Obituary: Sheila John Daly White, last of the “celebrated Daly sisters”

My mother Sheila John Daly White died July 2, 2023 at age 95.  (This is Michael D. D. White writing this with ample help from other collaborating family members.)

You may find this web/blog posting here a strange place to read an obituary, but it says something about the way things have changed: If I don't post this here, it currently seems that this obituary will appear nowhere else.  No other media outlets seem currently interested in publishing this story when biographical facts were offered.  For much of my mother's life she received a fair share of media attention, treated as a minor celebrity and interviewing and mingling with the top celebrities. . .

. .  I remember when I was young the suspense of being at home watching her appear on CBS's "To Tell The Truth" quiz show where the job of the show's panelists was to guess whether my mother or two imposters were the real teenage advice columnist, once the nation's youngest columnist.  It was very boring; it was over so quickly since the panelists had no trouble identifying my mother as the actual columnist and book author.  Not that it was ultimately so important, but my mother once briefly dated Peter Lawford (or maybe "sort of" she once later hedged).  She was on the set to watch when Lawford filmed one of his musical numbers for the 1947 film "Good News."   I'm pretty sure it was "The French Lesson" number he performed with June Allyson.  My mother would have been 19.  I, myself, met Lawford (or "sort of') much later when he was hanging out with my cousin-in-law Jean-Paul Vignon in an after party at the Waldorf when they had both just appeared on Carson's "Tonight Show."  (I didn't talk to him about my mother.)

Once upon a time, the media companies, now reduced mainly to five or six, would have taken a special interest in my mother's passing, but now, for whatever reason, that's not the case.  My mother and the extended family of which she was a part was also very much a part of the media that once took an interest in her.   This says something about the way information flows now, and how it flowed then.

Here then is a form of obituary to tell you something about my mother's life. 

Obituary: Sheila John Daly White, last of the “celebrated Daly sisters” --- Died 34 Gramercy Park, New York, New York 10003- July 2, 2023 at 95

Sheila John Daly White, last of what Time Magazine dubbed the “celebrated Daly sisters” died quietly at home at 34 Gramercy Park earlier this July at the age of 95.  Writing as Sheila John Daly, Sheila was, at one time, the nation’s youngest syndicated columnist and author of multiple teenage advice books while still in her teens.  She later had significant success when she transitioned to the realm of advertising (after her husband’s death), using the name Sheila D. White and writing copy for, among other products, Oil of Olay, and Chanel.  Sometimes, doing voice-over work, she was also a voice for Chanel in its advertisements.

Sheila’s death July 2, 2023 brought to an end the era of the Daly sisters, which began exactly 107 years to the day before, with the July 2, 1916 birth of Maggie Daly,* the first born of the four Daly sisters, in Castle Caulfield, County Tyrone, Ireland, followed by Kay (Kathleen)**- 1919 and Maureen***- 1921.  Sheila, born in  Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, 11/7/’27 was the first, and only one of the four sisters born in the United States where the family moved and settled to avoid political troubles in Ireland.  The troubles came from two directions: Uncle Jack Kelly was in the British military while his brother-in-law Joe Daly, owner of a bicycle shop and father of the Daly sisters, "might have lent the wee lads (of the IRA) a bicycle or two" (used for some smuggling that was done.)   Precipitating the family's departure from Ireland, men piled straw up against wall of the house where the wife and three young daughter's lived and said to the household's father: "We are not saying we are going to light it Joe, and we are not saying we're not."

    (* Starting as a fashion model, Maggie Daly wrote about fashion for magazines, then wrote a gossip column appearing first in Chicago's American, then Chicago Today, and finally in the Chicago Tribune.  She also had a Chicago television interview show, was a frequent guest on other Chicago TV and radio shows and hosted regular lunchtime fashion shows where she simultaneously interviewed celebrity guests.  She is the mother of actress Brigid Bazlen who married singer/actor Jean-Paul Vignon.)

    (** Kay- Kathleen- Daly, worked in advertising with such people as Richard Avedon, became a Revlon vice president responsible for its unique inhouse advertising division.  Two of her most notable campaigns were Maidenform’s “I Dreamed I Was. . . In My Maidenfom Bra,” and Revlon’s “Fire and Ice.”  Sheila also eventually worked with such people as Avedon as did other members of her more extended family.  When Kay moved to San Francisco after World War II, her talent for promotion garnered her nationwide fame early in her career when she rented space with herself on a billboard to advertise for an affordable apartment. It also netted her many marriage proposals.  A 1954 romantic comedy starring Judy Holiday and Peter Lawford, "It Should Happen To You," is based on a plot where an ambitious young woman rents a billboard to make `a name for herself.')

