Memories of George and Carole Dawkins, and Inez Beckley

George Spangler Dawkins

George Spangler Dawkins and his wife, Carole Lee Dawkins, died Saturday, May 27, 2000, in a car accident while traveling in Spain. Inez Beckley, a longtime friend and fellow bridge player, was travelling with them and also died in the accident.

George was born in 1931 in North Hornell, New York. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Princeton in the class of '53 and received his PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Illinois in '57. He worked as a chemical engineer for Shell Chemical in Houston, taught chemical engineering at Rice University, industrial engineering at the University of Houston, and business operations research and statistics at St. Edward's University in Austin. He was also dean of the business school from 1987 to 1990.

George was an avid bridge player. He was a grand master, an international master and ranked in the nation's top 100 contract bridge players in master points earned. He left behind a long list of friends in the bridge community, some of which he had known for over 45 years. George loved to travel, making the bridge circuit as well as visiting friends and family. His creative outlet was writing poetry which enabled him to express his innermost thoughts and feelings.

George is survived by his mother, Marion Dawkins; brother, Dr. C. Edward Dawkins; sisters, Marge Garinger and Phyllis Schwartz; his three children; and six grandchildren. George's children include: Bob Dawkins, his wife, Carol, and their children, Stephen, Christina, and Andrea of Houston; Don Dawkins, his wife, Helen, and their daughter, Megan, of Austin; and Tanya Dawkins, her husband, Byron Geannopoulos, and their children, Zoe and Austin of Westford, Massachussetts.

Carole Elizabeth Dawkins was born March 2, 1943, in Lansing, Michigan, to the late William and Ellen Pendorf. Carole graduated from the University of Michigan in 1964. She came to Texas in 1972. Her careers included real estate, computer programming, and public service.

Carole is survived by her brother, Allan Pendorf; sons, John and Anthony Lee; stepchildren, Robert, Tanya, and Donald Dawkins; cousin, Valerie Pineer; grandchildren, and nieces.

A memorial sevice for George and Carole will be held at 6:00 p.m. on Saturday, July 1, 2000, at Jones Auditorium in the Ragsdale Center at St. Edward's University. See map for driving directions.

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the George S. Dawkins Memorial Fund established at St. Edward's University, 3001 South Congress Avenue, Austin, Texas, 78704, Attn: Chris Collier.

George and Carole Dawkins George and Carole Dawkins, and Tasha (the Kolesnik's cat)
Sharon Beynon, Alex Kolesnik, Inez Beckley, and Carole Dawkins
George Pisk and George Dawkins - San Antonio Sectional - January 10, 1997 - 1st Place - Friday Afternoon Stratified Pairs
George, Carole, Alex Kolesnik, Dena Bruce, Steve Bruce, and Mark Umeno - Austin Sectional - September 27, 1997 - 1st Place - Saturday Knockout Teams - Bracket I
Ginny and Mike Wagner, Carole Dawkins, and Bob Grover, Austin Sectional - October 1, 1999 - 1st Place - Friday Knockout Teams, Bracket I
Al Inks, Carole Dawkins, Ginny and Mike Wagner - Austin Sectional, January 21, 2000 - 1st Place - Friday Knockout Teams Bracket I
Alex Kolesnik, George Dawkins, Ken Schutze, Jim Griffin, Paul Erb, and George Pisk - Austin Sectional, July 2, 2000 - 1st Place - Friday Knockout Teams Bracket I
George Dawkins - Austin Sectional January 1, 1998 - 1st Place (with Bob Munday) - Friday Afternoon Stratified Pairs, Flight A
George Dawkins - Austin Sectional - May 15, 1997 - 1st Place (with Bob Munday) - Thursday Afternoon Stratified Pairs
Carole and George Dawkins - San Antonio Sectional - November 15, 1996 - Winners (Tied with Darlene Riely and Kerr Godfrey) - Friday Evening Stratified Pairs - Strata A
George Dawkins (with Bob Munday) - Austin Sectional - September 26, 1996 - Masters Pairs Winners
Dave Horner, Dena Bruce, Alex Kolesnik, Carol Dawkins, Steve Bruce, and George Dawkins - Austin Sectional - September 26, 1996 - 1st Place - Knockout Teams - Flight A
Artz Carole and George Dawkins
Carole and George Dawkins Dance
Dance Carole and George Dawkins
George and Carole Dawkins Oasis

Additional Comments

Dr. George Pisk, Austin
It is ironic that this Memorial Day weekend marked the deaths of three of the most distinguished veterans of the District 16 Bridge wars. As a close personal friend of all three, I have been assigned the mournful task of reporting this sad event.

