School of Medicine

1940s

Joseph Neel ’43, Dallas, is a retired surgeon. He is still doing aerobics and riding a stationary bicycle (twelve miles daily) at Cooper’s Aerobic Center. He also is an avid reader and loves to walk his dog, Sir Henry. Ross Whittenburg ’43 is still doing a few insurance exams eighteen years after official retirement. He also is still skiing in Concord, New Hampshire, and would love to show any 1941 to 1946 graduates the beauties of his adopted state. Charles S. Clark, Sr. ’46 has been in Corpus Christi, Texas, since 1949. For the past fifteen years he has been employed as a physician advisor and medical director of resource management at a hospital system now known as HCA. Additionally, in the last three years, he has written three novels, published two, and is working on a fourth. Published novels are “Trails to Dos Encinos” and “Suit Up in Scrubs.” Both books are available at Barnes and Noble. Anyone interested can access Clark’s web site at www.charlesclarknovels.com. Cecil Knox, Jr. ’47 is retired and living in Horseshoe Bay, Texas. He didn’t shoot his age (in golf) until November 2004, but has done it several times since then. Grace Jameson ’49, Galveston, was honored by NAMI (National Association for the Mentally Ill) Gulf Coast in May 2005 for devoting her life to helping people with mental illness. She has been a clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at UTMB for more than 50 years. Curtis Torno ’49, Buffalo, Texas, says hello to all of his classmates. He is retired and his general health is good even though he is confined to a wheelchair due to scardosis. He is very proud of UTMB and of the fact that one of his grandsons is a medical student at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas. Torno and his wife, Jean, have been married for 57 years.

1950s

Ben Leonard ’53 is still going strong as the quintessential country doctor. He has faithfully served the small valley community of Gustine, California, since 1954. He knows the vast majority of his patients personally and still makes house calls when needed. Leonard also is an accomplished author and singer. His book, “Words: Beyond the Dictionary,” has been published by AuthorHouse and is also available at Barnes & Noble, Borders, etc. Billy Boring ’54, McKinney, Texas, and his wife, Luan, are happy that all five of their children live nearby. He and his son, Billy, Jr., practice together at Boring Family Medicine in McKinney. Lawrence Chapman, Jr. ’55 recently moved from a bayfront home in Seabrook, Texas, to the 22nd floor of the Warwick Towers in Houston. What a different world! Hylmar Karbach ’55 is medical director of the McKenna Ambulatory Surgical Center in New Braunfels, Texas. He assists in major surgery, travels twice a year with the University of Texas Flying Longhorns, and is actively involved with Guadalupe River Trout Unlimited, the southernmost year-round trout fishery in the United States. A. Bryan Spires, Jr. ’55, Galveston, medical director of utilization review for UTMB’s Correctional Managed Care, became president of the Texas Medical Association’s 50-Year Club in May 2005. During his lengthy career, he also has served as a delegate to the TMA House of Delegates, was president of the Texas Heart Association and the Texas Society of Internal Medicine, and was the first executive director of the Texas State Board of Medical Examiners. Joe Schooler, Jr. ’55, Fort Worth, retired from private practice as an orthopaedic surgeon in August 2001. He is now a consultant to the U.S. Postal Service and the Texas Rehabilitation Department. Don Langston ’56 retired in January 2001 after 44 years of pediatric practice. He lives in Scottsdale, Arizona, with his wife, Phyllis, who was a pediatric nursing supervisor at John Sealy Hospital. They have been married for 45 years. Elaine Mantooth Fleming ’57, Nassau Bay, Texas, was honored for her lifelong contribution to medicine in Galveston County with the establishment of a professorship in her name in UTMB’s Department of Emergency Medicine. To honor Richard Ruiz ’57, the University of Texas Medical School at Houston recently renamed its Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science the Richard S. Ruiz, M.D., Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science. Ruiz, who has been the only chair of the department since the school opened in 1970, holds the John S. Dunn Distinguished University Chair in Ophthalmology and serves as chief of ophthalmology at Memorial Hermann Hospital. John Sheel ’57, Camarillo, California, retired from private practice in psychiatry and now works part-time as a quality management physician for the Ventura County Behavioral Health Department. George Keeler III ’58 recently moved from the Washington, D.C., area to Seattle. Allan Hanretta ’59, Santa Barbara, California, and his wife, Carolyn, send their best wishes to all of his classmates. Paul Hill ’59, a 71-year-old psychiatrist from Temple, Texas, is glad that he spent three months serving U.S. troops in Iraq. He answered a postcard from the United States Army asking for retired doctors to volunteer. He deployed to Baghdad in July 2004, where he served at the Baghdad headquarters of the Army’s 1st Cavalry Division, home to more than 32,000 military personnel. He served the remainder of his one-year stint at Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas.

