Chicago beer firm Crown Imports is caught in antitrust fight

An antitrust brouhaha in Washington has thrown the future of Crown Imports, a Chicago-based beer importer, into question.

The company, which ranks third in U.S. beer sales volume, is a joint venture between New York-based Constellation Brands Inc. and Mexico's Grupo Modelo, which makes Corona Extra, the leading imported beer in the U.S., and other brands. Crown sells Modelo brands as well as China's Tsingtao.

As part of its proposed sale to Anheuser-Busch InBev, Grupo Modelo agreed to sell its 50 percent stake in Crown to Constellation Brands for $1.85 billion. The separate transaction was meant to ease possible antitrust concerns that the merger would eliminate Crown Imports as a competitor.

But on Thursday the U.S. Department of Justice filed an antitrust suit against AB InBev to block its acquisition of Grupo Modelo. Antitrust officials said the merger would further increase the concentration of the U.S. beer market, leading to higher prices for American consumers.

The lawsuit said the sale of Modelo's interest in Crown Imports to its partner would only create "a facade of competition" between AB InBev and the importer.

"In reality, Defendants' proposed 'remedy' eliminates from the market Modelo — a particularly aggressive competitor — and replaces it with an entity wholly dependent on ABI," the Justice Department said in the lawsuit.

The suits cites as evidence part of an internal memo that Crown's chief executive, Bill Hackett, wrote to employees after the transactions were announced in June. According to the suit, Hackett wrote, "Our #1 competitor will now be our supplier ... it is not currently or will not, going forward, be 'business as usual.'"

Under the terms of the proposed merger with Modelo, AB InBev also had the option to terminate its agreement with Crown Imports after 10 years, giving it full control of Corona distribution.

Constellation Brands on Friday attacked the Justice Department, saying in a statement that the suit "demonstrates its incomplete understanding" of the proposed merger. Constellation and AB InBev have indicated that they plan to challenge the suit.

In a detailed defense, Constellation said its full control of Crown would improve competition, not harm it. According to the lawsuit, Modelo controls about 7 percent of U.S. beer sales, far behind AB InBev's market-leading 39 percent.

Constellation attempted to ease concerns that AB InBev's merger with Modelo would lead to higher prices. Hackett said in a statement: "Our Crown team independently develops, implements and refines pricing, promotional and sales strategies for each of our brands in the U.S."

The proposed beer merger had reduced uncertainty hanging over Crown Imports because the Modelo-Constellation joint venture was set to expire at the end of 2016. The Justice Department action creates a new level of uncertainty, said Benj Steinman, president of Beer Marketer's Insights, a beer industry trade publication.

"Crown's fate is hanging in the balance," Steinman said.

asachdev@tribune.com

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Hadiya Pendleton's 'twin' describes death of best friend

The best friend of Hadiya Pendleton talks about the moments before her friend was shot in Chicago on January 31, 2013. (Heather Charles, Chicago Tribune)

As she and her high school classmates fled from the gunfire, Hadiya Pendleton screamed that she had been shot, fell to the ground, struggled to get up and fell again, according to her best friend.

The best friend and another girl scrambled to Pendleton's side, cradling her in their arms as others ran for help.

"I was holding her hand trying to talk her through it," her best friend told the Tribune on Thursday. "I was like, 'You're going to be fine, you're going to be OK.'"

But Hadiya, 15, died shortly after a bullet pierced her back Tuesday, igniting outrage over the senseless loss of another young victim of Chicago's out-of-control gun violence and leaving her friends staggered by the horrifying chain of events on what had been a carefree afternoon.

In the account that follows, the Tribune is not naming those who witnessed the shooting and its aftermath because the gunman is still at large.

On Tuesday afternoon, the mood outside King College Prep in North Kenwood was jubilant. The students at the elite high school had just finished final exams, classes had let out early and the winter weather was spectacular, tipping into the low 60s.

Hadiya and her best friend, both sophomores, headed toward a nearby Potbelly's, one of their favorite places to eat, the friend said. But on their way, at about 1:30 p.m., they ran into friends who invited them to Harsh Park, just a few blocks away from the school.

"We were like, 'OK, sure, who doesn't want to walk around outside when it's nice?'" Hadiya's best friend said.