    (*** Novelist and writer Maureen Daly became famous for writing “Seventeenth Summer”  at age 19, following a number of well-known short stories– “Fifteen” and “Sixteen”– that preceded it and is credited with launching the young adult genre.- See NY Times Obit.  For the more than a million readers of “Seventeenth Summer,” more or less a Roman à clef—  it’s never gone out of print– where the family of the young Daly sisters is represented by the Morrow family living in Fond du Lac, Sheila was recognizable as Kitty- attached to her Chow dog Kinkee, the ten-year-old sister and frequent companion of 17-year-old Angie Morrow, the protagonist and stand-in for the author Maureen. Fun family lore fact about Maureen: It was Maureen, working morgue reporting duty for her newspaper, who first identified the body of Frank Nitti, Al Capone's enforcer.  The date was March 19, 1943 so Maureen would have been just a few days past 22 years of age.  Longtime newspaper man Dynamite Sokol had taken Maureen around city haunts pointing out who was who, so that's how she knew, or,  . . . talked less in the family, is that Maureen may have dated "Bottles Capone," Al's older brother.  The Daly sisters were so well known that Maureen's husband, the very well regarded mystery novelist William P. McGovern decided to improve his billing as a writer by referring to himself as "the fifth Day sister.")   

Sheila's originally Irish family was living in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin when Sheila was born specifically because her father, coming to America, and visiting Irish cousins in the Chicago area who offered him a job, declined the work when he realized it was bootlegging.

Sheila and her three sisters were the children of Joseph Desmond Daly (B. March 20, 1882, Castlecaufield, Tyrone, Ireland) and Margaret Dorothea Lockhart Kelly (B. July 13, 1887 Cross m' Loof, Scotland, near Glasgow).  Her mother was from a branch of the Mellon family (Sheila’s maternal grandmother was Margaret Rose Mellon) giving her and her sisters a cousinship with the banker Andrew Mellon.

"Kitty" the 10-year old was the stand in for Sheila in "Seventeenth Summer."  Sheila wrote her first published story at age 11.  Here Sheila is with her Chow dog Kinky (slightly different spelling)

Sheila was just 11 years old when she sold her first story, “The Sisters;” published in the November 1938 issue of Woman’s Day magazine. As she told it, she was pestering her older sister Maureen to take her swimming.  Maureen, seven years her senior, already a recognized writer, suggested, “Why don’t you write something!”  That was because Maureen herself was concentrating on writing her first novel, “Seventeenth Summer” (1942).  Maureen then sent the story on Sheila’s behalf to the magazine.

Sheila went to high school at St. Mary’s Springs Academy.  One of the nuns, an English Teacher there, Sister Rosita, nurtured the interest in writing inspired in Sheila by her sisters.

When Maureen moved on from her job as a syndicated columnist for teenagers for the Chicago Tribune-NYNews Syndicate to become an editor of Ladies’ Home Journal, she suggested that Sheila, then a high school senior, be her replacement. Sheila undertook writing the column at age sixteen, the year her father died, and continued the five-days-a-week column.  The teenage advice column she took over from Maureen was originally titled “On The Solid Side.”  This Time Magazine story about "bouncy brunette" Sheila, nicknamed ChiChi, alternately spelled "Chi-Chi," has Sheila, painting the town in Manhattan when she was 21, while "she  turns out two Sunday newspaper columns and a monthly feature for the Ladies' Home Journal" while writing her column and books as well.  Time notes that in just over four years after taking the column over Sheila tripled the number of papers carrying it.

Sheila graduated St Mary’s Springs as valedictorian and continued the five-days-a-week column with an ever expanding audience for more than twenty-five years. One of her weekly featured columns was “Tops Among Teens,” a profile of an outstanding teenager making a mark in the world. Among those spotlighted: Mickey Mantle, Mel Tormé, Marlon Brando, Elizabeth Taylor,  and a host of other show business and athletic stars, some perchance destined to go on to more fame than others, Natalie Wood, Joel Grey, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Jackie Collins, Susie Parker, Piper Laurie, Kenneth Nelson, Rosemary Williams, and, for instance Ice Capades stars, who were getting recognition at early ages.  

Graduating from St Mary’s Springs in 1945, Sheila followed her sisters to Rosary College in River Forest, Illinois, folding in the demands of college with newspaper assignments in Europe, lectures around the country for the W. Colston Leigh lecture bureau and a growing number of magazine assignments, including participation in the Ladies’ Home Journal heralded series “Profile of Youth.” Midway in her sophomore year Sheila left Rosary College to concentrate on her career. While still in her teens, she wrote a number of books for teenagers “Personality Plus,” (1946) “Party Fun” (1948) and “Pretty, Please.” (1948). Other of her books include “Blondes Prefer Gentlemen,” (1949) “Questions Teen-Agers Ask,” (1963) “Teen-Agers ask More Questions,” (1964) and “Travel Tips For Teens” (1968).  A 2012 blogger who fell in love discovering Sheila's writing in the 1940 provides a slew of wonderful quotes curated from Sheila's books.  (Maureen, not Sheila, wrote, "What’s Your P.Q. (Personality Quotient).)