1960s

Jerry Waisman ’60 is still working full-time and enjoying life as a pathologist and professor at New York University. Malcolm Mazow ’61, Houston, has served as a member of the board of trustees of the American Academy of Ophthalmology since 2002 and as chair of the Council of the American Academy since 2003. Both terms will expire in 2006. In February 2005 Mazow was honored as the first physician recipient of the Person of the Year award from the Gulf Coast Chapter of Prevent Blindness USA. Raymond Benski ’62 was an honored guest at the 2004 University of Houston College of Pharmacy graduation ceremony. He retired from UTMB in 2001 after nineteen years on the faculty and has lived in Nederland, Texas, with his wife, Sandra, since 1963. Benski served as a captain in the Military Sealift Command from 1954 through 1956, was a bank director for ten years, and practiced family medicine in Nederland before joining UTMB. He loves retirement, spending time with his two children and three grandchildren, traveling, reading right-wing books, feeding and watching squirrels and birds, eating lunch in the doctor’s lounge, watching goldfish in the pond and staying out of trouble. That last task gets easier every year. Fernando Guerra ’64 is director of health for the City of San Antonio’s Department of Public Health. He was recently elected to the Texas Academy of Medicine, Science and Engineering, the New York Academy of Medicine, and the Federal Advisory Committee for the National Children’s Study. Guerra also was honored with an Ashbel Smith Distinguished Alumnus award from UTMB in June 2005. Howard Condren ’65 is a semi-retired orthopaedic surgeon living in Miami, Oklahoma. Charles Bailey, Jr. ’67, a former president of the Texas Medical Association, accepted a position on the TMA Foundation Board of Trustees in May 2005. He has been a member of the TMA for 30 years and also has served as a delegate to the American Medical Association. Bailey was honored by Town & Country magazine as one of the top five plastic surgeons in Houston. Lawrence Ross ’68 was recently elected president-elect of the American Association of Clinical Anatomists. He will serve a two-year term and then assume the presidency in 2007. A textbook he co-authored, “Case Files in Gross Anatomy,” has been published by Lange Medical Books/McGraw-Hill. Courtney Townsend, Jr. ’69, professor and chair of UTMB’s Department of Surgery, was among the 2004 Texas Super Doctors listed in the December 2004 issue of Texas Monthly. He was one of seven UTMB physicians selected by some 52,000 of their peers to be among the best of the best in Texas. He also received the Outstanding Achievement Award for the Recruitment and Retention of Underrepresented Faculty in July 2004. The award recognizes an individual who represents outstanding leadership in the recruitment and retention of underrepresented faculty members at UTMB. Townsend received the Honorary Member Award from the Association of Women Surgeons (AWS) at its fall conference in October 2004. The AWS Foundation presents this award annually to those who are supportive of women surgeons and the goals of the organization.