As they walked, the group of about a dozen teens discussed which tests had been easy and which had been hard. Some were volleyball players from King and others went to another high school, Hadiya's friends said.

Once they reached the small, residential park, Hadiya and others headed to a playground where they swung in the warm air while chatting about their plans for the summer and their 16th birthdays. Hadiya's best friend said she and Hadiya had talked about a joint sweet 16 party and possibly wearing matching gold heels and colorful outfits to celebrate the occasion.

But then a sudden downpour drove the teens beneath a metal awning where Hadiya played "Misery Business" by the band Paramore on her cellphone and others tweeted and texted as they waited out the rain.

Minutes later, however, Hadiya's best friend said she saw a gun-wielding male scale the park fence and approach the group. She yelled a warning to her friends, but the gunman opened fire, spraying the teens with bullets as they ran.

Hadiya was struck in the back about 2:20 p.m. One teen suffered a graze wound to an ankle. And a 17-year-old junior at King was hit in the left leg below the calf, according to his mother, who said he was trying to protect his girlfriend.

The teen's mother said that her son, an Eagle Scout, didn't realize he had been shot. He felt a little sting in his leg before he looked down and saw blood.

A nurse who lived in the area and was leaving her home at the time of the shooting ran to the group, applied a makeshift tourniquet to the teen shot in the leg and called 911. The nurse instructed the others on how to take care of Hadiya.

In the meantime, another friend of Hadiya's ran to a nearby Subway restaurant, burst through the door and asked to borrow a man's phone to call 911.

But by then wailing police cars whizzed by toward the park, so she called her mom.

"I told her to stay put," her mother told the Tribune. "I can't even tell you, as a mother, what it's like to get that phone call. My goal was to get to my child."

The friend said that she and Hadiya met freshman year at a high school dance camp. The friend joined poms, while Hadiya became a majorette, traveling to Washington last month to perform in a competition with her squad during President Barack Obama's inauguration weekend.

The girls were nicknamed "twins" by classmates and teachers because of their similar appearance, the friend said. From haircut to smile to skin tone to personalities, the two were hard to tell apart, she said.

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3 Things That Still Worry Me About BlackBerry

BlackBerry put on a pretty good show on Wednesday when it revealed the Z10 and the Q10, its first new smartphones in a year and a half. The demos were crisp, and the new BlackBerry 10 software looked clever. At the very least, it seems that BlackBerry has finally joined the modern smartphone era.

But despite my interest in BlackBerry’s new phones, I’m still worried about the future of the platform, and not merely because it’s been off the radar for a while. Looking at what BlackBerry did and didn’t announce, and what reviewers are saying about the product, gives me a few big reasons for concern:

Apps, Both Present and Future

BlackBerry deserves credit for having lots of apps out of the gate–more than 70,000, the company says–including some important ones like Twitter, Facebook, Angry Birds and The New York Times. Still, there are some big names missing from the list, including Netflix, YouTube, Spotify and Instagram. You can’t expect a new platform to have everything right away, though, so I don’t want to judge BlackBerry’s current app count too harshly.

It’s the future that I’m really worried about. What happens when the next Instagram comes out, and becomes a sensation on the iPhone and Android? Will BlackBerry be like Windows Phone–that is, just an afterthought in the minds of up-and-coming app developers? The good news is that Android apps are relatively easy to port to BlackBerry 10 (in fact, roughly 40 percent of those 70,000 launch apps are simple ports, ReadWrite notes), so RIM just has to convince developers to make a relatively small effort. We’ll see if they do.

Never Neglect Maps

The consensus among BlackBerry Z10 reviews is that its Maps app is subpar. The Verge complained about inaccurate data, and said the software couldn’t reliably find local businesses. CNet bemoaned a lack of features, such as walking directions, transit maps and street views. Apparently the software doesn’t even let you jump into the Maps app by tapping on an address or map in the web browser. That’s just basic stuff. At least the Maps app includes voice-guided turn-by-turn directions.

In any case, having a good mapping service isn’t just about telling you where to go. It’s about using your location to deliver useful information. Google Now, for instance, can warn you about traffic before your commute home, and Apple‘s Passbook can call up a boarding pass when you get to the airport. These days, a really good standalone Maps app is only part of the equation, and BlackBerry doesn’t even have that yet.

