This week's passages

Staff Sergeant Amy C. Tirador, 29, of Albany, N.Y., based at Fort Lewis, died Wednesday in Kirkush, Iraq, in a non-combat-related incident, the Department of Defense said. This was her third deployment.

Phil Lumpkin, 57, boys basketball coach at O'Dea High School and a former NBA player, died at his home last weekend after being diagnosed with pneumonia. A 6-foot guard, he played one season for the Portland Trail Blazers and one for the Phoenix Suns. In 1991, he took over the O'Dea program and led it to five state titles.

Chuck Morgan, 98, known as "Mr. Kirkland" for the role he played as a journalist and community activist in building the city, died Oct. 30 in Wenatchee. He was editor, then publisher, of the East Side Journal for almost three decades, co-founded the Kirkland Performance Center and was active in the Kirkland Rotary Club and Chamber of Commerce.

Joseph F. Wheeler, 77, the founding director of Centrum, the nonprofit arts organization at the decommissioned Army base at Fort Worden, Port Townsend, died Monday of liver cancer. He made Centrum famous for its writers conferences, musical workshops, performances and music festivals.

Nien Cheng, 94, whose memoir "Life and Death in Shanghai" was widely praised as one of the most riveting accounts of the Cultural Revolution, died Monday in Washington, D.C. She became a U.S. citizen in 1988.

Qian Xuesen, 98, a brilliant rocket scientist and a pioneer in American jet and rocket technology who single-handedly led China's space and military rocketry efforts after he was drummed out of the United States during the red-baiting of the McCarthy era, died Oct. 31 in Beijing.

Claude Levi-Strauss, 100, the French philosopher widely considered the father of modern anthropology because of his then-revolutionary conclusion that so-called primitive societies did not differ greatly intellectually from modern ones, died Oct. 30 in Paris.

Lou Filippo, 83, a World Boxing Hall of Famer who became a referee and ring judge and also had small roles as a fight announcer or referee in five "Rocky" movies, died of a stroke Monday in Downey, Calif.

Francisco Ayala, 103, an eminent novelist considered one of Spain's most distinguished intellectuals, died Tuesday in Madrid.

George Na'ope, 81, a guardian of native Hawaiian culture who taught traditional hula and chanting to generations of students and introduced the ancient art forms to new audiences, died of lung disease Oct. 26 in Hilo, Hawaii.

Carl Ballantine, 92, a comedy-magician and character actor who was part of the World War II P.T. boat crew on the 1960s sitcom "McHale's Navy," died Tuesday in Los Angeles.

Sheldon Dorf, 76, a freelance artist and comic-strip letterer who founded the world famous Comic-Con International comic-book convention in San Diego, died of kidney failure Tuesday in San Diego.

Robert H. Rines, 87, a lawyer, composer, inventor and physicist whose discoveries led to sharper resolution in radar, sonar and ultrasound imaging and who claimed to have seen the Loch Ness Monster, died of heart failure Nov. 1 in Boston.

Don Ivan Punchatz, 73, whose surreal art was splashed on popular horror and science-fiction paperbacks, magazines and the first "Star Wars" film poster, influencing a generation of illustrators, died of cardiac arrest Oct. 22 in Arlington, Texas.

Peter Shellem, 49, whose relentless digging into dusty court records during his 23 years as a reporter for The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa., led to the release of five wrongly convicted prisoners, died of suicide Oct. 24 in Gardners, Pa.