1970s

Earl Ferguson ’70 has been in Ridgecrest, California, since 1996. He is in solo cardiology practice, is chief of staff of Ridgecrest Regional Hospital, and is involved in developing telemedicine activities throughout California with the California Telemedicine and eHealth Association. He also is CEO of Sun BioMedical Technologies, a biotech company doing research for the Department of Defense and the National Science Foundation on genomic and proteomic responses to infectious diseases and developing peptide antibiotics. Barbara Thompson ’71, Galveston, chair of UTMB’s Department of Family Medicine and the assistant dean of faculty practice, assumed the added responsibilities of medical director of UTMB’s outpatient clinics and community-based clinics in September 2004. James Copeland ’72 is an internist living in Waco, Texas, with his wife, Jan. His daughter, Lauren, graduated from UTMB’s School of Medicine in 2004 and is now an anesthesia resident at UTMB. His other two daughters, Ashley and Claire, live in New York City. William Wagner ’72, Las Vegas, Nevada, retired from general surgery in June 2003. He is now a licensed substitute teacher for Clark County schools. He also enjoys golf, hiking, and traveling. Michael Malloy ’73, Galveston, was one of nine UTMB faculty members to be listed, once again, in the consumer guide America’s Top Doctors as among the country’s top specialists in their respective fields. He is a professor of pediatric neonatology and was listed in the 2004 and 2003 editions of the publication. J. Marc Shabot ’73, a professor of gastroenterology at UTMB and the director of alumni affairs and development for the Department of Internal Medicine, was recently named the Raymond L. Gregory Professor of Medicine. Dr. Gregory was a long-time faculty member at UTMB and was chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine from 1961–1967. Shabot also received the American College of Physicians (ACP) Laureate Award at the Texas Academy of Internal Medicine’s annual scientific meeting in November 2004. The award honors individuals who demonstrate an abiding commitment to excellence in medical care, education, or research, and to the ACP. Shabot was governor of the ACP Texas Southern Region from 1999-2003 and is the only person from Galveston ever elected to serve as ACP governor. Ben Raimer ‘74, vice president for community outreach and correctional managed care at UTMB, was reappointed to a three-year term on the Texas Institute of Health Policy Research Board of Trustees. Based in Austin, the institute is a nonpartisan and nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the health of Texans and their communities through education, research and health policy development. Raimer’s appointment concludes in August 2007. Dave Kittrell ’75, San Antonio, was elected to serve as Texas Section Chair of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists through 2007. He also was re-elected to a three-year term as vice chairman of the Texas Medical Liability Trust Board. Paul Moore ’75, an Austin, Texas, endocrinologist, received a Distinguished Service Award from the Austin Diagnostic Clinic. He was cited for excellence in the practice of medicine and for his commitment to patients. Emmette (Andy) Clark ’76 is self-employed as medical director of Diagnostic Clinic of Longview, P.A., in Longview, Texas. He was appointed to a three-year term on the American Hospital Association’s Committee on Governance in January 2005 and also celebrated the birth of his first two grandchildren then. Clark Ballard, Jr. ’77, moved to Bellevue, Washington, from Redding, California, in September 2000. He is a psychiatrist and started practicing part-time in July 2005. Phillip Romero ’77 will have his first book, Phantom Stress: Four Steps to Lifelong Intimacy, published by Random House in early 2006. The book is for the mass market and explains how attachment patterns from childhood can trigger stress hormones and brain circuits to overwhelm the deepest love. Romero is an assistant professor of child psychiatry in New York at Weill Medical College of Cornell University. Kevin Hiler ’79 is a general surgeon living in San Francisco. He is chairman of the Department of Surgery at the California Pacific Medical Center.

