John Christian Sullivan, 55, a public affairs specialist at the Library of Congress for 15 years and a regular contributor to the LC Information Bulletin, died Sunday night, Jan. 9.
He suffered a heart attack at 7:30 p.m. at his northeast Washington, D.C., home. An ardent sports fan, Mr. Sullivan was watching a televised National Football League playoff between the Los Angeles Raiders and the Denver Broncos.
A wake service was conducted Jan. 11, at St. Joseph's Catholic Church in northeast Washington, followed by a memorial mass at the church on Jan. 12. Memorial contributions may be made to the John C. Sullivan K/F Education Fund, care of A. Francis Vitt, attorney at law, 1616 H St. N.W., Washington, DC 20006-4995.
Survivors include his widow, Carole Calano Sullivan, and their two children, Kathleen Connaught Sullivan, 8, and Francis Calano Sullivan, 6, all of northeast Washington; and three children from his first marriage, John C. Gardner of Sarasota, Fla., Bridget Noel Gardner, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Casey Burton of Aspen, Colo. He was divorced from his first wife, Mary Penelope Gates McCann, in 1966.
A native Washingtonian, Mr. Sullivan was born July 20, 1938. He graduated from St. John's High School in Washington (1956) and Southern Illinois University in Carbondale (B.A., 1970). He earned a master's degree in business administration from Central Michigan University in 1981.
From January 1971 to September 1976, Mr. Sullivan was employed in public relations at the University of Maryland. He began as editor of the faculty/staff newspaper and later was assigned as a writer/editor of university publications. From August 1975 to February 1976, he took on the duties of coordinator of publications for the College Park campus, supervising a budget of $150,000 and a staff of editors, designers and graduate assistants. Publications he edited won awards in 1971 and 1974.
Mr. Sullivan's federal service began in the summer of 1955 at the Library, where his mother, Tweety Cathleen Sullivan, was chief of the Records Management Section, Office of the Secretary (now Office Systems Services); he had a temporary appointment in the Library's old Air Information Division. Mr. Sullivan rejoined the Library on June 26, 1978. He worked for the Photoduplication Service until Dec. 11, 1978, when he joined the Information Office (now Public Affairs Office) as a public information specialist.
Mr. Sullivan's primary responsibility in the Public Affairs Office was to promote LC's poetry and literature programs, including activities of the office of Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry, readings by visiting poets and writers and announcements of awards such as the Rebekah Johnson Bobbit National Prize for Poetry. Last fall, he produced a videotape, "A Conversation with Poet Laureate Rita Dove," which includes a taped interview of Ms. Dove by National Public Radio's Susan Stamberg and footage of Ms. Dove's first reading in the Great Hall of the Jefferson Building on Oct. 7, 1993.
"John Sullivan was a warm and energetic person who was enthusiastic about poetry and did much to ease me into my first month in the position," said Ms. Dove. "I am very sorry this happened; he was a new friend I looked forward to getting to know better. ... This is really a loss for LC and indeed for all of us."
Nancy Galbraith, former head of the Poetry Office, recalled that Mr. Sullivan "always went the extra mile" to assist the office. He once drove her to Washington's Union Station to meet Isaac Bashevis Singer.
Mr. Sullivan helped publicize special projects and major exhibitions; for example, the Dead Sea Scrolls, "Revelations from the Russian Archives" (he received a group award for work on that exhibition) and "1492: An Ongoing Voyage." He also prepared press advisories and the monthly Calendar of Events.
Mr. Sullivan worked closely with LC staff to promote their programs, spent hours reading and researching to prepare press releases and information packets, called numerous press contacts to generate media interest in events, set up interviews, arranged for photographs and helped plan and staff press conferences.
"He was a master at working the phones to get the press to cover Library events and exhibitions," said his colleague Helen Dalrymple. "He was tireless at making followup calls, and he was so good at conveying his own enthusiasm and good humor that members of the press were eager to come to the Library to cover events."
As a result, stories about cultural events at LC appeared in major newspapers, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, national newsmagazines such as Time and local and national networks. The Public Affairs Office received numerous memos and letters from members of the staff and the press and LC patrons, who benefited from Mr. Sullivan's assistance.
Mr. Sullivan was generous with his time and money. A member of St. Joseph's Catholic Church, he was active in church affairs. For three years during the early 1980s, he volunteered to coach the Westover Cubs in the Arlington County Softball League. A member of the Library of Congress Cooking Club since 1979, he chaired the philanthropic fund for several years and suggested the practice of giving pecan sale proceeds to food charities. He supplied friends and colleagues with gifts of tickets to sporting and cultural events, and he arranged for children in his northeast neighborhood to attend Orioles baseball games at Camden Yard in Baltimore.
He was a member of several organizations, including the Library of Congress Professional Association, American Historical Society, Civil War Roundtable, Archaeological Institute of America and the Celtic Society of Southern Maryland.