2025 In Memoriam

In Memoriam
Remembering NFPW current and past members who’ve died or whose deaths were reported in the past year.

Arizona Professional Writers
Joan Kay Westlake, 75, died March 25. She was an accomplished writer, editor, mentor and skilled communicator who believed in truth, fairness and the beauty of the written word. She was a writer and editor at several Phoenix-based magazines and a newspaper and an executive at a top-ranked public relations agency. Westlake later worked in PR and marketing positions at these colleges: Paradise Valley Community College, Glendale Community College, Phoenix College and Mesa College. A past APW Communicator of Achievement, she also had served APW as president and membership director. 

Colorado Press Women
Mary Alice Parmelee, 76, of Denver, died June 16, 2024, of COVID complications. Introduced to Colorado Press Women through her mother who was a member, Parmalee was a 48-year member of NFPW. She was CPW’s 2013 Communicator of Achievement, had a file full of state and national contest wins, and served CPW in every office except president. She worked for the American Water Works Association for more than 40 years, launching two publications and retiring as senior manager of AWWA periodicals. She served Washington Park United Church of Christ as an important lay leader. 

Illinois Woman’s Press Association
Bonnie McGrath, described as “beyond curious,” died Dec. 22, three days before her 74^th birthday. A member of IWPA for more than 15 years, McGrath had been a prize-winning journalist, an attorney, a one-time telephone repair worker and an arts supporter. More than two decades after earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in the field of public health, she earned a law degree from John Marshall Law School in 1993. Her support and guidance were instrumental in shaping Project Onward, an inclusive Chicago arts studio where she served as a board member. 

Missouri Professional Communicators
Linda Lockhart, 72, died May 4. She earned her journalism degree from the University of Missouri in 1974 with a full scholarship from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, where she later worked. She also edited newspapers in Wisconsin and Minnesota, served as interim managing editor at the St. Louis American, and worked for the digital St. Louis Beacon. She was a founding member of the St. Louis chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists. In 2024, she was inducted into the St. Louis Media History Foundation Hall of Fame in the print category.

Sue Matthias, 99, died Feb. 9, one month shy of her 100^th birthday. She took to the skies for most of her career, starting as an actress in a Pan-Am Airways film and becoming the first woman in Missouri to earn a commercial helicopter license. When she joined KMOX, she was the station’s only female on-air personality, handling the station’s traffic watch as “Sue in Copter Two” and eventually covering local, national and world events. After retiring from radio reporting at age 65, she wrote for local newspapers and magazines and started a handwriting analysis business. 

Pat Treacy, 87, of St. Louis died Dec. 18. She joined Missouri Professional Communicators in 1983 and helped judge MPC’s annual communications contest until 2023. During her career, she created educational programs for General Dynamics and Brown Shoe and later was the director of public relations at St. Luke’s Hospital. As an author, Treacy wrote “The Grand Hotels of St. Louis” (2005) as part of the Images of America book series and “St. Louis Trailblazer Erma Bergmann: From Pitcher’s Mound to Patrol” (2023) about an early star of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. 

North Carolina Press Club
Iris June Vinegar, 95, passed away April 22, 2022, in Durham, North Carolina. A longtime NFPW member, Vinegar grew up in the Bronx and briefly attended Columbia University. After her divorce, she received her bachelor’s degree in writing and editing from North Carolina State University in Raleigh. She started her business, Write-Away, and specialized in writing feature stories about real estate for the News & Observer newspaper in Raleigh.At age 52, Vinegar started running 10Ks, and half and full marathons. She was 83 when she ran her last marathon. 

North Dakota Professional Communicators
Linda Sailer, 76, of Dickinson, North Dakota, died July 31, 2024. After attending North Dakota State University and marrying her husband in late 1969, Sailer began a more than 50-year newspaper career at The Dickinson Free Press. She was the paper’s lifestyle editor. In an article announcing her death, the newspaper called her a “cherished journalist and cornerstone of The Dickinson Press.” According to her obituary, “Linda always had a camera around her neck just in case she might stumble upon a story that needed to be told.” 

Oregon Press Women
Diane Lund-Muzikant, 86, died July 26, 2025. As an investigative journalist and founder of the nonprofit Oregon Health Forum in 1990 and The Lund Report in 2008, Lund-Muzikant left a legacy of watchdog journalism that redefined health care coverage across Oregon. “By revealing the facts, I believe we can create a health care system that benefits everyone, not just the powerful and the rich,” she wrote in 2024. She was this year’s OPW Communicator of Achievement. Before focusing on health care reporting in the mid-1980s, Lund-Muzikant had been a freelancer and created a bimonthly religious magazine. 

Pennsylvania Press Club
Jacqueline “Jackie” Richards, 97, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, died Jan. 12. An author of three award-winning books, Richards had been a photojournalist for the Northern Neck News in Virginia and later worked for the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Richards was a past officer of the Chesapeake Bay Writers, an NFPW member and a past officer in the Virginia Federation of National Association of Retired Federal Employees. Throughout much of her lifetime, she loved travel and with her husband visited all 50 states, several European countries and much of the Caribbean. 

Patricia Ryder, 88, died Aug. 14, 2024, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Ryder began her long communications career at an advertising firm where her supervisor was Fred Gwynne, the former actor who played Herman Munster. She later did freelance reporting for the Emmaus Free Press and honed her newspaper layout skills with the Parkland Press. She retired in 2000. and along with her husband formed a travel agency to share their love of traveling. An avid reader who was especially fond of female writers, including Agatha Christie, Janet Evanovich and Erma Bombeck, Ryder later took up painting.