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Times Record Staff
Two men from Fort Smith who took part in World War II died this past week. One fought in Japan and the other worked on the nuclear bomb that would ultimately end the fighting.
Alva “Gene” Beckham, immortalized on the OK Foods grain silo in the 2016 Unexpected Project after working there for 70 years, died Dec. 7 at the age of 94. He was buried in the Fort Smith National Cemetery on Thursday, Dec. 10. He was an Army veteran who had been stationed in Japan and Korea.
James Claude Alexander Jr., a 1939 graduate of Fort Smith Senior High School who went on to Princeton engineering school before working on the Manhattan Project, died Dec. 6 at the age of 98 in Naples, Florida. He had been a director of Sparks Regional Medical Center for 25 years and Fort Smith Boys and Girls Club for 58 years.