1980s

Michael Fenoglio ’80, Denver, Colorado, is on the board of directors of the American Hernia Society and the American Society of General Surgeons (ASGS). He is the 2004-2005 secretary of the ASGS and will be its president in two years. Robert Hunter ’80, Houston, is board-certified in psychiatry by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology with added qualifications in addiction psychiatry. He also is board-certified in occupational medicine by the American Board of Pain Medicine. Kim Sherrill ’80 is doing locum tenens in Fairbanks, Alaska, while fulfilling a dream of seeing the Aurora Borealis. She plans to stay in Alaska until the end of 2005. Ellen Wetter-Brenner ’80 is sorry that she missed her 25th class reunion in Galveston during Homecoming 2005. She is happy living in New York City working as an imaging radiologist at the New York University School of Medicine. William Brelsford ’81 is a rheumatologist and has been in private practice in his home town of Tyler, Texas, for almost twenty years. He is blessed with two children, both of whom would like to take over his practice someday. Both of his children would also like to attend UTMB as Brelsford did and his father (Homer Brelsford ’44) did before him. Elizabeth Matthews Brunt ’81, Clayton, Missouri, is a professor of pathology at the Saint Louis University School of Medicine and a member of the Saint Louis University Liver Center. She specializes in liver pathology and is president of the Hans Popper Hepatopathology Society, an international organization of hepatic pathologists devoted to the study of liver disease, pathology and pathophysiology. As a visiting professor to UTMB in October 2003, she almost couldn’t find her way around campus because of all the new buildings. Brunt sends greetings to all of her classmates. Patti Patterson ’82, Lubbock, Texas, received the 2005 YWCA Women of Excellence Award in Science and Medicine. She is vice president for rural and community health and a professor of pediatrics at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. Patterson is a former commissioner of health for the state of Texas, and has participated in 27 medical mission trips to South America, Eastern Europe, and Africa. Peter Proctor ’82, Houston, had an invention placed in the electrical collection of the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History. From his pre-medical school days, his 1974 “gadget” was the first electronic device using an organic polymer as its active element and the first demonstration of a high electrical conductivity state in an organic compound. More recently, this technology has resulted in things such as super bright color displays on cell phones and car radios, as well as organic polymer batteries and ultracapacitors. A somewhat later paper than Proctor’s on conductive organic polymers won the 2000 Nobel Prize in chemistry. Clifford Simmang ’82, Coppell, Texas, began serving a two-year term as an American Medical Association representative of the Residency Review Committee for Colon and Rectal Surgery in January 2005. The committee—with representation from the American Board of Colon and Rectal Surgery, the American College of Surgeons, and the American Medical Association—maintains the quality of graduate medical education in colon and rectal surgery. Simmang is the director of colon and rectal surgery and an associate professor of gastrointestinal and endocrine surgery at UT Southwestern. Kyle Janek ’83, Houston, was named the 2004 Citizen of the Year by The Galveston County Daily News. Janek is a Texas State Senator and has represented the southern part of Galveston County since 2003.
Napoleon Lee ’84, Dallas, graduated from Texas Wesleyan University School of Law in December 2004. Carl (Tony) Dunn ’86, Waco, Texas, was elected the 2004-2005 president of the Texas Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Leslie Arnold ’87 is marking her ten-year anniversary of the good life in Idaho. She lives in Boise and enjoys her work as a medical consultant for those applying for Social Security disability, screening primarily pediatric, neurology and oncology cases. She has two boys, ages 12 and 14. Arnold would love to hear from classmates via e-mail at lezarno@mindspring.com.
Thuan (Tom) Tu
’88 is in private anesthesiology practice in Houston. He and his wife, Dianne, have three young children. Christy Jackson ’89 is an associate professor of neurosciences and the director of stroke prevention at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine. She recently brought her 12-year-old daughter, Jessica, to Galveston so that Jessica could see where she was born. Seeing UTMB, Old Red, and the Phi Rho fraternity house through her daughter’s eyes was magical. Jackson would love to hear from old friends. Contact her by email at cmjackson@ucsd.edu.

1990s

As the new director of the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease at the University of California, San Francisco, Deepak Srivastava ’90 plans to take a genetic and developmental-biology approach to heart disease, including examining the role of gene regulation and cell differentiation in heart disease. Srivastava was a professor of pediatrics and molecular biology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas from 1996–2004. Anna Viltz ’91 married Earl Jimmison in June 2004. She works in Houston as a psychiatrist for the Mental Health and Mental Retardation Authority. Tracey Weir ’92 has been practicing emergency medicine at Brackenridge Hospital in Austin, Texas, since 2000. She finished her residency at Parkland Hospital in Dallas in 2000 after being in the Army with the 101st Airborne Division for four years. Weir, and her husband, Hayden Johnson, have a baby boy, Jake, who was born in March 2005. Yutaka Wajima ’93 recently moved to Austin and says that it is great to be back in Texas. He joined Cardiovascular Anesthesiology, P.A., and practices at the Heart Hospital of Austin. Matthew Hay ’94, an assistant professor of pediatrics at UTMB, and Nancy Hughes ’94, an internist at UTMB, both made the list of the 2004 Texas Super Doctors published in the December 2004 issue of Texas Monthly. They were among seven UTMB physicians selected by some 52,000 of their peers to be among the best of the best in Texas. Jason Brockway ’95, Kilgore, Texas, is practicing general family medicine with hospital privileges; he stopped obstetrics in 2004. He and his wife have four young children and Brockway is enjoying small town practice and family life. Lucy Graubard ’95 lives in Houston with her husband, Robert, and their two children, Rachel, 10, and Ervin, 7. She is in her sixth year of private practice at Pediatrics of Southwest Houston. Robert Kent ’95 is a flight surgeon on active duty with the United States Air Force and is stationed in Okinawa, Japan. Michael Moustakakis ’95 is practicing nephrology in Hartford, Connecticut, and is active in residency education through the University of Connecticut. Sunita Bilimoria Palmer ’95 is in private practice at Clear Lake Pediatric Clinic, in Clear Lake, Texas. She has been married for six years and has two children. Quang Henderson ’96 lives in northwest Houston and has been an emergency medicine physician for five years. She is married to Kerry Kirkman, who graduated from UTMB’s Obstetrics and Gynecology Residency Program in 2003. He is now in solo practice at Cy-Fair Hospital and at Willowbrook Methodist Hospital. They have a son, Tien, 6, and a daughter, Lilan, 3. Kelly Lobb ’97 is a psychiatrist practicing in the Bryan–College Station, Texas, area. He is the medical director of St. Joseph Occupational Health, St. Joseph Spine Center, St. Joseph Pain Center and Central Texas Rehabilitation Center. He and his wife, Kasey, have one daughter, Caroline, 2. They are expecting another child in February 2006. Richard Garza ’98 and Cheyanne Casas ’98 are living in Chicago and practicing at Loyola University Chicago Medical Center. He is a radiation oncologist and she is a family medicine physician. They can be reached at Rgarza3@mac.com. Abigail Martin ’98 is the administrative chief resident in general surgery at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. She started a transplant surgery fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh in July 2005. Martha Armstrong ’99 is doing locum tenens, and her husband, Robin Armstrong ’98, works as a hospitalist. They live in Dickinson, Texas, with their sons, Daniel, 2, and Gabriel, 3 months, who were born on the same day (March 31) two years apart. Erik Johnson ’99 is working in Kingwood, Texas, as a family practitioner. He says that domestic life is good. He and his wife, Karina, have two beautiful children: Kara, 4, an aspiring artist and diva, and Luke, 15 months old, who was an aspiring world record holder in the crawling division in his younger days.

