Peter Lundquist, 37, Newscaster; No Bone-Marrow Match Was Found

Hundreds responded to the plea that stretched from Seattle to Miami for a bone-marrow-transplant donor, but no match was found for Peter Lundquist.

The 37-year-old former radio and television newscaster, who grew up in the San Juan Islands and Burlington and worked in this state and in Florida, died Monday at University of Washington Medical Center.

Lundquist's bone-marrow-transplant search was reported in The Times in December along with that of Christopher Reed, a Dartmouth College biology professor. Both suffered from lymphoblastic lymphoma, a disease which affects the bone marrow.

Lymphoma patients and certain cancer patients require high doses of radiation and chemotherapy to achieve a remission of the disease. Once that is successful, a bone-marrow transplant is necessary to provide marrow that produces healthy blood cells.

The two men became fast friends in UW Medical Center while waiting for transplants at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

Reed, 38, died Jan. 11 of respiratory complications, also without receiving a transplant.

For about seven years, Lundquist reviewed movies, plays and concerts and anchored the midday news at WSVN-TV, Channel 7, in Miami until 1988. Before that, he was a TV anchor for about a year and a half in Tampa, and more recently operated his own television production company in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He appeared in several Miami Vice TV episodes and made cameo appearances in motion pictures filmed in Florida, often portraying a broadcaster.

A native of Tacoma, Lundquist grew up on Crane Island in the San Juans and later in Burlington, Skagit County. He graduated from Burlington-Edison High School and attended Washington State University, where he studied drama.

Lundquist began working as a radio newscaster on KBRO, Bremerton, and KMPS, Seattle, before going into television broadcasting in Yakima at KNDO-TV, in Spokane at KXLY-TV and then in Florida.

He was a member of the Screen Actors Guild and the Offshore Powerboat Racers Association. He was certified with PADI Scuba Diving Association and did volunteer work for the Paralyzed Veterans Association of Florida.

Survivors include his wife, Bonnie; three children, Alicia, 17; Arn, 15, and Amanda, 18 months, his father, Homer Lundquist, a former Republican state legislator, and his mother, Lucille, of Burlington; two sisters, Susan Lundquist, of Olympia, and Gail Culver, of Bow, Skagit County.

Memorial services will be be at 2 p.m. Feb. 25 in Emmanuel Baptist Church in Mount Vernon. The body was cremated, and the ashes will be spread in Pole Pass, the channel between Crane and Orcas Islands.

The family suggests remembrances to Cancer in Medicine, Division of Medical Oncology, BB1015, Health Sciences Building, RK-25, University of Washington, Seattle 98195.

The Peter Lundquist Trust Fund, established in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to cover expanses beyond those provided by medical insurance, will be continued to help other families of lymphoma patients. Trust contributions should be addressed to the law offices of Kay & Bogenschutz, 633 S.E. Third Ave., Suite 4-F, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., 33301.