Lawrence Wayne Brown

The Class received word in October that Larry Brown had died July 2 in Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center, in Woodbridge, Virginia.

Larry came to Princeton from The Peddie School, where he played football and was active in the band, school newspaper, and glee club. At Princeton he majored in politics, worked in the dining halls, and belonged to Cloister Inn. He sang in the glee club and was on the staff of WPRB.

Larry was a long-time resident of Dumfries, Virginia. From 1984 through 2009, he was employed by Associated Press Broadcast Services, working in Washington, D.C., as a reporter, national and world editor, and anchor.

The Class mourns Larry's passing and extends its sympathy to his family.

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In May of 2014 the Class of 1966 received a letter from Tom Faix ’47, an uncle of our classmate, Larry Brown, who died on July 3, 2013. Mr. Faix sent us contact information for Larry’s family members and wrote a lengthy description of Larry’s background and career. Jim Parmentier wrote back to Mr. Faix, thanking him for his effort and information, and sent him a copy of the memorial (above) that we had prepared for and published in the January 8, 2014, issue of PAW. The following update information has been taken directly from Mr. Faix’s letter:"Larry’s career as a journalist with AP in Washington DC had its roots as an "on air” voice with our beloved WPRU station and his major in Princeton’s Politics Department. Larry did not dodge the draft for graduate school but enlisted in the now US Air Force as an officer. He had basic training and then a series of high impact radio/tv field and staff assignments. He was sent to Vietnam (1968-69) to report on field actions for a variety of news sources, and to carry out interviews with in-action units and a wide range of media as well as visiting "celebrities”. After his tour of duty with the rank of Captain he went to Michigan State University for an MA in journalism. He began his work with a station in Grand Rapids. By 1975 went to the global news mecca of AP in Washington, DC, commuting 80 miles daily from his bachelor pad in Dumphries, VA. Larry always had the 12 AM to 8 AM shift. He never married, and he had no chance for the "normal” extra-curricular events of the day-time world. Larry never married, but he had much to share with and was very close and generous to his nieces and nephews. His sister, Rev. Connie Brown, coordinated a memorial service for him on site at the Washington Memorial Chapel, in Valley Forge, PA, where he is buried in the Faix family plot next to his sister, Barbara Brown Lein. I was unaware of the extent and depth of Larry’s Vietnam involvement until recent years when we began to have long phone calls. I was very impressed at how deeply he contributed to "Princeton in the Nation’s Service and in the Service of all Nations”. Larry never sent news to the Class of ’66 Secretary or attended a Class reunion....be he had agreed to let me "drag” him to his 50th Reunion in 2016. I was trying to urge him to write a memoir of his journalism career and to seek a new career as an instructor in a school of journalism. Death, unfortunately, came to him first.