on any Canadian daily. Within a decade, he was the managing editor of Maclean's.

Berton was an associate editor and daily columnist for The Toronto Star in the late-1950s when he decided to tackle the medium of television. He joined the CBC public affairs program "Close-Up" and served as a permanent panelist on "Front Page Challenge." In 1962, Berton premiered his own program, "The Pierre Berton Show," which aired until 1973. He later wrote and hosted "My Country," "The Great Debate," "Heritage Theatre" and "The Secret of My Success." Sporting his trademark bow tie, Berton wowed viewers of the "Monday Report" in October when he offered tips on the best way to roll a joint.

To call Berton a "prolific writer" would be an understatement. At one point, he wrote 15,000 words a day. Berton penned children's stories, biographical profiles, religious critiques and coffee table collections, but he was best known for chronicling Canada's past in the books "Klondike," "The National Dream" and "Pierre Berton's Canada: The Land and the People." His 50th book, "Prisoners of the North," was published in 2004.

Berton received many accolades, including three Governor General's Awards for nonfiction, two National Newspaper Awards, the Stephen Leacock Medal of Humour and a Companion of the Order of Canada. A library in Vaughan, Ont., bears his name and houses his entire collection of writings. Canada's National History Society named its annual award for outstanding achievement in popularizing Canadian history after Berton; he was its first recipient as well. Berton was inducted to Canada's Walk of Fame in 1998, and ranked No. 31 on the CBC's list of The Greatest Canadians earlier this year.

"You'll never die, Pierre," author June Callwood said at Berton's memorial service. "You're gone, but you'll never die."

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