Voice Commands and Virtual Assistants

BlackBerry has added voice commands in its new phones, but the list of supported actions is paltry compared to what Android and the iPhone offer. You can’t ask for movie times, the weather forecast, directions, or things to do. You can’t tell the phone to start playing music, answer a trivia question, calculate numbers or set reminders.

You may argue that it doesn’t matter, that most people don’t rely too heavily on voice commands to begin with. I think that will change as these virtual assistants become faster and support more types of queries. They’ll also become more useful in automobiles–in fact, some car makers are now starting to integrate Siri–and they may some day play a big role in wearable computing, allowing you to communicate by voice when your phone is just out of reach. It’s still early days for this kind of technology, but Apple and Google already have a huge head start. BlackBerry, by comparison, is just getting started.

I’m not saying the new BlackBerry phones are no good, or that no one should use them. Like I said before, the software has some clever ideas, such as the Hub that combines all communications into one area, and the Balance feature that acts as a separate login for business use. But the smartphone industry moves quickly, and BlackBerry’s period of rebuilding has taken its toll in a few key areas. As with before, it’s going to be hard for the company to catch up.

MORE: Check out a video about the new hardware and features

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Singer Randy Travis pleads guilty to DWI, gets probation

DALLAS (Reuters) – Grammy Award-winning country singer Randy Travis on Thursday pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated and was sentenced to two years probation for an incident in which Texas State Troopers found him lying naked near his crashed car.

Travis, 53, was ordered to serve at least 30 days at an in-patient alcohol treatment facility and was not charged for threatening the troopers who arrested him August 7 in Tioga, Texas, about 60 miles north of Dallas.

Travis’ blood alcohol level was more than double the legal limit in Texas when he was arrested, authorities said.

The guilty plea to a Class A misdemeanor in Grayson County Court ends legal troubles Travis faced in connection with several incidents last year, his attorney Larry Friedman said.

“He is ready to put all this behind him and focus on his music and his fans,” Friedman said. “He expects a trouble-free 2013.”

Travis was also fined $ 2,000 and sentenced to 100 hours of community service. Travis will have to serve six months in jail if he fails to complete the probation terms.

Grayson County District Attorney Joe Brown called the sentence “appropriate” given Travis’ level of intoxication and behavior during his arrest.

“We are all hopeful that Mr. Travis is on the road to recovery,” Brown said in a statement.

In January, Travis pleaded no contest in a case in which police said he assaulted a man on August 23 in a church parking lot while trying to intervene in a disagreement between a woman, who is now his fiancée, and her estranged husband.

Travis is serving 90 days of deferred adjudication in that case, which means the charges could be dismissed if he successfully completes the requirements, Friedman said.

The singer filed a lawsuit recently in a Collin County District Court against the man he was charged with assaulting, claiming the altercation was an attempt to injure and embarrass him.

Travis, known for such hits as “Forever and Ever, Amen,” was cited in February 2012 for public intoxication and paid a fine, Friedman said.

(Editing by David Bailey and Stacey Joyce)

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The New Old Age Blog: Caregiving, Laced With Humor

“My grandmother, she’s not a normal person. She’s like a character when she speaks. Every day she’s playing like she’s an actress.”

These are words of love, and they come from Sacha Goldberger, a French photographer who has turned his grandmother, 93-year-old Frederika Goldberger, into a minor European celebrity.

In the photos, you can see the qualities grandson and grandmother have in common: a wicked sense of humor, an utter lack of pretension and a keen taste for theatricality and the absurd.

This isn’t an ordinary caregiving relationship, not by a long shot. But Sacha, 44 years old and unmarried, is deeply devoted to this spirited older relation who has played the role of Mamika (“my little grandmother,” translated from her native Hungarian) in two of his books and a photography exhibition currently underway in Paris.

As for Frederika, “I like everything that my grandson does,” she said in a recent Skype conversation from her apartment, which also serves as Sacha’s office. “I hate not to do anything. Here, with my grandson, I have the feeling I am doing something.”

Their unusual collaboration began after Frederika retired from her career as a textile consultant at age 80 and fell into a funk.

“I was very depressed because I lived for working,” she told me in our Skype conversation.

Sacha had long dreamed of creating what he calls a “Woody Allen-like Web site with a French Jewish humor” and he had an inspiration. What if he took one of the pillars of that type of humor, a French man’s relationship with his mother and grandmother, and asked Frederika to play along with some oddball ideas?

