Former Colorado Lt. Gov. dies

DENVER -- Former Colorado Lt. Gov. George Brown, the first black person to win statewide office in Colorado, died Friday from cancer. He was 79.

His daughter, Laura Mitchell, said he died at his home in Boca Raton, Fla.

Before getting into politics, the Lawrence, Kan., native served in pilot training at Tuskegee Air Force Base during World War II and received a journalism degree from the University of Kansas in 1950. He then became a reporter and night city editor at The Denver Post.

The Democrat directed the Denver Housing Authority and served five terms as a state senator before Dick Lamm asked Brown to be his running mate in the 1974 gubernatorial election.

By the quirk of a one-hour time difference, Brown preceded Californian Mervyn Dymally as the nation's first black lieutenant governor, The Denver Post reported.

Brown left office in 1979 and joined the Grumman Corp. as vice president for marketing and later became the company's chief lobbyist in Washington, D.C. He retired to Florida in 1996 with his wife, Modeen.

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Michael J. Novosel

ENTERPRISE, Ala. (AP) -- Retired Army Chief Warrant Officer Michael J. Novosel, a recipient of the congressional Medal of Honor for heroism in Vietnam, died Sunday. He was 83.

He died at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., Army officials said.

Novosel, who became a military aviation cadet at age 19, lived in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., but had been a longtime resident of Enterprise, Ala.

A medivac pilot, Novosel served two tours in South Vietnam, flying 2,543 missions in the Bell UH-1 Huey while airlifting nearly 5,600 medical evacuees.

Novosel was awarded the Medal of Honor for an Oct. 2, 1969, helicopter rescue of wounded South Vietnamese soldiers pinned down by a large enemy force. Novosel was wounded as he rescued 29 men, according to a statement Sunday from the Army Aviation Warfighting Center.

After Vietnam, he served three years at Fort Bragg, N.C., as chief pilot for the Army's Golden Knights parachute team.

At Fort Rucker, he was an author and lecturer at the Warrant Officer Career College, retiring in 1985.

Also a World War II veteran, Novosel was born and raised in Etna, Pa.