Sheila meeting Peter

Sheila met her husband, Peter Gillette White, accidentally while they were being photographed by Life Magazine as part of the Magazine’s preparation of a November 7, 1949 (Sheila's birthday) photo feature article about the four successful sisters.  Sister Kathleen gave a party that Life requested to show the `social side’ of the sisters, and Kathleen invited Peter, son of Thomas Justin White, the General Manager of the Hearst Organization for whom Kathleen had worked in Chicago, to the party thinking, when she was on the phone with him, that she was actually inviting his brother, John Michael White.  According to legend and Sheila’s account, Sheila plied her official date of the evening with drink in order to spend more time with Peter.  (A few years prior, Peter had been a personal pilot to General Kenneth David Nichols, the second in command, responsible for logistics, at the Manhattan Project, flying the General in and out of Los Alamos.  This was after the bombs had been dropped on Japan.)

Life Magazine ran a follow up feature on the sisters in 1959 with a picture of the four sisters posing with all of their respective children.

Sheila married Peter at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago November 4th, 1950. Sheila continued her newspaper, magazine and book work while Peter worked as a copywriter and group creative director at various New York City advertising agencies.

In 1964, Sheila added to her other activities and started working with her husband becoming Vice President of Peter G. White, Inc., a creative study group. The couple worked with four practicing psychoanalysts to create emotion-based advertising strategies and prototype advertising for agencies and manufacturers. The group proposed the basis for campaigns for clients such as the American Cancer Society, Arnold Bread, a high profile mouthwash, 21 Brands, Pet Milk and a score of other clients whose contracts required total confidentiality.

After Peter died unexpectedly December 26, 1968 at the age of 43, Sheila, with three sons, 16, 14 and 13, to support, went to work for Norman, Craig & Kummel (NCK), an ad agency where her sister Kay had been creative director in the 50s and for whom Peter had also once worked.  Bother-in-law John Michael White also worked there.  At NCK Sheila rose from senior copywriter to Associate Creative Director and Vice President, working on Chanel, Maidenform, TWA. Revlon, Saab and a range of other clients.

Sheila’s most notable success at NCK was working on Oil of Olay.  When she began it was a not well known beauty skin cream and was one of the agency’s smaller accounts.  (Olay began in the U.S. as a tiny South African company purchased by the Vick Chemical Company.) In the beginning, she wrote extended copy intimate columns about Olay that ran, discretely positioned, along the sides of ladies’ magazine pages.

The Olay account grew and Sheila worked as a two-person creative team with art director Nick LaMicela as her partner on Oil of Olay eventually doing TV advertising including a campaign that featured women from around the world talking about the product, (a “mysterious beauty fluid”).  The international testimonial campaign in 1976 was reputed to be the most complicated and expensive shoot to that date. When the account was shifted from NCK to Young & Rubicam it was reported as the fourth largest advertising account switches in advertising history.*  The client soon requested that Sheila move with it, and she followed going to work for Young & Rubicam working with art director Beverly Okada.

    (* See: New York Times: Advertising, By Philip H. Dougherty, November 10, 1977: “Oil of Olay beauty lotion, which went from $2.5 million in sales and a 5 percent share of the market to more than $50 million in sales and 26 percent of the market while its advertising was handled by Norman, Craig & Kummel, is switching agencies.”  Also see Encyclopedia Britannica on the large advertising account switch. )

Del and Sheila

 In 1974 Sheila started to live and spend her time with Ralph Delahaye (Del) Paine Jr. who had been married to her husband’s sister, Nancy White, Editor of Harper’s Bazaar (who took over in that position from her aunt, Carmel Snow).  Mr. Paine, formerly high up in the Time/Life corporation, had been a personal assistant to Time Magazine publisher Henry Luce, and was well known as the editor and publisher of Fortune magazine, and publisher of Architectural Forum from 1954 to 1963 and House and Home from 1962 to 1963.  During World War II, Paine was in charge of the Time’s “The March of Time” staff’s retreat as the Nazis invaded France.  In her relationship with Mr. Paine, the couple spent time at Del’s homes in Connecticut, Vermont, and New Hampshire and at Sheila’s Gramercy Park home.  The relationship continued until Del’s death January 12, 1991.

In 1982 Sheila was asked by Kitty D’Alessio, who had been hired at NCK by her sister Kay in the 50s and was now president of Chanel in the U.S., to join that company’s creative department. Shortly thereafter, the U.S, creative work was moved in-house and Sheila spent the next twenty-two years at Chanel, most of that time as the only writer. The department handled print, television and radio (much of it based on the initial creative work from France) for the U.S. In addition to writing, Sheila’s work at that time ranged also into TV and voice-over and radio work for Chanel and its subsidiaries.  And, if you called Chanel’s office at this time, it was Sheila’ recorded voice on the answering machine and incorporated into the switchboard service.  By virtue of this, Sheila was a member of SAG/AFTRA.

After Sheila left Chanel in 2006 she spent her time on personal writing projects, provided  editing services, and did some additional voice-over work.  Sheila also recently sold for preservation (to the Lake George Land Conservancy) 59.6 acres of lake front property on Lake George, N. Y. after preparing it for subdivision into seven lots.  It was the last remaining 1/5th portion of White family Land (in Warren County) that she worked hard to protect and preserve from 1968 onwards after her husband Peter died.  All the other acreage from the original family-owned parcel also went into preservation during those years.