This Budapest-born baroness, whose family had owned the largest textile factory in Hungary before World War II, was a natural in front of the camera, assuming a straight-faced, imperturbable comic attitude whether donning a motorcycle helmet and goggles, polishing her fingernails with a gherkin, wearing giant flippers on the beach, lighting up a banana, or dressed up as a Christmas tree with a golden star on her head. (All these photos and more appear in “Mamika: My Mighty Little Grandmother,” published in the United States last year.)

“It was like a game for us, deciding what crazy thing we were going to do next, how we were going to keep people from being bored,” said Sacha, who traces his close relationship with his grandmother to age 14, when she taught him how to drive and often picked him up at school. “Making pictures was a very good excuse to spend time together.”

“He thought it was very funny to put a costume on me,” said Frederika. “And I liked it.”

People responded enthusiastically, and before long Sacha had cooked up what ended up becoming the most popular character role for Frederika: Super Mamika, outfitted in a body-hugging costume, tights, a motorcycle helmet and a flowing cape.

His grandmother was a super hero of sorts, because she had helped save 10 people from the Nazis during World War II, said Sacha. He also traced inspiration to Stan Lee, a Jewish artist who created the X-Men, The Hulk and the Fantastic Four for Marvel comics. “I wanted to ask what happens to these super heroes when they get old in these photographs with my grandmother.”

Lest this seem a bit trivial to readers of this blog, consider this passage from Sacha’s introduction to “Mamika: My Might Little Grandmother”:

In a society where youth is the supreme value; where wrinkles have to be camouflaged; where old people are hidden as soon as they become cumbersome, where, for lack of time or desire, it is easier to put our elders in hospices rather than take care of them, I wanted to show that happiness in aging was also possible.

In our Skype conversation, Sacha confessed to anxiety about losing his grandmother, and said, “I always was very worried about what would happen if my grandmother disappeared. Because she is exceptional.”

“I am not normal,” Frederika piped up at his side, her face deeply wrinkled, her short hair beautifully coiffed, seemingly very satisfied with herself.

“So, making these pictures to me is the best thing that could happen,” Sacha continued, “because now my grandma is immortal and it seems everyone knows her. I am giving to everybody in the world a bit of my grandma.”

This wonderful expression of caring and creativity has expanded my view of intergenerational relations in this new old age. What about you?

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Former Peregrine CEO Wasendorf gets 50 years in prison

A U.S. judge on Thursday sentenced the founder of Peregrine Financial Group to 50 years in prison for looting hundreds of millions of dollars from the brokerage, saying his customers would probably never recover the money they lost.

Russell Wasendorf Sr., who had tried to kill himself just before the fraud was uncovered, received the maximum sentence allowed by law and was ordered to pay $215.5 million in restitution for his nearly 20-year scheme.

Wasendorf's fraud was revealed in 2012, triggering the collapse of the brokerage and further shaking investors' confidence in the U.S. futures industry, already rattled by the failure of larger rival M.F. Global.

"I'm very sorry for the financial and emotional damage I've caused to investors and employees of Peregrine Financial Group," Wasendorf said in a feeble voice at a sentencing hearing in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. "I feel I fully deserve whatever sentence I am given… My guilt is such I will accept that sentence."

Chief Judge Linda Reade of the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Iowa said former Peregrine customers will probably never get all their money back.

Wasendorf, 64, admitted last July that he had bilked tens of thousands of clients over a period of nearly 20 years, faking bank statements and lying to federal regulators, employees and his closest family members.

As regulators closed in on the fraud, Wasendorf made a botched suicide attempt outside his $24-million headquarters in Cedar Falls, Iowa, which investigators say was financed with money siphoned from customers.

Peregrine Financial, known as PFGBest, quickly collapsed, and 24,000 former customers are still missing most of the money they had invested with the firm.

Wasendorf pleaded guilty in September to embezzling more than $100 million. Prosecutors said the amount stolen was more like $215 million.

"The lengthy prison sentence imposed today is just punishment for a con man who built a business on smoke and mirrors," said Acting U.S. Attorney Sean Berry.

