320

 

George J. Pilicy III (1944-2026)

 

We learned from George's wife, Carol Terence, that he died on September 30, 2026.

About George:

Born in Massachusetts, George came to Princeton from Riviera Beach High in Riviera Beach, Florida.

 

At Princeton, he majored in English and wrote his senior thesis on Mark Twain. He belonged to the Woodrow Wilson Society. His roommates included Mark Lurie.

 

After Princeton, George volunteered for the Army, turning down offers from the CIA and advertising agencies. He reached the rank of First Lieutenant and graduated with honors from the Army Nuclear, Chemical & Biological Warfare School at Fort Leonard Wood. Following the Army, George earned a BS in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Arizona.

 

Applying his studies, George went to work as an engineer at the Hanford Nuclear Site in Washington State. In 1984 he and Carol moved to Arizona where he worked as an engineer for the Arizona Public Service Company, retiring in 2010. In that position he helped build the Palo Verde nuclear generating station.

 

An avid volunteer, George was at various times a volunteer sheriff, school board member, library board member, and volunteer math and science teacher.

 

The Class extends its condolences to Carol, George’s wife of 57 years, and to their son, Terence, and his family.

 

George's whimsical observations on life:

Writeup in 10th Reunion Book:

Home address: 1712 W. 3rd, Kennewick, Wash. 99336

Occupation: Varies. Seated, Westinghouse Hanford,

Richland, Wash.

Single

Further education: Univ. of Arizona, nuclear eng’g, YUP

Military service: Army (’66-’69), 1st Lt., above average graffiti on helmet cover.

 

Left Princeton (had to; damned faculty graduated me) and joined Lyndon’s posse. Ho Chi and Lyndon both died and I left. Don’t know where they went from there.

 

I went to Tucson to soak up sun on G.I Bill, having learned the relationship between “YESSIR” and “ATTABOY” and the folly of appearing on the skyline. Time passed and seemed to lose yardage on the play. Took courses, did a short hardhat hitch in Copper, wandered about the desert, chased women, raised vegetables, made friends, and managed to avoid killing anything while hunting (whole trick is use a muzzle loader and leave out the ball; you don’t have to aim to miss, produce much noise, and enjoy the whole trip).

 

Was stricken with a slight attack of ambition; went to L.A. and sat in a swivel chair. Noticed the air was eating the tires off my car, my neighbors were running a quart low and some unknown blight tore the bejeezus out of my tomatoes. Tomatoes died and I left. Came up to Washington on a compromise: swivel chair if I want to sit down, no tie, paid by Sam so I don’t feel too bad about taxes. Job involves construction of a lasting landmark to aid land navigation when we Gringos give this place back to the Indians; for accounting purposes it is called something else.

 

Never was expectant, always was curious. Come spring I might get a dog. If the “ATTABOY”, “YESSIR” ratio increases massively, he might be a pedigreed dog, but experience so far says it won’t and he won’t. That’s as close as I’ve come to any answers in the last ten years.

 

I still miss you clowns.

 

 

Writeup in 25th Reunion Book:

 

Email to John Lumpin, June 26, 2025:

 

Full disclosure: Carol put up one when we moved in, and it has yet to crumble into dust. Would you believe Honor Graduate of the Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Warfare School at Ft. Louis. If you ever need somebody to spread the plague, you now have a potential candidate. Woman has a strong sense of irony. Think upwind; very, very far upwind. Another continent might be considered. Sometimes late at night I wonder at the skills the taxpayers have requested me to acquire. 
George Pilicy

 

Email to John Lumpkin, July 6, 2025:


Since you have taken it upon yourself to track the good, uplifting, and noble acts of our class, I believe I should contribute the odd balancing anecdote before I am qualified to hide my own Easter eggs. I knew a lady who lived above a clock repair shop in town, before I had taken to heart the advice about not closely associating with someone more insane than yourself. Being above a large room full of operating mechanical clocks at midnight, and noticing that the lady who lives there doesn’t notice the normal distribution of din, is the first gentle hint that a little area reconnaissance might be in order. A friend, given fair warning, wished to fill the breech, and life moved on. 


