In Memoriam

Annetta L. Gomez-Jefferson (1927-2009)

Annetta Gomez-Jefferson, a longtime professor of theater at the College of Wooster in Ohio, has died from cancer at the age of 82.

Gomez-Jefferson was a native of Detroit where her father was a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. She earned a bachelor’s degree at Paul Quinn College in Texas and a master’s degree in English from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. She served on the faculty of the College of Wooster from 1974 to 1995 and founded the college’s theater department and its Stage Right Repertory Company.

C. Calvin Smith (1943-2009)

C. Calvin Smith, Presidential Distinguished Professor of Heritage Studies at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, has died at the age of 66. Smith was the first tenured black faculty member at Arkansas State University.

A native of Marianna, Arkansas, Smith was the son of a Baptist preacher. A graduate of the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, he held a master’s degree from Arkansas State and a Ph.D. in history from the University of Arkansas. He was the author of War and Wartime Changes: The Transformation of Arkansas, 1940-1945 and Educating the Masses: The Unfolding History of Black Public School Administrators, 1900-2000.

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