Frank Kohler, who was one of 12 people gunned down in a shooting rampage Monday at a military facility in D.C., was remembered as a man who loved golf and his family.
Kohler, 50, was a past president of the Rotary Club in Lexington Park, Md. As such, he proudly held the title of "King Oyster" at the annual festival celebrating the region's signature bivalve the third weekend of each October.
"He walks around with a crown and robe and gives out candy," said Bob Allen, Kohler's former boss at Lockheed Martin in southern Maryland.
The married father of two college-age daughters had driven up to the Washington Navy Yard for a meeting Monday when the shootings occurred, friends told Allen. Allen said Kohler had taken over for him as site manager for the defense contractor, but he was unsure what business his friend had at the Navy Yard.
Allen said Kohler, a graduate of Pennsylvania's Slippery Rock College, was a Pittsburgh Steelers fan and an avid, though not overly skilled, golfer.
"He could probably shoot in the low 90s," Allen said. When Allen retired, Kohler picked his gift — a gold pocket watch with the inscription, "From your friends in Lockheed Martin to help you putt into the future."
Kohler lived on the water with his wife, Michelle, an employee at the Naval Air Station Patuxent River. Allen said his friend loved to boat and fish, and went on frequent hunting trips to Canada.
"A great family man, a Christian, and a great friend," he said. "It just doesn't seem possible. I mean, you hear about these things all the time ... But when you know somebody, it just makes it all the worse ... It's a Huge loss for southern Maryland."
As of Tuesday morning, all of the victims in the shooting have been identified. They are Kohler, Arthur Daniels, 51; Mary Francis Knight, 51; Gerald L. Read, 54; Martin Bodrog, 54; Richard Michael Ridgell, 52; Michael Arnold, 59; Sylvia Frasier, 53; Kathy Gaarde, 62; John Roger Johnson, 73; Kenneth Bernard Proctor, 46; and Vishnu Pandit, 61.
Arthur Daniels, 51, was shot in the back as he and a colleague arrived at an elevator to get out of the building during the rampage, The Washington Post reported.
“When Arthur was shot, he fell over immediately,” a witness told the paper. Daniels had installed office furniture in government buildings in the area.
Priscilla Daniels, his wife, said Arthur worked at the Navy Yard on and off as a handyman for 17 years, MyFoxDC.com reports.
She was informed of Arthur's death around 9 p.m. ET Monday after spending hours trying to figure out his whereabouts.
The couple had been married for 30 years with five children and nine grandchildren.
Michael Arnold, 59, of Lorton, Va., was a Navy veteran and avid pilot who was building a light airplane at his home, said his uncle, Steve Hunter.
"It would have been the first plane he ever owned," Hunter said in a telephone interview from Rochester, Mich., Arnold's hometown. "It's partially assembled in his basement."
Arnold graduated from the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., and served in the Navy for 29 years, before retiring as a captain last October, according to an article in the Navy Supply Corps Newsletter. Arnold, who had two master's degrees from the University of Washington in Seattle, then went to work for LMI, a consulting firm based in McLean, Va.
Hunter said his nephew worked at the Navy Yard on a team that designed vessels such as the USS Makin Island, a Wasp-class amphibious assault ship used by the Marine Corps. Jeff Bennett, a vice president at LMI, told The Washington Post that Arnold "was just a solid, solid citizen ... great American."
Arnold and his wife, Jolanda, had been married for more than 30 years, Hunter said. They had two grown sons, Eric and Christopher.
Hunter said Arnold returned to Michigan for Labor Day to visit his 80-year-old mother, Patricia.
"He was a loving son of his mother and his wife, and great father to his kids," said Hunter. "It's tragic. How can you get up in the morning and go to work and have that happen? How do bad things like that happen to good people?"
Sylvia Frasier, 53, had worked at Naval Sea Systems Command as an information assurance manager since 2000, according to a LinkedIn profile in her name.
Frasier studied at Strayer University, earning a bachelor of science in computer information systems in 2000 and a master's in information systems in 2002. Her duties at NAVSEA included providing policy and guidance on network security, and assuring that all computer systems operated by the headquarters met Department of Navy and Department of Defense requirements.
She also led efforts "to establish and implement procedures to investigate security violations or incidents," according to the profile.
Her brother, James Frasier, declined comment Monday night.
Kathleen Gaarde, 63, of Woodbridge, Va., was a financial analyst who supported the organization responsible for the shipyards, her husband, Douglass, wrote in an email to the AP early Tuesday.
Douglass Gaarde declined to speak, but wrote that he was unable to sleep.
"Today my life partner of 42 years (38 of them married) was taken from me, my grown son and daughter, and friends," he wrote. "We were just starting to plan our retirement activities and now none of that matters. It hasn't fully sunk in yet but I know I already dearly miss her."
Madelyn Gaarde, of Grand Junction, Colo., who's married to Douglass Gaarde's brother, said her sister- and brother-in-law met while he was studying electrical engineering at the University of South Florida in Tampa.
Douglass Gaarde, an Illinois native, also worked for the Navy until his retirement last year, his sister-in-law said.
"She was a very gracious person and very welcoming," she said of Kathleen Gaarde.
Kenneth Proctor, 46, worked as a civilian utilities foreman at the Navy Yard, his ex-wife, Evelyn Proctor, said. He spent 22 years working for the federal government, Evelyn Proctor said.