2000s

Barbara Bryant ’00, League City, Texas, was profiled in the July 2005 issue of Woman’s Day magazine. The story was about how she fulfilled her dream of becoming a doctor despite a 17-year delay as a single mom to raise her daughter, Mindy. The kicker is that Mindy herself is now a third-year medical student at UTMB. Bryant completed her pathology residency (as chief resident) at UTMB in June 2005 and accepted a National Institutes of Health fellowship in Bethesda, Maryland. Gerald (Ray) Callas ’00, Beaumont, Texas, married Lisa Summerville in May 2003. Their first daughter, Emerie, was born in Galveston on Christmas Day 2004. Michael Figueroa ’00 completed his internal medicine residency at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio in 2003. He then did a year as chief resident and is now in a pulmonary/critical care fellowship. He has a beautiful two-year-old daughter, Mia Isabella. Russ Fothergill ’00 is an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology and clerkship director at Scott & White Hospital–Texas A&M University Health Science Center in Temple, Texas. He lives in Belton, Texas, and has two young children. Hilda Gonzalez-Saenz ’00 graduated from the Clinton Memorial Hospital Family Practice Residency Program in Wilmington, Ohio, in June 2004. She started working for La Esperanza Health Center in San Angelo, Texas, when her husband, Major Manuel Saenz, was transferred from the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio to Goodfellow Air Force Base in Texas in July 2004. Their daughter, Briana, was born in February 2004. Richard Helmer IV ’00 is a surgery resident at Texas Tech Health Science Center in Lubbock, Texas. He attended the UT-Southwestern Cardiothoracic Surgery Program in July 2005. Bridget Holden ’00 is married to Michael Goldman and has twin daughters who were born in February 2005. She is a surgery resident at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas.
Jennifer Rittenberry
’00 and her husband, Robert Czapski, have a little boy, Sean. She is doing an endocrinology fellowship at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. Eve Sansone Betancourt ’01 recently completed a tour in the Navy as a general practitioner. She lives in Galveston and plans to start a pathology residency at UTMB. Her first child, a girl, was born in May 2005. Ann Bray Buchanan ’01, moved to Austin, Texas, in July 2005, after completing her residency in emergency medicine at Chicago’s Cook County Hospital, where she served as chief resident. She and her husband celebrated the birth of their first child, Brayden, in December 2004. Andrew Burrows ’01, Tampa, Florida, is a vitreoretinal fellow at the University of South Florida. Juan Perez ’01 graduated from the Mayo Clinic Family Practice Residency Program in 2004. He is in solo practice at the El Paso Wellness and Healthcare Center, P.A., in El Paso, Texas. Sandeep Shah ’01, Scottdale, Georgia, is a fourth-year radiology resident at Emory University and is planning on doing a fellowship in musculoskeletal imaging. His wife, Maneesha, recently gave birth to beautiful twin girls. Stephanie Sim ’01, Houston, completed her psychiatric residency at Baylor in June 2005. She plans to open a private practice in Sugar Land, Texas, that offers medication management and psychotherapy. Derek Smith ’01 is a fellow in the cardiac transplant unit at Loyola University in Chicago. He is board-certified in internal medicine. Harvey Castro ’02 is a resident in emergency medicine at St. Luke’s Hospital in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He teamed up with an interventional cardiologist and a nutritionist to produce a new vitamin complex, called “Active Heart” to aid heart patients. He was quoted about the product in an article in The Saucon News in June 2005, and appeared on CNN in early July 2005. For those wanting more information, please visit his web site at www.vitalcomplex.com. Castro’s second son was born in December 2003. He was named Zachary Asa Castro (ZAC) which means physician/healer and God remembered. Jeffrey Davis ’02 is a third-year resident at the University of Kansas School of Medicine–Wichita Family Medicine Residency Program at Via Christi Regional Medical Center in Wichita, Kansas. Lilane Reifenberg ’02, Jacksonville, Florida, is the chief resident of the senior Emergency Medicine class at the University of Florida Health Science Center. Amy Madril ’03 is a second-year resident at the University of Kansas School of Medicine–Wichita Family Medicine Residency Program at Wesley Medical Center in Wichita, Kansas. Sean Ashrafian ’04 and Matthew Green ’04 are both first-year residents at the University of Kansas School of Medicine–Wichita Family Medicine Residency Program. Brent Spencer ’04, Temple, Texas, married Elyse Alexander in August 2005. After completing an internal medicine internship at UMTB in June 2005, he began a dermatology residency at Scott & White–Texas A&M Health Science Center.