Dr. George S. Dawkins, his wife Carole, and their friend Inez Beckley were vacationing in Spain. At 5:00 P.M. on Saturday, May 27, on the highway between Valencia and Barcelona, their car ran off the road and struck a concrete embankment. The two ladies were killed instantly, and George died a few hours later at a nearby hospital. No details as to the cause of the accident have yet been released by the Spanish authorities.

George, a graduate of Princeton (1953), has been an academician for all the forty-odd years I knew him. He taught at the University of Houston, at Rice and, for the past 20 years at St. Edward’s University in Austin, where he was for a time dean of the business school and more recently taught business operations research and statistics, although his doctorate was in the field of chemical engineering.

But in spite of his distinguished teaching career, tournament bridge was his true passion. He was a Grand Life Master with 13,000 + points, a national championship under his belt, and numerous triumphs at the regional and sectional level. It has been my privilege to be George’s partner in good times or bad, and he was always a true gentleman to partners, teammates, and opponents alike. Whimsically, he would write PARADOX under the system blank in our convention card, and when the opponents raised eyebrows and questioned this, he would tell them, "Well, my partner’s a doc and I'm a doc, you work it out!"

George’s beloved wife, Carole, was a skilled and dangerous opponent in her own right, with numerous bridge titles to her name and the rank of Gold Life Master, with over 4,000 master points. Having survived leukemia and a bone marrow transplant a decade ago, she regained her health and was a successful real estate agent in Austin. Besides being an excellent cook (as was her husband) Carole was always a charming hostess. More importantly, she was one of the sweetest, kindest, best-tempered and goodhearted persons I have ever known.

Inez Beckley I have known since 1955, when I was a green young bridge incompetent recently discharged from the U.S. Army and just discovering the world of duplicate bridge. She was kind enough to take me under her wing and taught me much about the game. Though she had not played much bridge in recent years, she was still a fierce competitor and (at age 80) more than held her own in the local games.

It is always sad to lose a dear friend to a sudden catastrophe, but to lose three of them in one blinding flash is indeed heart-wrenching. Good-bye, you three! Your passing is a deep loss to the bridge community, and we’ll all miss you.

Marion Strunk, Corpus Christi
I have something to share about Carole. When George and Carole came to Corpus Christi for tournaments Carole always had George stop on the way home so they could visit my father in the nursing home. Carole would also send him cards. She did this for a man she had only met once when they stayed with him during a regional.

Qing Yang, Austin bridge player who recently won two pairs events in the same day playing with George Dawkins
Just learned the shocking news from your website. How sad. Please allow me to express my feeling a bit.

I started to know George and Carole in the January Austin Sectional this year. They are among the nicest people I've ever met on or off the bridge table. I played with Carole once and played with George three times and I got only the very pleasant experience.

In May sectional, after George and I finished the afternoon session on Saturday where we won the event on the last board, I had dinner at George and Carole's place, where they talked about their excitement of the coming Spain trip. And we even talked about the possibility of renting and sharing a condo for the Anaheim national.

And suddenly the friends are gone and that Austin sectional became our last contact ... please extend my condolences to their family as well as all the friends that love them.

Steve Bruce, Austin
I've known George Dawkins my entire bridge-playing career (1967 to present), maybe even before that. I believe my parents, both tournament players, had mentioned him to me even before I had played a game of duplicate bridge. George was living in Houston then, but it was after he had moved to Austin that I really got to know him. I only played with him as a partner one time, but was fortunate to have played on the same team about ten times or so, winning several knockouts. The last time team game that Dena and I played on a team with George (Austin Sectional - January 2000), we made it to the finals of the Saturday Knockouts. When starting time came and went, and 40 minutes later George still hadn't showed up, we all got worried. But then I saw him get up from some chairs that he'd fallen asleep in, not more that 45 feet from the table. No one on the team had any hard feelings about it at all. But I sure thought I'd get another chance to play with him on a team again.

George was a "'quiet" expert. I never heard him boasting of his exploits at the bridge table. He was a formidable opponent and fun to play against. I had noticed that at the table, when it came down to a two-way guess for a queen, or some other crossroad where a close decision had to be made, George "got it right" more than anyone else I had seen.