PLEAS FOR LENIENCY

Supporters of the disgraced executive had asked Reade for leniency, arguing that Wasendorf is in frail health and that he had helped others even in the midst of his 20-year fraud.

Wasendorf, wearing an orange sweatshirt, looked gaunt in court after spending six months in isolation in a county jail.

He has been sick in jail, and doctors found a tumor on or near his pancreas, according to testimony from his pastor, Linda Livingston of Ascension Lutheran Church. Wasendorf's mother died of pancreatic cancer, but it is unknown whether Wasendorf's tumor is cancerous, she said.

U.S. prosecutors said the large loss, the sophisticated nature of the crime, and the sheer number of victims justified Wasendorf spending the rest of his life behind bars.

"The defendant spent like he was the richest man in the world," Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Deegan said in court.

Peregrine's collapse dealt a blow to confidence in the U.S futures industry, already reeling from $1.6 billion hole in customer pockets left when giant brokerage MF Global failed nine months earlier.

Futures traders had never before suffered such large losses as a result of a brokerage failure.

Despite his misdeeds, Wasendorf "did do some positive things for the community," said former U.S. Congressman David Nagle from Iowa, who spoke up for the fallen CEO in court.

Nagle, who helped Wasendorf win zoning approval for Peregrine's environmentally-friendly headquarters, asked the judge for leniency.

"Who wants to defend the magnitude of the crimes Mr. Wasendorf committed?" he said. "But good people do bad things."

Wasendorf was well known for donating to local charities before his empire came crashing down.

However, he built his reputation for generosity using money stolen from his customers, Judge Reade said, adding that the donations likely lessened Wasendorf's feelings of guilt.

Peregrine customers "unwittingly funded the charities, but it was Mr. Wasendorf who took the credit," she said.

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Hawks' streak ends in 3-2 shootout loss

Blackhawks suffered first loss of the season.

ST. PAUL, Minn. — For the first time this season, the only sounds in the Blackhawks' postgame dressing room were pieces of tape being ripped from pads and hushed tones.

Gone was the celebrating as the Hawks had their six-game winning streak to start 2013 snapped as the Wild edged them 3-2 in a shootout Wednesday night at Xcel Energy Center.

Matt Cullen scored the winner in the shootout for the Wild as the Hawks suffered their first loss on the road in five outings. Cullen and Cal Clutterbuck scored in regulation and Niklas Backstrom earned the victory in goal in relief of Josh Harding for the Wild, playing the second of back-to-back games.

"Those are the tight games in the last three or four games that we found a way to win," said Hawks captain Jonathan Toews, who scored in regulation and in the shootout. "We were this close again and we had a great chance to win in overtime and in the shootout but we just came up a bit short.

"We just wanted to play a patient game and keep wearing them down as much as we could (but) we didn't get on them as much as we wanted to."

Andrew Shaw also had a goal in regulation for the Hawks but it wasn't enough as Corey Crawford suffered the defeat in the first of the six-game trip. The Hawks managed a point and lead the NHL with 13, but fell to 4-0-1 on the road.

"We played a lot better the second half of the game," defenseman Duncan Keith said. "If we had won we probably would be saying we played a great game and we're happy, but we lost in a shootout so we're not going to get down and get negative."

After the Wild struck early in the opening period on Cullen's goal, the Hawks answered when Shaw and Toews scored 1 minute, 31 seconds apart a few minutes later. First, Shaw rushed the net and took a pass from Bryan Bickell and stuffed it past Harding.

Toews put the Hawks ahead when he snapped a quick shot from the left dot that eluded Harding. Wild coach Mike Yeo had seen enough and yanked Harding, who proceeded to take out his frustration on his goalie stick in the tunnel leading to the dressing room.

The Hawks rode the momentum of a strong penalty-killing effort into the intermission but it was short-lived as Clutterbuck redirected a long Tom Gilbert shot in the opening minute of the second.

With Crawford and Backstrom both playing well, the game eventually went to the shootout. It ended when Patrick Sharp rifled a shot off the crossbar and the Wild had the extra point.

"Going to a shootout, anything can happen," Hawks coach Joel Quenneville said. "We had the play in the last part of the game. It's disappointing, obviously, when you don't win but at least let's get excited about getting back in the 'W' column."

ckuc@tribune.com

Twitter @ChrisKuc

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Nintendo chief rules out price cuts for Wii U

TOKYO (AP) — Nintendo‘s president Thursday ruled out price cuts for its new Wii U home console as a way to boost sales, vowing to become profitable again in its core businesses as smartphones and tablets increasingly threaten specialized game machines.

