PASSINGS

Carl Wilson Gregory

Former Fullerton bank executive

Carl Wilson Gregory, 68, who was a member of a pioneering Fullerton family and the chief executive officer of Fullerton Community Bank, died of complications from cancer March 30 at his Fullerton home, his family announced.

In 1941, his family bought a controlling interest in what is now Fullerton Community Bank, and his father, R. Merrill Gregory, became its president and chairman. Carl Gregory joined the institution in 1972 as an appraiser and rose to president in 1979.

His grandfather, R.S. Gregory, had laid out and subdivided the land surrounding Fullerton Union High School. He also served as the city’s mayor in the 1920s and postmaster in the 1930s and ‘40s.

Carl Gregory was born Jan. 3, 1941, in Fullerton. After graduating from Oregon State University, he served in the Navy for seven years.

He was a psychological warfare officer, a nuclear weapons officer and worked with SEAL teams before being discharged.

At USC, Gregory earned a master’s in business administration and spent a season on the Mammoth Mountain ski patrol before joining what was then known as Fullerton Savings and Loan.

Dan Miller

Longtime news anchor

Dan Miller, 67, a longtime Nashville TV news anchor who was briefly Pat Sajak’s sidekick on a late-night talk show, died of a heart attack Wednesday night in Augusta, Ga.

Nashville station WSMV-TV reported that Miller had gone to his hometown of Augusta with two co-workers to watch practice rounds of the Masters golf tournament.

Miller had anchored evening newscasts for the station since the 1970s. He also worked as an evening news anchor at KCBS-TV (Channel 2) in Los Angeles in the ‘80s and in 1989-1990 was Sajak’s sidekick for a short-lived show Sajak did on CBS-TV.

In a statement Thursday, the longtime host of the syndicated television game show “Wheel of Fortune” said, “Dan was an extraordinarily caring and talented man. I will miss him every day for the rest of my life.”

Miller and Sajak had met at WSMV in the 1970s when Miller was an anchorman and Sajak a weatherman, leading to their friendship and Miller’s spot on “The Pat Sajak Show.”

After Sajak’s show ended, Miller worked as a substitute host for Tom Snyder’s ABC radio show. He returned to Nashville and had a talk show on TNN before resuming his anchor duties at WSMV in 1995.

Born in 1941, Miller began working at TV stations in Augusta and Columbia, S.C.

-- times staff and wire reports news.obits@latimes.com