Sheila was the oldest and the longest continuous resident of 34 Gramercy Park, the oldest continuously co-op building in New York City, living in the same apartment for 69 years.  Sheila is survived by her sons and three granddaughters: Michael D. D. White and his daughter Eve and Audrey, her son Stephen A. White and his daughter Marina, and her son Anthony S. White, and is also survived by a niece Marguerite Gaul who is an honorary sister to those brothers.  In her last years, Sheila was especially well cared by Chi-Chi (Chinyere Ugwu) who lived with her 24/7 helping her to deal with medical challenges since 2017.

 We will have a celebration of life event Saturday, 11:00 AM, November 11, 2023 at the Manhattan Friends Meeting House on Rutherford Place (between 15th and 16 Street, just East of Third Avenue). 

PS:  A recording of the Friends Meeting House celebration is now available here: Sheila John Daly White Celebration of Life (among other things you can hear about my mother's conversation with Karl Lagerfeld who had an incredible library of books.  Also, here is the White Family Song sung that day crafted to honor my mother's life: Sheila John Daly White Celebration: White Family Song 11/11/2023.
(Also available via Google drive, but without subtitles.)
 

WBAI 99.5 fm, Listener Supported Radio for the 99.5%, Needs Promotion- Here’s Some Promotion!

WBAI Radio, 99.5 fm, “Radios for the 99.5%,” “Peace and Justice Radio,” “Free Speech Radio,” the only truly listener supported radio station in New York City, needs promotion.

So here is some promotion we’ve put together.

The following are “carts,” radio spots that can be played on WBAI’s air waves.  Some of them are already being played on WBAI.  The links below present these as internet versions, YouTube shorts, Tweets, etc.

Members of our library defending community will probably recognize some of the voices heard.  And by the way, if you’d like to volunteer to do some reading, we have more spots in the works, or we may produce new versions of some of these.  Plus we are producing more, which means you can also suggest new scripts!

Listening to these spots you’ll realize that the reasons for promoting WBAI coincide greatly with the reasons for protecting our libraries, including having refuge from the internet and a protected realm for alternative narratives to the just-not-so and so-not-just stories that the powerful pump out for mass consumption.

One of our newly elected WBAI Local Station Board members* who is expert at and very successful at getting publicity, said that when he was running for the board he was stunned by how many of his friends just didn’t know about WBAI, or, at least, didn’t know what WBAI is up to recently. . . . And that ignorance has serious financial implications given how important it is for WBAI to be a robust institution.      

    (* Citizens Defending Libraries co-founder Michael D. D. White- whose voice you’ll har in many of the spots- is also on the Local Station Board)

As noted, these are audio spots that may be played on the air, but they are also now set up for internet distribution.  Like it or not, the internet has a lot to do with the way things get promoted these days.  Also, it is a way to reach out and promote the station to people who are not already listening to the station. And it’s an opportunity to remind people in the internet’s sphere that, when it comes to censorship, there can be a certain tenuous evanescence to the internet and that the internet and narratives there can be subject to strange and problematic combinations of monitoring and manipulation.

The spots below are set up for easy access and sharing via YouTube (including a playlist), Twitter (X?), and Facebook or other platforms.  Please consider helping promote WBAI by sharing them.

If sharing produces certain favorites, we may find that means you’ll hear those spots when they played more often on WBAI as a result!      
            
Hope your listening (and sharing) will be fun!

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If, Instead of Your Favorite Podcast, You Listen To WBAI 99.5 fm Terrestrial Radio
 

Twitter: One and Two. 

Facebook.

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Streetwise Radio Listeners Promote WBAI 99.5 fm !! (Vers. 01)

 

Twitter: One and Two

 Facebook.

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Streetwise Radio Listeners Promote WBAI 99.5 fm !! (Vers. 02)
               

Twitter: One and Two
Facebook.

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Streetwise Radio Listeners Promote WBAI 99.5 fm !! (Vers. 03)

 
Twitter: One and Two
Facebook.

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A WBAI Listener Talks With Psychiatrist. . . About Algorithms

 
Twitter: One and Two
Facebook.

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Wise up: Politicians Break Their Promises- So Donate to a Cause- Like WBAI! (Vers. 01)
                            
Twitter: One and Two
Facebook.

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Wise up: Politicians Break Their Promises- So Donate to a Cause- Like WBAI! (Vers. 02)


Twitter: One and Two

Facebook.

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Listener Promotion of WBAI 99.5 fm Radio Is Easy? Yes!
 

Twitter: One and Two
Facebook.

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PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: The Best Way For WBAI To Raise $$?
 

Twitter: One and Two
Facebook.

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A "Radical Leftist" answers where (WBAI?) he gets his news

 
Twitter: One and Two
Facebook.

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Arnold and Irwin read: Inquiry to A Radical Leftist About His Source For News

 
Twitter: One and Two
Facebook.