Satoru Iwata, speaking at a Tokyo hotel to investors and reporters a day after earnings were released, acknowledged the sales momentum for the Wii U, as well as the 3DS hand-held game machine, had run out of steam during the key year-end shopping season, especially in the U.S.

But he said no price cuts were in the works. Price cuts are common in the gaming industry to woo buyers, but the move can backfire by trimming revenue. The Wii U now sells for about $ 300 in the U.S. and 25,000 yen in Japan.

“We are already offering it at a good price,” he said.

Iwata said he expects operating profit of more than 100 billion yen in the 12 months ending March 2014, promising that as “a commitment.”

But he acknowledged more work was needed to have consumers understand the Wii U, which went on sale globally late last year, as well as producing more game software to draw buyers.

All game machines have suffered in recent years from the advent of smartphones and other mobile devices that have become more sophisticated and offer games and other forms of entertainment.

Nintendo returned to net profit for the April-December period of 2012 from deep losses the previous year, but that was due to a perk from a weaker yen, which helps Japanese exporters such as Nintendo.

Its operating result, which removes currency fluctuations, was a loss of 5.86 billion yen ($ 64 million), and Nintendo expects that to swell to a 20 billion yen ($ 220 million) loss for the full business year ending March 2013 as sales of its game consoles fall short of expectations.

Iwata said Nintendo is preparing more game software, including those developed in-house, for the end of this year.

Kyoto-based Nintendo, which makes Super Mario and Pokemon games, lowered its full year sales forecast Wednesday to 670 billion yen ($ 7.4 billion) from 810 billion yen ($ 8.9 billion). It also said it was going to sell fewer Wii U consoles for the fiscal year through March than its previous projection. The Wii U has a touch-screen tablet controller called GamePad and a TV-watching feature called TVii.

The company forecasts it will sell 4 million Wii U consoles for the current fiscal year, ending March 31, down from its earlier estimate of 5.5 million units. The Wii U, which went on sale late last year, was the first major new game console to arrive in stores in years.

Nintendo, also behind the Donkey Kong and Zelda games, lowered its full year sales forecast for Wii U game software units to 16 million from 24 million.

Iwata said last year holiday sales quickly dissipated in the U.S. and some European nations, including Great Britain, the key market. He said the U.S. home console sales were the worst for Nintendo in nearly a decade.

He said Nintendo needs hit games to push console sales, and the company remains confident Wii U will prove more popular with time.

“The chicken-and-game problem has not been solved,” he said of the need for both game software and machine hardware.

“I feel a deep sense of responsibility for not being able to produce results for our year-end business,” said Iwata.

He declined to say what he would do if the company failed to attain the promised operating profits.

Nintendo sank into a loss the previous fiscal year largely because of price cuts for its hand-held 3DS game machine, which shows three-dimensional imagery without special glasses. That machine is also struggling in most global markets.

Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo’s famed game designer, said what was missing were games for the Wii U that made its appeal clear. The progress in smartphones has also posed a challenge for Nintendo, he said.

“People have to try it to see it is fun,” Miyamoto said of Wii U.

___

Follow Yuri Kageyama on Twitter at www.twitter.com/yurikageyama

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Patty Andrews of Andrews Sisters rallied troops

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Patty Andrews never served in the military, but she and her singing sisters certainly supported the troops.

During World War II, they hawked war bonds, entertained soldiers overseas and boosted morale on the home-front with tunes like “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B” and “I Can Dream, Can’t I?”

Andrews, the last surviving member of the singing Andrews Sisters trio, died Wednesday at 94 of natural causes at her home in the Los Angeles suburb of Northridge, said family spokesman Alan Eichler in a statement.

“When I was a kid, I only had two records and one of them was the Andrews Sisters. They were remarkable. Their sound, so pure,” said Bette Midler, who had a hit cover of “Bugle Boy” in 1973. “Everything they did for our nation was more than we could have asked for. This is the last of the trio, and I hope the trumpets ushering (Patty) into heaven with her sisters are playing ‘Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.’”