Lake Carnegie was created by damming up a creek, and the downstream end had a small tavern adjacent to the dam. My friend had somewhere found a canoe, the lady, and a large quantity of beer. A pleasant evening away from the campus was planned. Learning to paddle a canoe without instruction while sober is a little tricky. At night, with several beers aboard can be difficult. Long story short, after some time zigzagging, Hiawatha noticed that things were going much better, faster, and, judging by the stars, in a straight line. These are the symptoms when you paddle a canoe into the millrace leading to a low head dam. Probably a whole generation of New Brunswick firemen and cops told the newbies the tale of the bar population of the Mill Tavern saving the wet brunette and bobbing for beers in the lights of the pumper. Just thought you should know. 
Geo. Pilicy ‘66

 

Nassau Herald

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Classmate Tributes and Memories:

 

Alice Miller:

 

 

I recall hearing that George worked for a spell at the Hanford nuclear processing site in Washington state. That fits with his 10th reunion book entry.

I also heard that he later worked as a prospector in Arizona. That always seemed plausible to me, given George's character.

George wrote his senior thesis on Mark Twain, which seemed a natural topic for him. He had a sharp New Hampshire wit, and he had a unparalleled ability to deflate pomposity and bring things back down to earth (a useful trait at PU).

Our senior year, George, Jeff Norton and I (and maybe a couple of others) went regularly to Pietrinfino's restaurant (which George referred to as Pete's Inferno) on Witherspoon Street at 1am to get a nice plate of scrambled eggs and fries. Funny the stuff you remember.

He visited me and my former wife in Arlington in the late 70s.

 

In 2025 I did track him down in Wickenburg and talked with him on the phone for about an hour. He did confirm that he worked as a nuclear engineer at Hanford. He studied nuclear engineering at the University of Arizona after a tour in the Army and worked at Hanford for several years. He chuckled (neither confirming nor denying--just like George) when I mentioned the story that he had become a prospector in Arizona. He was active in several civic groups in Wickenburg.

 

Most of our conversation was typical Pilicy storytelling--in this case about various strategic weapons projects our enlightened government has pursued--recounted with his dry New Hampshire wit (no surprise that he wrote his senior thesis on Mark Twain).

 

I can't recall who might also remember him from our time at PU. Maybe Dave Dollenmeyer, who worked with us at the U's Express-Reunion Agency in the summer of 1964?

 

There will never be another George Pilicy.

 

Mark Lurie:

 

George was a real character: fancied himself a backwoods New Hampshire eccentric, once built a fire on the living room floor in Brown Hall, and every time the ducks flew over coming back north in the spring he would declare a holiday and we ate Indian Pudding. Though he came to Princeton from Florida, his grandparents were in New Hampshire and somehow George thought of himself as a hick from New Hampshire, kind of a backwoodsman identity, even dressed that way. Had hundreds of stories, most of them about unusual New Hampshire characters. Great sense of humor.

Once he visited us in Palo Alto with a pistol tucked into his sock. I think he was involved in some clandestine government business at one point, maybe the CIA though with George you never could tell if he was being serious about such things. I never was sure what was real.

 

John Lumpkin:

 

I was genuinely saddened back on October 12 when I learned from Carol Terence that her husband of 57 years, our Classmate for 4 years, George Pilicy, had passed away. While I did not know him during our undergraduate years, I definitely got to know him in recent years! You see, there is a group of your Classmates (now numbering 30) who have been involved in annual giving on behalf of ’66. And George’s name surfaced a couple of years back as one of our Classmates no one seemed to be able to contact. Not to raise any $ from. Rather simply to connect and ‘catch up’. So, the first thing I did was to go to our Nassau Herald where I read that he majored in the English Department ‘with a concentration in goldbricking’…….(you think I’m kidding you? Not!). I then went to our 25th Reunion Book and there was George J. Pilicy “The Head Woodchuck”. Then ‘Employment: Varies. With any luck, address varies accordingly’ Then “Extracurricular activities: ‘Statute of limitations doesn’t apply in all cases’ 

 

You can’t make this stuff up! (so those of you who still have your 25th Reunion Book, you owe it to yourself to look up George!). My reaction? Forget about ag, I got to track down ‘The Head Wood Chuck’!  Which, somehow, I did. And the two of us engaged in simply delightful conversations that one could only have with ‘The Head Wood Chuck’; and ‘interesting’ e-mail exchanges (a couple of which, I believe, will show up in this overall Class Memorial communication.) Meanwhile, George did let it slip once or twice that he not only had had quite a fascinating career (which will be reported elsewhere in this Memorial write-up) but that also he was very very happily married to Carol, the true love of his life.

 

Finally, most of us remember that ’66 was identified from almost the outset as the Overall, Well-Rounded Class. The Head Wood Chuck fortunately wrote an unforgettable Chapter which evidenced  that ‘Genuine Variety is the Spice of Life’. I truly miss him.


 

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