Carole Dawkins was also a special friend of ours. I played opposite Carole maybe 3 or 4 times as a partner, but much more often as a teammate. We particularly enjoyed playing in the Saturday Nite Swiss Teams at the Bridge Studio of Austin. We greatly admired the courage Carole showed in successfully battling leukemia more than ten years ago. Carole was a fun travelling companion. Several times Dena and I have given her a ride to the Houston Regional in February, where she'd be joining George, who had started playing a day or two earlier. Carole would always have a crossword puzzle with her. It was always a fun challenge to work a NY Times crossword while driving a car, with Carole reading the clues to you!

Inez Beckley, always a lady, was a regular player at the club games in Austin when I started playing duplicate bridge. I enjoyed hearing bridge stories from her about the "old days". She went back to when Curtis Smith lived in Austin and ran the bridge studio (late 50's?). She was helpful to me as a beginning player, taking the time to talk to a newcomer, before I had won very many masterpoints.

Ian Kendall, Shropshire U.K., 05-02-02
I felt great shock and sadness a few days ago, when my speculative search on the internet for news of George and Carole led me to learn of their tragic death nearly two years ago.

I never had the opportunity to meet them, and only ever spoke to Carole once on the telephone. We wrote to each other from time to time, exchanging news of our respective families and events in our lives. It was the lack of response to my letters and Christmas cards that began to make me think there was a problem, eventually prompting me to search the internet.

My connection with Carole began in the late 80's. I received notification from the Anthony Nolan Bone Marrow Trust in London, saying that I was a possible match for someone in America requiring an urgent transplant. After a series of exhaustive tests the bone marrow was " harvested " and then flown to Seattle where the transplant took place.

At this point we did not know of each other, as in bone marrow transplantation anonymity is preserved in the early stages.

Several months later, I received a wonderful letter from Carole expressing her thanks and telling me how well she was progressing. A little while after that she told me about George and their plans for marriage. We continued our correspondence until two years ago.

Over the last few days I have felt the need to express to everyone who knew George and Carole my feelings. Although I never knew them personally, it has been a privilege to have been able to touch the lives of two people in a uniquely intimate way.

To those who knew them well they were obviously a very special couple. To me, in this quiet corner of England, they were friends I was never able to meet. And Carole, as she used to say to me ....... we were blood brothers.

Alan Davis (12-16-03), Austin
I just came across this memorial and thought I’d give a thought about Dr. Dawkins. I didn’t know him well, but I was a student of his at Saint Edward’s University. We often times made fun of Dr. Dawkins because of the way he used to always say "OK." He would drag it out and say "Ohh Kayee." While we often times made fun of him, we also respected him and his teaching abilities. He was a great teacher and, while he was not always the most excitable person, he was very effective at breaking up complex concepts and delivering them in a way that we could understand them. He was a fair man who was full of integrity. He will be missed.

Peter Vanderslice (05-24-04), Berkley, Michigan
I have been tying to contact Carole for the past few years, but was searching for her under the name Carole Lee. Yesterday I was cleaning out my father's desk and discovered a letter Carole had written to my parents about seven years ago and was reminded that her name was now Dawkins. My subsequent internet search led to a web site in Austin.

I have been thinking about Carole frequently these past few years as she was the most good-natured and enthusiastic person I have known. We were friends for many years at the University of Michigan and tried to keep track of one another in the decades since. I never heard her say an unkind word about anyone nor ever even be mildly sarcastic. I have many fond memories of Carole. She was a special person. I'll share this one recollection with you.

John Kennedy made a campaign visit to Ann Arbor in the fall of 1960. He was about two hours late in arriving and I grew tired of waiting, but not Carole. She insisted we stay even though she was out past her Freshman curfew. Kennedy finally arrived and on the steps of the Michigan Union delivered the speech in which he proposed the establishment of the Peace Corps. As he waded through the large crowd to leave, Carole said, "Let's go say hi." It was clearly impossible to push through the mob surrounding Kennedy as he made his way to a waiting car and I said so. But Carole grabbed my hand and with me in tow, a stream of cheerful "excuse me's" and beautiful smiles parted the multitudes and we caught up with JFK just as he reached his car. She told Kennedy that she enjoyed his speech and shook his hand. He beamed and thanked her, turned and waved to the crowd, and then was driven away.

That was Carole -always a positve, can-do approach to life.

If you have anything about George, Carole, or Inez, that you'd like to share, please email me email at "stevebruce@austin.rr.com," or write it down and give it to me sometime.