The Waldorf, Md., woman spoke to Kenneth early Monday morning before he left for work at the Navy Yard. It was his regular call. The high school sweethearts talked every day, even after they divorced this year after 19 years of marriage, and they shared custody of their two teenage sons.
She was in shock about her husband's death.
"He just went in there in the morning for breakfast," Proctor said Monday night of the building where the shooting took place. "He didn't even work in the building. It was a routine thing for him to go there in the morning for breakfast, and unfortunately it happened."
Proctor said she tried to call her ex-husband throughout the day and drove to the Navy Yard on Monday afternoon, fearing the worst. After waiting for about three hours alongside other relatives concerned about their loved ones, she was informed around 8 p.m. that he was among the dead. Officials did not detail the circumstances of his shooting, she said.
The Proctors married in 1994 and divorced this year. Their older son, Kenneth Proctor Jr., 17, enlisted in the Army after graduating from high school this spring and is in basic training in Oklahoma. Their younger son, Kendull Proctor, is 15.
"We were still very close. It wasn't a bitter divorce," Evelyn Proctor said. "We still talked every day, and we lived 10 minutes away from each other."
Kenneth Proctor was born and raised in Charles County, Md., where he lived until his death.
"He loved the Redskins. Loved his kids -- a very loving, caring, gentle person. His kids meant a lot to him," Evelyn Proctor said.
John Roger Johnson, a 73-year-old logistics analyst, was perhaps most notorious for his bear hugs, his daughter said.
"Rib-crunchers," Megan Johnson said with a laugh as she remembered her dad Tuesday. "You didn't have to pay for a chiropractor."
The Derwood, Md., man — the oldest of the victims in Monday's shootings — graduated from Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Wash. He studied mathematics, but he went into the field of reliability engineering, said Megan Johnson, third-youngest of his four daughters.
Most recently, Johnson worked with TWD & Associates, Inc., where co-workers knew him as "J.J."
"These were dedicated employees who cared about their work and their colleagues," TWD president Larry Besterman said Tuesday. "The senseless violence that claimed their lives cannot erase the memory of their friendship and contributions."
Johnson was an avid saltwater fisherman but, his daughter said, "could not cook to save his life." He had a place across the road from the ocean at Nags Head on the Outer Banks of North Carolina for more than 20 years.
Megan Johnson said her father was a "die-hard" Washington Redskins football fan. And while the former youth ice hockey player used to feel the same way about the Baltimore Orioles, she said, "I can tell you, he was switching to the Nats," referring to the Washington Nationals baseball franchise.
Johnson would have celebrated his 74th birthday on Oct. 7. He also leaves his wife of more than eight years, Judy, and four stepchildren.
Mary Knight, 51, an information technology specialist from Reston, Va., had recently received a big promotion and witnessed the marriage of her older daughter, her mother said.
"I don't know how this happened," Liliana DeLorenzo, 76, said from her home in Fayetteville, N.C., Tuesday. "She was a good daughter and a good mother and a hard worker. It's a loss. It's a great loss."
Knight was born in Germany, where 1st Sgt. Frank DeLorenzo, a Green Beret instructor who did a tour in Vietnam, was stationed at the time. When she was about 10, the family was transferred to Fort Bragg, N.C.
Liliana DeLorenzo, a native of Trieste, Italy, said her daughter attended local schools and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
"She was a No. 1 student," the proud mother said. "She always liked to go to school."
Knight, the oldest of three children, had recently been promoted at work to GS 15 — the top civil service pay grade, her mother said. Last month, her older daughter, Nicole, 25, married a soldier.
DeLorenzo said Knight's younger daughter, Daniel (she said this was how to spell it), 20, was living with her in Reston while attending college. She said Knight never expressed any concerns about working at the Navy Yard.
Having watched her own husband and other soldiers go off to war, she never dreamed she had to worry about her civilian daughter.
"They survived, these soldiers, Afghanistan, Iraq and all that, and then they get over here and get killed," she said with a sigh. "I don't know what to say. I've been in shock. We've been in shock over such a thing. ...
"You really don't think about the parents and relatives, what they go through. Now I know."
Vishnu Pandit, 61, a Marine engineer and naval architect, preferred the nickname Kisan, the Hindi word for "peasant." It suited the hard-working Indian immigrant, known for his devotion to family, community and his 30-year civilian Navy career.
"He was very dedicated to improving the performance of naval ships and systems," longtime friend M. Nuns Jain said Tuesday outside the North Potomac home where Pandit's family privately mourned. "The only saving grace in this horrible incident is that he died doing what he loved the most in the service of his nation."
Jain said Pandit, a Mumbai native, earned a bachelor's degree in marine engineering in India in 1973 before coming to America and receiving a degree in naval architecture from the University of Michigan.
He said Pandit sailed with the U.S. Merchant Marine before joining the Naval Sea Systems Command, headquartered at the Washington Navy Yard.
Married to his wife Anjali since 1978, Pandit had two sons and a granddaughter, Jain said.
"He was a real family man and he loved dogs," including the family's golden retriever, Bailey, Jain said.
Neighbor Satish Misra said Pandit was on the home owners association board in their leafy subdivision, and active in the local Hare Krishna Hindu temple.
"He was a gentle man. I really loved him and his family," Misra said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
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