School of Medicine Deaths

Murphy Bounds ’35
Gunter, Texas, July 4, 2005

Earl Gaston ’35
Kingsville, Texas, February 20, 2005

H. Harlan Crank ’36
Austin, June 19, 2005

Wilbur K. Green ’36
La Grange, Texas, January 29, 2004

W. Doak Blassingame ’37
Denison, Texas, March 17, 2005

C.T. Rives, Jr. ’37
Winters, Texas, March 21, 2005

D.J. Sibley, Jr. ’37
Austin, January 8, 2005

Daniel E. Jenkins, Jr. ’40
Houston, March 25, 2005

Eugene C. McDanald ’41
Dallas, March 8, 2005

John Q. Rounsaville ’41
De Soto, Texas, March 26, 2005

Edwin P. Tottenham ’41
San Antonio, May 1, 2004

Roy H. Baskin, Jr. ’42 (Mar.)
Waco, Texas, April 1, 2005

Earl W. Clawater, Jr. ’42 (Mar.)
Tyler, Texas, January 8, 2005

James O. McBride ’42 (Mar.)
Fort Worth, Texas, March 11, 2005

Randolph L. Schaffer ’42 (Mar.)
Houston, September 27, 2004

Francine Jensen ’42 (Dec.)
Houston, November 8, 2004

Nell W. Sanders ’42 (Dec.)
Big Spring, Texas, October 30, 2004

Jay T. Shurley ’42 (Dec.)
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, February 24, 2004

