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<p><em>John Hamilton Boyd III</em> was born in El Campo, TX to Lenore Anglin Boyd and John Hamilton Boyd II. He enjoyed a typical small town Texas childhood among family and cousins, splashing in the rice fields and climbing trees. Very bright and a member of Mensa, he skipped two years of high school but was too young to start at West Point. He spent the next few years at Schreiner Academy in Kerrville, TX. </p>
<p>John entered West Point in 1962. While at West Point, John took part in the Scoutmaster’s Council, Debate Council & Forum, and track. At graduation he received a National Science Foundation fellowship for advanced studies in civil engineering. He attended Ranger and Airborne schools. In 1970 he received his MSE and M.A. from Princeton University. Fellow members of E-2 remember John as always willing to help fellow members with their studies. </p>
<p>While at West Point John met and courted Mary Reiner, daughter of Colonel Howard and Mary Reiner. Colonel Reiner was a professor of foreign languages at West Point. John and Mary were married at the Cathedral Chapel of Most Holy Trinity at West Point on November 19, 1966. They had been married for 40 years at the time of Mary’s death in 2006.</p>
<p>During their years together, they moved to varied places as John’s military career and, later, professional life dictated. From 1966 to 1976, the Army took them to Nuremberg, Germany and Schinnen, Netherlands, where he supervised Dutch employees supporting U.S. military and civilians assigned to NATO Headquarters at The Hague. Also posted to Frankfurt, Germany, John negotiated contracts and worked on the redesign of various facilities. And, in July 1970, John could be found in Vietnam building highways and a warehouse complex, arriving back to the states in 1972. </p>
<p>Newly retired from the military, John and his family, now including sons Philip (Class of ’90) and John Christopher, spent 1976 to 1979 working for Aramco in Ras Tanura and Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, where John was project engineer and material supervisor. </p>
<p>From 1980 to 1988. John was in El Segundo and Alhambra, CA building 17- to 20-story buildings, complete with rooftop tennis courts and car park structures. He was proud of being ahead of or on schedule and under budget on many of his jobs! That included a yearlong project in Warri, Nigeria in 1992. </p>
<p>John’s later years found him working for Parsons in the Los Angeles area on various projects until his retirement in 2008. In December 2007 he married Kathleen Dochtermann. Post retirement, their years together were spent RVing up, down and across the United States. In 2011 they put down roots in Kerrville, TX, with plans to add on to their 50,000-plus RV miles. John’s cancer brought that dream to an end.</p>
<p>John had a lifelong interest in genealogy and extensively researched his Boyd and Anglin roots. He was an avid researcher and maintained a very large tree on ancestry.com. He was also very active on FindaGrave.com, having documented about 17,000 graves and photographing many while RVing around the United States, with a particular interest in former military graves. He thought nothing of driving the 42-foot RV down a dirt road and parking on the slimmest of shoulders. He’d traipse through a field to find ancestors’ graves, with his camera in one hand and holding the leashes of his three pups in the other. He met a few interesting people that way. Luckily all of them were nice and happy to meet a cousin! He maintained a busy connection with many “cousins” through various genealogical groups and societies.</p>
<p>His younger sisters recall being thrilled to see him coming home. They loved when he lifted them onto his tall shoulders. They recall him always being patient with them, and they still smile when they think of him. All remember with great fondness spending time with him at their grandparents’ farm. </p>
<p>A favorite story about John comes from his son John (aka Chris). Chris worked for his dad on a high-rise construction site in LA one summer after high school. A foreman let John know the iron workers were coming back from lunch breaks after “having a few,” a dangerous situation on any construction site (never mind one involving heights!). John put his hard hat on, rode the lift to the top and spoke to the iron worker foreman, who Chris recalls as one of the scariest humans he has ever met. Everyone could see them framed in silhouette against the sky. They talked for a few minutes and shook hands. John rode back down. The drinking was never a problem again. John never referred to the conversation or indicated what he and the foreman said. </p>
<p>John maintained a lifelong connection to West Point, attending mini-reunions and serving as a class forum monitor. Especially meaningful to him were the calls from classmates during his last days at MD Anderson.</p>
<p>Tall and imposing, John never used his size to intimidate or in anger. He said what he meant. He stood by what he said. He did not tolerate dishonesty. John was an exceptionally kind, generous and honest man. He was always ready to take in “strays,” human or animal. John brought a sense of calm and security wherever and with whomever. Even during a painful death from lung and bone cancer, he remained a stoic and gentle man.</p>
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