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WBAI 99.5 fm Radio Needs a PUBLICITY DIRECTOR! (Vers. 01)

 
Twitter: One and Two
 Facebook.

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WBAI 99.5 fm Radio Needs a PUBLICITY DIRECTOR! (Vers. 02)

 
Twitter: One and Two
Facebook.

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Own Your Own Free Press!: WBAI


Twitter: One and Two
Facebook. 

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Own Your Own Free Press!: WBAI (Shorter)

 
Twitter: One and Two
Facebook.

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Own Your Own Free Press!: WBAI (Even Shorter)

 
Twitter: One and Two
Facebook.

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Own Your Own Free Press!: WBAI (Shortest) 

Twitter: One and Two
Facebook.

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Pinched For Cash? Multiply Yourself To Support WBAI (Vers. 01) 

 
Twitter: One and Two
Facebook.

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Pinched For Cash? Multiply Yourself To Support WBAI (Vers. 02)

 
Twitter: One and Two
 Facebook.

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Pinched For Cash? Multiply Yourself To Support WBAI (Vers. 03)

 
Twitter: One and Two
Facebook.

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Free Speech Defenders Are Running To Join Library Defenders On The WBAI Local Station Board To Keep WBAI Independent, Accountable To The Listeners, A Free Speech Bulwark Against Censorship

 

Our Recommended Listener Candidates (eighteen in all): Elliot Crown, M. Kay Williams, Gloria Guillo, Dr. Charles Ihejirika, Jeremy Kuzmarov, Adrienne Meisels, Mark Crispin Miller, Guy Vantresca, Tessa Lena, Dion Powell, Amy Smiley, Jack DePalma, Janet Harmon, David Saltman, Camilla Rees, Neale Vos, Thomas Murata,Carolyn Birden

 

Free Speech Defenders Are Running To Join Library Defenders On The WBAI Local Station Board To Keep WBAI Independent, Accountable To The Listeners, A Free Speech Bulwark Against Censorship

Great news!: Our Library Defenders already on the WBAI (99.5 fm) Radio Local Station Board (i.e. Michael D. D. White, Katherine O'Sullivan and Priscilla Cancar) are looking out at an assembled troop of really excellent Free Speech candidates who we recommend to join them on that board

PLEASE VOTE FOR THEM!  Listener members of WBAI, please vote for them!  Please vote for them in the WBAI Local Station Board Election- Voting is between now and 11:59 PM September 30th.

The excellent, amazingly superb candidates we recommend are as follows . . .  Also, while we will skip over a full explanation, the voting is "Instant Runoff Voting" ("IRV"), which means that if you vote for these candidates in the order below recommended it will help them get elected.

 
The Listener Candidates We Recommend Are:

 

 

 

 

 

 1.    Elliot Crown- You likely know him already- as “the man behind the mask.”  A brilliant artist who has attended political demonstrations you’ve probably attended where you maybe had your picture taken with him in one of his satirical, attention-grabbing costumes.  Crown has a long history as a political artist/activist street theater protester,  whose visual storytelling successfully defies censorship to command the attention of millions of people around the world, slinging messages through the media noise and interference machine to address issues of racial and economic justice, the environment, militarism, housing et al.  His exceptional communication skills will be an incomparable contribution towards WBAI's voice gaining a new notoriety.

2.    M. Kay Williams- Has already proven her industrious dedication to WBAI: Although not yet elected to the LSB (she ran in the last election), serving as LSB Secretary and Secretary to the WBAI Finance Committee and Management Evaluation Committee.   She is an experienced Physicians Assistant with a Masters of Public Health from Columbia. She aided refugees in Thailand and health workers in Nicaragua. Former chair of the Free Speech Radio Alliance.

3.    Gloria Guillo- Is a dynamic activist leader, organizer, skilled researcher and compelling writer turning out investigative journalism pieces for Covert Action Magazine focused on the negative impact of U.S. foreign policy on developing countries.  She is a retired NYC Urban Planner and Public Administrator, with an MPA from NYU, and a founding member of Green Renaissance-Sovereign Rights Movement.  A high-energy performer, she is a former lead singer/guitarist/songwriter with the political rock band Ringmaster.

4.    Dr. Charles Ihejirika- Charles Ihejirika, with a doctorate in Law and Policy from Northeastern University in Boston, living in The Bronx, is the Lead Director of Daccade Law and Policy Inc., New York.  Born in Nigeria, he pays close attention to the deleterious effects of the United States and Britain on his country of birth, Dr. Charles envisions WBAI as the "must-go-to" radio station for standout reporting where a majority of New York Metropolitan Area residents in its vast broadcast area, a potentially very large listening public, will obtain authentic information on critical local, national, and international issues that the mainstream media bury.

5.    Jeremy Kuzmarov- Historian, professor, book author and the managing editor of CovertAction Magazine Jeremy has contributed prolifically to that magazine writing critically about U.S. foreign policy and covert operations and the corruption of US intelligence agencies. He warns that the US Left today, like the public at large, often falls into traps adopting false narratives advanced by intelligence agencies that are also psychologically designed to stoke partisan divisions, quashing truly worthwhile public discourse.  He advocates the abolition of the CIA.

