1999 / The Year in Pictures

June 1

More than six months after he broke his neck trying to save a suicidal woman, Conrad Buchanan left the hospital to face life as a quadriplegic. The former mall security guard and father of two daughters broke his neck Nov. 15, 1998, as he tried to catch a woman who plunged six stories from a Sherman Oaks Galleria parking garage. The 68-year-old Camarillo woman, Julie Light, died. “The hardest thing now is how to deal with the world, how to try to cope with this,” Buchanan said before leaving the hospital with his mother, Norma. “It’s very difficult.”

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May 13

Keith Mullins’ life took a tragic turn while he was on a routine business call in January. The Van Nuys man was driving along Roscoe Boulevard when another driver crossed the center line and struck Mullins’ car head-on. The wreck left him comatose, partially paralyzed and on life support. During one of her many visits, Mullins’ wife, Marilyn, held up a snapshot of the couple taken at Lake Balboa. Mullins slowly reached out and brought the photograph to his lips. It was the breakthrough his family had prayed for. After months of therapy, Mullins celebrated his release from the hospital with daughter Theresa.

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February 26

Blenda J. Wilson, who as president of Cal State Northridge lifted the devastated institution back to its feet after the 1994 Northridge earthquake, announced that she would leave her post in June to head a Massachusetts educational foundation. Wilson was praised widely for reopening the university just two weeks after the temblor caused $399 million in damage to the campus. She also faced stinging criticism for her handling of CSUN’s scandal-plagued athletic department and discrepancies in her use of Federal Emergency Management Agency funds. Still, she is credited with bringing a national perspective on education to the university.

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March 5

Suzanne Rawlings described her son Christopher--in the photo behind her--as a loving man whose only obsession was his family. Law enforcement officials, however, said the businessman’s competitive nature and fine tastes likely led to his death. Rawlings, 30, was killed in February after he was ejected from the trunk of his Bentley during a fiery crash that occurred as his kidnappers attempted to elude police in Tarzana. Days later, the FBI disclosed that Rawlings had been suspected of running a multimillion-dollar telemarketing same. Two men with links to a robbery ring now face charges in the case.

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August 24

A dozen years ago, Roman Rakover sat down to compile his family genealogy and history. The project took five years and resulted in a book that traces 13 generations of the family. Rakover turned to the book to find the names of family members who died in the Holocaust. He entered the names--160 of them--onto official Pages of Testimony being collected by Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial and information center in Israel. The Calabasas man’s mission was to ensure that the Rakover name is remembered despite the Nazis’ attempt to exterminate every Jewish family.