On the eve of his 88th birthday, Blackwell Hawthorne, for the better part of a decade the director of advertising sales for the Falls Church News-Press, passed away at his home in North Arlington last night after an 11-month struggle with a degenerative lung disorder.

Hawthorne, born in 1922 and a native of southern Virginia who was a prisoner of war in the European theatre of World War II, came to the News-Press at the age of 79 and exhibited enormous energy and professionalism to build the News-Press advertiser base. He is survived by his wife, Elizabeth, and four daughters.