J. Alan Stewart ’43
Lake Jackson, Texas, January 19, 2005

August J.A. Watzlavick ’46
Schulenburg, Texas, May 17, 2005

Melvin Kutschbach ’47
Shreveport, Louisiana, April 3, 2004

Jerry A. Stirman ’47
Atoka, Oklahoma, April 28, 2005

Hyman W. Paley ’48
San Francisco, California,
date unknown

Joseph E. Sharp ’48
Abilene, Texas, November 29, 2003

Carson Jones ’49
Crystal River, Florida, June 9, 2004

William B. Langston Jr. ’49
Longview, Texas, March 27, 2004

Hugh A. Pennal ’50
Amarillo, Texas, September 26, 2004

Carlos Bazan, Jr. ’51
San Antonio, November 4, 2004

Gilbert C. Gremmel ’51
San Antonio, April 5, 2004

Frank A. Wappler ’51
Tulsa, Oklahoma, April 24, 2004

James L. Reagan ’52
Beeville, Texas, February 21, 2004

Noble L. Rumbo ’53
Richardson, Texas, January 21, 2005

M. Jeanne Fairweather ‘54
San Antonio, June 24, 2005

James I. Lindsay ’54
Bryan, Texas, May 3, 2005

Hubert M. Radke ’54
Seattle, Washington, June 11, 2005

Robert S. Ray ’54
San Antonio, October 12, 2004

Thomas H. Allison ’55
Dallas, February 24, 2005

Robert B. (Bob) Denman ’56
Sugar Land, Texas, February 20, 2005

Norman H. DeRuiter ’56
Schulenburg, Texas, February 24, 2005

H. Lee Morton ’56
Anthony, Texas, December 18, 2003

Jose Roman, Jr. ’56
El Paso, Texas, March 15, 2005

Allen N. Weaver ’56
Rockport, Texas, March 23, 2005

Duncan L. McKellar ’57
Willis, Texas, June 20, 2005

John E. (Jack) Cogan ’58
Houston, February 12, 2005

William K. Murphy ’58
Houston, January 17, 2005

Warren M. (Jack) Scott, Jr. ’58
Houston, May 30, 2005

Lubrett Hargrove ’60
Corpus Christi, Texas,
January 20, 2005

Jimmie R. Clemons ’61
Austin, February 13, 2005

Arthur M. Colvin ’61
San Antonio, February 16, 2004

Paul A. Grandy ’64
Kingwood, Texas, October 16, 2004

William L. Baber III ’67
Marshall, Texas, June 7, 2004

P. Byron Vaughn ’75
Midland, Texas, May 25, 2005

Richard W. Lee ’77
Attalla, Alabama, July 10, 2004

Johnston S. Cox ’80
Austin, June 9, 2005

Kathy A. Pulliam ’81
Snellville, Georgia, February 2, 2004

Steve C. Caplan ’84
Houston, March 18, 2005

William M. McCormick ’84
Denton, Texas, October 24, 2004

Rafael W. Luebbert ’93
Sumter, South Carolina,
February 10, 2005

Mark W. Slater ’98
LaBelle, Texas, October 30, 2004

Virginia Howard Irvine Blocker, M.D.

Virginia Howard Irvine Blocker, M.D., 92, died June 9, 2005, at her home in Galveston. She was born on May 23, 1913, a Canadian citizen whose father was pioneer Manitoba physician Howard Thomas Irvine, the son of Winnipeg missionaries, and whose mother was anesthesiologist and English literature Professor Annie Sowell Irvine, a fifth generation Texan.

Virginia Irvine graduated from the University of Texas with highest honors at age nineteen and taught languages. With encouragement from the poet Gertrude Stein, she went to medical school. During that time, she married Truman Graves Blocker, Jr., M.D., who ultimately became the first chief administrator to be called “president” of UTMB. Though never compensated for her work because of strict UT System Regents’ nepotism rules, Virginia Blocker gave over fifty years of her life to UTMB and to the other University of Texas System health science centers in Houston and San Antonio that her husband subsequently led. She was a pioneer in medicine, particularly in diabetes, nutrition, burns, public health, development, and institutional change. Virginia Blocker also played substantial roles in the growth of UTMB programs, facilities, and funding.

She represented the United States in many countries on special missions. In the early 1960s, she reformed UTMB’s racial segregation practices by orchestrating desegregation of the medical school, clinics and university hospitals in a single day as a birthday present for her husband, then-President Blocker. In the early 1950s, declaring that we would not be a nation that lived in fear, she opposed proposals that would have mandated building bomb shelters in all federally-funded buildings, including homes funded by loans from the Federal Housing Administration.

A prolific writer, she published works of poetry and prose under the pen name Victoria Browne. Many of her medical and technical reports remain uncollected and unpublished. She was the school doctor at Trinity Episcopal School. She wrote the First Aid Manual for the Red Cross, popularizing lay uses of the Heimlich maneuver and cardio-pulmonary resuscitation when those procedures were considered the province of physicians. She received the highest national award for her extraordinary work on burn research and wound care.

Her husband died in 1984. She is survived by two sets of children, their prewar pair Truman Graves Blocker III, Ph.D., of Dallas, and Anne Singleton Blocker, M.A., of Colorado; and their Cold War pair, Sterling Howard Blocker, M.D., of Missouri and Gordon Stanley Blocker of the Dallas area, and by fourteen grandchildren and twenty great grandchildren.

The family encourages those who wish to offer such remembrances to contribute to the Virginia Blocker Memorial Fund c/o Armin Cantini, Bank of America, 2200 Market Street, Galveston, Texas 77550. The fund will support the publication and distribution of her writings.

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