6.    Adrienne Meisels- A WBAI listener since childhood who benefited from the health advice it made available, Adrienne values WBAI’s being uniquely positioned to offer true, uncensored discourse, news and content that is not beholden to corporate sponsors’ agendas: in other words, saying: “The only way to fight misinformation is not with censorship but with more information.” Adrienne backs her beliefs by being politically active.  Retired from the practice of law, Adrienne, a Wharton school graduate, is an award-winning senior digital innovation and operations executive and entrepreneur with a proven ability to create groundbreaking, human-centric digital solutions.  She is a dynamic leader known for building inspired teams and creating a more conscious world through personalized, predictive computing and connected data.

7.    Mark Crispin Miller- With a global reputation, Miller is a renowned media scholar/activist and expert on the subject of propaganda and the way it manipulates an unwitting public. Miller until recently was a professor at NYU.  He’s been a frequent guest on such Pacifica programs as the “Project Censored Show.”  He’s written scores of articles, often lectured, and spoken out in interviews on the urgent need for a more democratic media system—a system not in thrall to corporate ownership or major advertisers. He spoke out against the dangers of unbridled media concentration as it accelerated in the Nineties and is a long-term champion of public radio and did a weekly public radio show in the 80s.  Countering censorship, he is also responsible for the 27-book Forbidden Bookshelf series republishing works that might have been unfairly consigned to oblivion.

8.    Guy Vantresca- A native New Yorker, and Natural Health Consultant Guy is a student of history, from ancient times through to today.  He was a US Army Officer living in Europe during the Cold War. He lived in Europe for 12 years.  He believes that independent investigative journalism, or, and Pacifica, can serve to make power structures accountable in ways that corporate owned mass-media chose not to do.  He thinks that as a voice for truth WBAI should not be an echo chamber for “cancel culture” and emotionally based outrage.  To restore democracy and address growing wealth inequality, corporate personhood needs to be banished and corporatism defanged.  Putting a high degree of energy behind his commitments, he advocates free market competition co-existing with community based systems that support the "commons"; education, housing, health, ecology of nature, etc.

9.    Tessa Lena- A musician, classically trained pianist and singer, writer and journalist, born and raised in Moscow, a Soviet expat, who knows where things can lead, she is concerned about the totalitarian tendencies in the media. And she is rubbing her eyes thinking that every day that America is very quickly becoming very much like the USSR. She is standing up to the attack on freedom, advocating Joy as better than suffering, Love as better than fear. In 2016, Tessa started Coalition for Artistic Dignity and organized a conference in Brooklyn dedicated to artistic dignity, social power and corporate responsibility.

10.    Dion Powell-   His Bachelor’s Degree is in Media from CCNY.  Sitting on many boards and a member of many civic organizations, voter education with engagement is a way of life for Mr. Powell. He loves developing "good citizens" that are active participants in their local neighborhood politics. Born and raised in the Bronx, Dion Powel is a community leader and was a 2020 candidate for the NYS Assembly Bronx 79th District following his work as Community Liaison.  He helped start the Bronx Young Democrats and became the Chair of the Caucus of Color for the New York State Young Democrats.

11.    Amy Smiley- A practicing NYC psychotherapist and author of fiction and essays about the radio as a political medium during the Occupation in Europe (WWII), contemporary art, and literature, Amy is also an avid reader of fiction and history and a lover of art. She is engaged in the world from a political perspective and very interested in social issues. She lived in Europe for many years and understands the importance of diverse political representation. She feels her therapy work gives her a deep understanding of challenges people are facing in these difficult times.

12.    Jack DePalma- Is a hands on Physics teacher who literally got on his hands and knees to help clean up WBAI after Superstorm Sandy hit.  He intends to reboot the WBAI news Department back into its glory days.  With years of experience on the Local Station Board plus unceasing volunteer work at the station, he’d probably like to take a break, but was convinced of the importance of our being able to ask you to vote for him.

13.    Janet Harmon- Someone else you have seen prominently participating at many activist demonstrations for things you believe in, Janet is a “Raging Grannie,” a member of the group of performers that show up to sing creatively crafted, laughter-encouraging song lyrics to support efforts like Women in Black, Say their Names group (reading names of folks who've been killed by police), and opposition to library sales and our perpetual wars.

14.       Camilla Rees- A former financial industry executive who has more recently been a researcher, author, and producer on technology risks, environmental pollution, clean energy and regenerative agriculture, studying widely in medical, scientific, complementary and alternative medicine, health enhancement and self-empowerment fields.  Camilla founded Manhattan Neighbors for Safer Telecommunications, ElectromagneticHealth.org, Campaign for Radiation Free Schools and co-founded the International EMF Alliance. She is Senior Policy Advisor to the National Institute for Science, Law & Public Policy in Washington, D.C., where she oversees policy papers on electromagnetic fields, the smart grid and telecommunications.  Camilla serves on the Advisory Board of the Building Biology™ Institute. She was an Executive Producer of the award-winning film on smart meter risks, Take Back Your Power, and has co-produced several television programs for PBS. Camilla is a Voting Member of the U.S. Health Freedom Congress; Member, American Sustainable Business Network (ASBN); and a Board Member of Media in the Public Interest.  Along with many other award winning activities, Camilla also briefly had a radio program, Growing Green, on KGNU in Boulder.

