Alvin ‘Al’ Colborn Croft was born on April 5, 1926 in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, USA.

On September 6th 1950 Alvin married Miss Ann Elizabeth Rood in McCune chapel of Peoples church, East Lansing.Al attended South Union High School and served in Alaska with the 45th Troop Carrier Squadron.Both Ann and Al had graduated Michigan State College June 1951 where Al was a member of the Theta Xi Fraternity,

He majored in Speech and Radio.Starting around 1951, Al worked for the Sutherland Paper Co. as a communications editor untilabout 1955 then served as president of the Southern Michigan Industrial Editors Association.

In January 1956 Alvin joined the Whirlpool-Seegar Corp in St. Joseph, Michigan as assistantcommunications director.Al worked as a PR agency consultant and former Bozell Public Relations SVP, but had his PRcareer in October 1962 at Ketchum (then Ketchum, MacLeod & Grove), in Pittsburgh.  

He joined as a public relations account executive and in 1965, became a public relation account supervisor.  

Finally in 1967, being promoted to vice president of Ketchum as assistant group manager in their PR department.In the late 60's Al was a client of The Latent Image and would show up from time to time tobe in their productions.

This led to him getting a role in the George Romero Horror classic,Night of the Living Dead, where he can be seen as a gun-toting posse member, hunting down the ghouls in the film.

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He eventually worked for The Latent Image on other films, "The Crazies" and "Season of the Witch".  

He makes a small appearance in "There's Always Vanilla" at the end of the movie, painting Terri Terrific’s old apartment.

In June 1973, he joined Aitkin Kynett Co. in Philadelphia, working as VP and director of PR for five years.

Croft was hired by Bozell as Midwest regional manager in Chicago in 1978. Nine years later, he left to launch his own PR consultancy, AC Croft Associates.In 1991 Al became a resident in Sedona.

It was in Sedona that he wrote the book Managing a Public Relations Firm for Growthand Profit, published in 1996. Croft was also a contributing editor of Public Relations Quarterly

and published a monthly newsletter called Management Strategies for a number of years.Also in Sedona in 1991, Al started roundtable meetings of agency owners of non-competing small and midsize independent PR firms.

Meeting in Arizona each fall, he aptly called this group the Sedona Round Table. His weekend-long meetings focused on improving profitability, sharing best practices, and strengthening bonds between agency owners. Sedona Round Table meetings were small, intimate, and private, with 15-20 PR business owners coming together from across the country to this executive retreat to recharge, revitalize, and refocus.

The last meeting of Croft’s Sedona Round Table was on its 20th anniversary in 2011.In 2007, several alumni from the group decided to take these peer-to-peer agency owner meetings to different cities across the US. They called themselves the Sedona Alumni Group.Al passed away on June 19, 2013 in Oak Creek, Arizona, USA. SEDONA, AZ

When Al Croft died, the Sedona Alumni Group decided to memorialize him by continuing the tradition he established and renamed the group The Croft Society.

Today, this group continues the tradition and meets twice each year in different cities – one meeting with agency owners only and a second that includes next generation leadership of Croft Society agencies. https://www.croftsociety.org/history/

‍While he was survived by his second wife, Irene, her daughter Erin & granddaughter, he's also survived by the children he had with his first wife Ann, Susanne & Steven.

Researched and compiled by Daz Sargeant and John Vullo.  

Thanks to Susanne Croft for the updated information.Text and photos  © Image Ten, Inc.

If you know of any family, friends or acquaintances that appeared as extras in the original Night of the Living Dead, please contact John Vullo at jmv3683@gmail.com