Patty was the Andrews in the middle, the lead singer and chief clown, whose raucous jitterbugging delighted American servicemen abroad and audiences at home.

She could also deliver sentimental ballads like “I’ll Be with You in Apple Blossom Time” with a sincerity that caused hardened GIs far from home to weep.

From the late 1930s through the 1940s, the Andrews Sisters produced one hit record after another, beginning with “Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen” in 1937 and continuing with “Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar,” ”Rum and Coca-Cola” and more. They recorded more than 400 songs and sold over 80 million records.

Other sisters, notably the Boswells, had become famous as singing acts, but mostly they huddled before a microphone in close harmony. The Andrews Sisters — LaVerne, Maxene and Patty — added a new dimension. During breaks in their singing, they cavorted about the stage in rhythm to the music.

Their voices combined with perfect synergy. As Patty remarked in 1971: “There were just three girls in the family. LaVerne had a very low voice. Maxene’s was kind of high, and I was between. It was like God had given us voices to fit our parts.”

Kathy Daris of the singing Lennon Sisters recalled on Facebook late Wednesday that the Andrews Sisters “were the first singing sister act that we tried to copy. We loved their rendition of songs, their high spirit, their fabulous harmony.”

The Andrews Sisters‘ rise coincided with the advent of swing music, and their style fit perfectly into the new craze. They aimed at reproducing the sound of three harmonizing trumpets.

Unlike other singing acts, the sisters recorded with popular bands of the ’40s, fitting neatly into the styles of Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Jimmy Dorsey, Bob Crosby, Woody Herman, Guy Lombardo, Desi Arnaz and Russ Morgan. They sang dozens of songs on records with Bing Crosby, including the million-seller “Don’t Fence Me In.” They also recorded with Dick Haymes, Carmen Miranda, Danny Kaye, Al Jolson, Jimmy Durante and Red Foley.

The Andrews’ popularity led to a contract with Universal Pictures, where they made a dozen low-budget musical comedies between 1940 and 1944. In 1947, they appeared in “The Road to Rio” with Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour.

The trio continued until LaVerne’s death in 1967. By that time the close harmony had turned to discord, and the sisters had been openly feuding.

Midler’s cover of “Bugle Boy” revived interest in the trio. The two survivors joined in 1974 for a Broadway show, “Over Here!” It ran for more than a year, but disputes with the producers led to the cancellation of the national tour of the show, and the sisters did not perform together again.

Patty continued on her own, finding success in Las Vegas and on TV variety shows. Her sister also toured solo until her death in 1995.

Her father, Peter Andrews, was a Greek immigrant who anglicized his name of Andreus when he arrived in America; his wife, Olga, was a Norwegian with a love of music. LaVerne was born in 1911, Maxine (later Maxene) in 1916, Patricia (later Patty, sometimes Patti) in 1918.

All three sisters were born and raised in the Minneapolis area.

Listening to the Boswell Sisters on radio, LaVerne played the piano and taught her sisters to sing in harmony; neither Maxene nor Patty ever learned to read music. All three studied singers at the vaudeville house near their father’s restaurant. As their skills developed, they moved from amateur shows to vaudeville and singing with bands.

After Peter Andrews moved the family to New York in 1937, his wife, Olga, sought singing dates for the girls. They were often turned down with comments such as: “They sing too loud and they move too much.” Olga persisted, and the sisters sang on radio with a hotel band at $ 15 a week. The broadcasts landed them a contract with Decca Records.

They recorded a few songs, and then came “Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen,” an old Yiddish song for which Sammy Cahn and Saul Kaplan wrote English lyrics. (The title means, “To Me You Are Beautiful.”) It was a smash hit, and the Andrews Sisters were launched into the bigtime.

In 1947, Patty married Martin Melcher, an agent who represented the sisters as well as Doris Day, then at the beginning of her film career. Patty divorced Melcher in 1949 and soon he became Day’s husband, manager and producer.

Patty married Walter Weschler, pianist for the sisters, in 1952. He became their manager and demanded more pay for himself and for Patty. The two other sisters rebelled, and their differences with Patty became public. Lawsuits were filed between the two camps.

Patty Andrews is survived by her foster daughter, Pam DuBois, a niece and several cousins. Weschler died in 2010.