15.  David Saltman- A prizewinning (Emmy, Ace and Peabody awards) broadcaster, author and film-maker with fifty years experience, he's also an innovator in meditative and martial arts. In 1972, he created the first radio program, on Pacifica, to cover spiritual ideas. He "discovered" Gilda Radner and was first to put her on the air.  He’s written, produced and directed some two hundred documentaries for CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC and public television and radio networks and has written or collaborated on three feature film scripts. He has his film work inducted into the Smithsonian Institution.  He is a novelist: “Houdini Unbound,” also co-authored three other critically-acclaimed books: The Sports Book, The Great Escape, and The Marrakech Express. He has done humor pieces in TV Guide, science writing in Omni, and travel writings in Rolling Stone and The New York Times.  He has taught writing and filmmaking.

16.    Neale Vos- Neale, very involved with WBAI and currently on its Community Advisory Board has been listening to WBAI for over 40 years. He has been regularly supplying the CAB’s report at the LSB’s monthly meetings.  The CAB has focused on efforts to expand WBAI’s listener base, Neale says that since the station has no money to advertise, listeners are the only way to promote the station to people who do not listen to WBAI.  Neale and intends help to organize listener advertisers.

17.    Thomas Murata- is also a member of the WBAI Community Advisory Board, another long time listener, and is running for the LSB to prevent Pacifica from being overtaken by "New Day people," who seized WBAI for one month in October of 2019 turning it into a repeater station.  He sees WBAI as addressing the ever growing threat of the Military Industrial Media Medical complex.  He suggest appeals to rich activist donors such Jane Fonda, Yoko Ono, Susan Sarandon, Barbara Streisand, Robert Redford, Michael Moore, and Oliver Stone before it’s too late.

18.    Carolyn Birden-  A long-time member of WBAI and a veteran who has served on the LSB before (between 2004 and 2014) during some intense and difficult times, Ms. Birden is currently a member of WBAI’s Community Advisory Board   Ms. Birden was the organizer and first chair of the National Election Committee.  She has taught research and technical writing She feels factional internal politics are unproductive for WBAI.

 

Our Recommended Staff Candidates: Jim Freund, Keziah Glow, Dr. Simon Fitzgerald, Doug Wood

Our Recommended Staff Candidates (WBAI staff votes separately for the candidates to represent staff on the Local Station Board-  Listener members can't vote for the candidates below, but these candidates will work well and coordinate with the listener representative candidates recommended above.):

1.     Jim Freund- Host of “Hour of the Wolf,” a long-time weekly WBAI program (since 1971)concentrating on the literature of science fiction, fantasy, and related fields.  He’s a lifelong unpaid staff member at WBAI since 1967.

2.    Keziah Glow- A producer for Leonard Lopate on the Leonard Lopate Show.  She believes being on the LSB is monumental opportunity to protect increasingly rare free speech radio. Many outlets are being silenced and outlawed.  Her number one goal is to find ways to create funding projects for the station.

3.    Simon Fitzgerald- The host of WBAI’s “Trauma Code,” Dr. Fitzgerald is a Kings County trauma surgeon and an Ambassador for the Baltimore Peace Movement.  He has experience including positions on the community advisory board of the Baltimore Mayor's Office on Neighborhood Safety and Engagement, and the medical advisory board of the Jordan McNair Foundation.

4.    Doug Wood- Doug and his wife Patti are the hosts and producers of "Green Street News," a WBAI environmental health program.  He has more than 30 years of experience in both commercial business and non-profit organizations. He creates and engineers music for film and television, and for many years he and his wife and I ran a very successful music company, recently sold to Sony. He founded and is National Director of the non-profit AmericansForResponsibleTech.org, a national coalition of more than 140 organizations in 43 states. His wife is the founder and Executive Director of the award-winning non-profit Grassroots Environmental Education where he serves as Associate Director and Chief Strategy Officer. He was a founding director of the advocacy group MusicAnswers, which seeks to protect the rights of music creators around the world, and has been elected twelve times to the Board of ASCAP, where he chairs the Legal Strategy Committee.

Endorsements!!

