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GEORGE On April 2, 2006, George Dennis, age 90, went to what he would call "the big meeting in the sky." He was a native of El Paso and a 1936 graduate of the University of Texas at Austin. George was a newspaperman, a naval officer and, for 23 years, a public affairs officer with the Atomic Energy Commission/Department of Energy in the agency's Nuclear Weapons Program on Sandia/Kirtland Base. He was Director of Public Information from 1970 until he retired in 1980. His greatest athletic accomplishment, he told anyone who would listen, was winning the YMCA sponsored City Marble Championship in El Paso at about age 10. The prize was a flashlight. George then took up tennis and played it for more than 70 years. It was satisfying, he said, because it gave him the opportunity to cheat a little and blow cigar smoke downwind toward his opponents. As a newspaperman, he worked in San Francisco, covered a revolution in the late 1930s in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, and was City Editor of the El Paso Times. As a free lancer he wrote pulp paper short stories (at three cents a word) to pay the rent. After marriage, two children and Pearl Harbor, he was commissioned an Ensign in the Navy and served two years during World War II as Communications Officer on a cruiser, the USS Chester CA 27, in the Pacific. He was Editor of the Navy's ALL HANDS magazine from 1945-50 in Washington, D.C. and during Korea was on the staff of Commander, United Nations Blockade and Escort Force. He resigned from the Navy as Lieutenant Commander, USN, in 1954. He was then Editor of the News-Bulletin in Belen, NM from 1955-57. George has been active in Alcoholics Anonymous since 1954 when he arrived in Albuquerque. During the 1970s he was a member and Chairman of the New Mexico Commission on Alcoholism which operated treatment centers in the state, and on the Governor's Advisory Council on Alcoholism. He was Chairman of the New Mexico Bridgehouse Foundation which assisted in the rehabilitation of alcoholics and was a member of the Public Relations Society of America. In 1963 he was one of the founders of the Heights Club which since that time has operated non-profit facilities in support of Alcoholics Anonymous, Al-Anon and Ala-teen. A man with a sense of humor who refused to take himself too seriously, he "walked like he talked" and spent considerable time working with recovering alcoholics. He was a serious man with a ready smile. He liked to say, "A laugh exercises 32 muscles in your face. If you laugh at yourself, it's double. Try it and lose weight." George is survived by his wife of 30 years, Patricia; two children, George and his family of Georgia and Sally of Florida; two step-sons, Rick of Texas and Jeff of Oregon and their families. The family wishes to express sincere, deep thanks to the nurses and aides of Presbyterian Home Healthcare and Presbyterian Hospice; they are angels here on earth. A celebration of George's life will be held at Shepherd of the Valley Presbyterian Church, 1801 Montano Rd. NW, on Saturday, April 8, 2006 at 10:00 a.m. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that, should anyone wish to, they would appreciate donations made to either the Heights Club, 8520 Marble Ave. NE, ABQ, NM 87110 or to Presbyterian Hospice, 8100 Constitution Ave. NE, ABQ, NM 87110. Arrangements by Direct Funeral Services, 2919 4th ST. NW, ABQ. 505-343-8008
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