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Well: Waiting for Alzheimer's to Begin

My gray matter might be waning. Then again, it might not be. But I swear that I can feel memories — as I’m making them — slide off a neuron and into a tangle of plaque. I steel myself for those moments to come when I won’t remember what just went into my head.

I’m not losing track of my car keys, which is pretty standard in aging minds. Nor have I ever forgotten to turn off the oven after use, common in menopausal women. I can always find my car in the parking lot, although lots of “normal” folk can’t.

Rather, I suddenly can’t remember the name of someone with whom I’ve worked for years. I cover by saying “sir” or “madam” like the Southerner I am, even though I live in Vermont and grown people here don’t use such terms. Better to think I’m quirky than losing my faculties. Sometimes I’ll send myself an e-mail to-do reminder and then, seconds later, find myself thrilled to see a new entry pop into my inbox. Oops, it’s from me. Worse yet, a massage therapist kicked me out of her practice for missing three appointments. I didn’t recall making any of them. There must another Nancy.

Am I losing track of me?

Equally worrisome are the memories increasingly coming to the fore. Magically, these random recollections manage to circumnavigate my imagined build-up of beta-amyloid en route to delivering vivid images of my father’s first steps down his path of forgetting. He was the same age I am now, which is 46.

“How old are you?” I recall him asking me back then. Some years later, he began calling me every Dec. 28 to say, “Happy birthday,” instead of on the correct date, Dec. 27. The 28th had been his grandmother’s birthday.

The chasms were small at first. Explainable. Dismissible. When he crossed the street without looking both ways, we chalked it up to his well-cultivated, absent-minded professor persona. But the chasms grew into sinkholes, and eventually quicksand. When we took him to get new pants one day, he kept trying on the same ones he wore to the store.

“I like these slacks,” he’d say, over and over again, as he repeatedly pulled his pair up and down.

My dad died of Alzheimer’s last April at age 73 — the same age at which his father succumbed to the same disease. My dad ended up choosing neurology as his profession after witnessing the very beginning of his own dad’s forgetting.

Decades later, grandfather’s atrophied brain found its way into a jar on my father’s office desk. Was it meant to be an ever-present reminder of Alzheimer’s effect? Or was it a crystal ball sent to warn of genetic fate? My father the doctor never said, nor did he ever mention, that it was his father’s gray matter floating in that pool of formaldehyde.

Using the jarred brain as a teaching tool, my dad showed my 8-year-old self the difference between frontal and temporal lobes. He also pointed out how brains with Alzheimer’s disease become smaller, and how wide grooves develop in the cerebral cortex. But only after his death — and my mother’s confession about whose brain occupied that jar — did I figure out that my father was quite literally demonstrating how this disease runs through our heads.

Has my forgetting begun?

I called my dad’s neurologist. To find out if I was in the earliest stages of Alzheimer’s, he would have to look for proteins in my blood or spinal fluid and employ expensive neuroimaging tests. If he found any indication of onset, the only option would be experimental trials.

But documented confirmation of a diseased brain would break my still hopeful heart. I’d walk around with the scarlet letter “A” etched on the inside of my forehead — obstructing how I view every situation instead of the intermittent clouding I currently experience.

“You’re still grieving your father,” the doctor said at the end of our call. “Sadness and depression affect the memory, too. Let’s wait and see.”

It certainly didn’t help matters that two people at my father’s funeral made some insensitive remarks.

“Nancy, you must be scared to death.”

“Is it hard knowing the same thing probably will happen to you?”

Maybe the real question is what to do when the forgetting begins. My dad started taking 70 supplements a day in hopes of saving his mind. He begged me to kill him if he wound up like his father. He retired from his practice and spent all day in a chair doing puzzles. He stopped making new memories in an all-out effort to preserve the ones he already had.

Maybe his approach wasn’t the answer.

Just before his death — his brain a fraction of its former self — my father managed to offer up a final lesson. I was visiting him in the memory-care center when he got a strange look on his face. I figured it was gas. But then his eyes lit up and a big grin overtook him, and he looked right at me and said, “Funny how things turn out.”

An unforgettable moment?

I can only hope.

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Nancy Stearns Bercaw is a writer in Vermont. Her book, “Brain in a Jar: A Daughter’s Journey Through Her Father’s Memory,” will be published in April 2013 by Broadstone.

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