The above collection of Candidates Is Endorsed by:

    •     Judy Gorman- singer song-writer activist, mentored by Pete Seeger. Judy wrote the Citizens Defending Libraries Song.
    •    Maxine Harrison-Gallmon- An Indy on the LSB intimately familiar with how the station works through her dedicated volunteer work there.
    •    Tracy Rosenberg- One of Pacifica’s best historians and analysts keeping facts straight.
    •    James Sagurton- Pacifica’s current Treasurer from the Indys’ who has done so much to put Pacifica’s financial house in order.
    •   Michael D. D. White, Carolyn McIntyre, and Martha Rowen- Three principal co-founders of Citizens Defending Libraries. Carolyn McIntyre, was Chair of the LSB for three years in a row.  Michael D. D. White is current and former Vice-Chair of the LSB. Martha Rowen has moved on to run for New York State Assembly and New York City Council.
    •    Gary Null - On August 24, 2023 Gary Null endorsed all of the above candidates (plus one other).  Mr Null is the host and producer of the Gary Null Show on WBAI (and PRN, the Progressive Radio Network of which he is the founder). Mr. Null, Ph.D, is renowned for his expertise in the field of health and nutrition, and the author of over 70 best-selling books on healthy living and the director of over 100 critically acclaimed full-feature documentary films on natural health, self-empowerment and the environment.
    •    Alex Steinberg- Recent Pacifica National Board Chair, expert at tactically navigating Pacifica through crises.
    •    Grace Aaron- Former Chair of the Pacifica National Board who had much to do with obtaining the loans that allowed WBAI and Pacifica to extricate from the financial drain of the exorbitant Empire State Building antenna lease.
    •    Lucy Koteen- Prominent member of Human-Scale New York, fought Atlantic Yards, fighting destruction of Fort Green Park, and fighting various other city environmental and community protection battles.
    •    Alicia Boyd- Activist who founded MTOPP to fight the aggressive real estate interests in Brooklyn, intent among other things, on over-shadowing the Brooklyn Botanical Garden with towers.
    •    Lynn Ellsworth- Founding board member on the steering committee of Human-Scale NYC a leading member of New Yorkers for a Human-Scale City Coalition.
    •    DeeDee Halleck- Current Chair of the WBAI’s LSB and famed independent film and documentary maker and another Indy on the LSB elected last election.
    •   Cindy Sheehan-  Anti-war activist.

SO MANY GREAT CANDIDATES!   It's really a challenge providing you with a suggested voting order, but for various reasons, about which candidates have also conferred with us on, the order we suggest should work best.  We also suggest you vote only for these suggested candidates to help them all have the best chance of getting elected. 

Our highly qualified, amazingly superb candidates are all free speech supporters and they oppose authoritarianism.  

WHO can vote in this election? -- and HOW to vote in this election.

You are qualified as a listener member and able to vote in this WBAI election if you contributed $25 or more to the WBAI during the year that ended June 30, 2023.*

 (* And remember that if you donated the qualifying amount-- $25 or more for each member voter-- your WBAI donating household is entitled to cast more than one vote and should.  If you're having any problems, see below about who to contact including us.)

How to vote?

You can vote online and that is the very best way to vote, because voting electronically online saves a huge amount of money for the network and station as opposed to voting by mail (which is also possible).

Ideally, as a contributor to WBAI you should have already received two emails, one telling you that you are an eligible voter in this election (Subject line should be:  Balloting Period Opens Aug 15 / Candidate Forums Schedule, probably on August 10, 2023-- It would come from nes@pacifica.org) and another sending you your ballot (Subject line: Vote now: Pacifica Foundation Inc - 2023 Local Station Elections, which probably arrived August 15, 2023-- It would come from invitations@mail.electionbuddy.com)

If you donated to WBAI and did not yet receive such emails, or all the members of your household didn't, it is time to follow up and let the station know that you need to be sent the ballot email (maybe you didn't submit your email or used an old out of date one?)-- Contact WBAI's Membership Department:  +1-212-209-2950 and/or https://wbai.org/contact.php

Once again here is a handy list of all the spectacular listener candidates we recommend. And we recommend that you vote for all of them and only them as follows:

1.    Elliot Crown
2.    M. Kay Williams
3.    Gloria Guillo
4.    Dr. Charles Ihejirika
5.    Jeremy Kuzmarov
6.    Adrienne Meisels
7.    Mark Crispin Miller
8.    Guy Vantresca
9.    Tessa Lena
10.    Dion Powell
11.    Amy Smiley
12.    Jack DePalma
13.    Janet Harmon
14.    Camilla Rees
15.    David Saltman
16.    Neale Vos
17.    Thomas Murata
18.    Carolyn Birden

The purpose of this post is to promote the election of the candidates we are recommending and the content here may be freely and fairly used and reproduced by those similarly seeking to promote the election of these candidates.

Disclaimer: This is not an official communication of WBAI or Pacifica.

Disclaimer (further elaborated):  Because there are specified requirements issued with respect to WBAI Pacifica Elections, we further provide this specified language:

DISCLAIMER: This is not an official Pacifica Foundation mailing nor an official mailing of any of the five Pacifica Radio Stations (KPFA Radio, KPFK Radio, KPFT Radio, WBAI Radio, WPFW Radio). Opinions and facts alleged on this site belong to the author(s) only and should NOT be assumed to be true or to reflect the editorial stance or policy of the Pacifica Foundation, or any of the five Pacifica Radio Stations (KPFA Radio, KPFK Radio, KPFT Radio, WBAI Radio, WPFW Radio), or the opinions of its management, Pacifica National Board, station staff or other listener members.