LOS ANGELES (AP) - Arthur Winston, a longtime transit employee who received a citation from President Clinton for his decades of service, died in his sleep less than a month after retiring on his 100th birthday, his family said Friday. Winston recently had been admitted to a hospital for exhaustion and dehydration, but returned to his home April 6. He died Thursday evening.
For decades, he reported to work at the crack of drawn to supervise workers who cleaned and refueled the region's bus fleet.
He missed just one day of work in more than 70 years at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and that was to attend his wife's funeral in 1988. In 1996, he received an "Employee of the Century" citation from Clinton.
He was born in Oklahoma and said he began picking cotton at age 10. His family headed west when droughts and storms ruined several crop seasons. In 1924, Winston found work with the Pacific Electric Railway Co., a forerunner of the MTA.
He left the company in 1928, returned six years later and stayed until his retirement last month.
