FAWCETT

LINCOLNTON — George D’Espard Fawcett III, of 602 Battleground Road in Lincolnton, died Sunday, Jan. 20. Funeral service will be at 3 p.m. on Wednesday at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church with the Rev. Miles Smith officiating. Burial will follow in the church cemetery. The family will receive friends from 1:45 to 2:45 p.m. prior to the service. Mr. Fawcett, Army veteran and retired YMCA director, was born July 21, 1929, in Mount Airy. He was the son of Thomas Garnet Fawcett Sr. and Katie Lee Mills Fawcett. He was preceded in death, in addition to his parents, by three sisters, Katherine Folger and Mary Mills Folger of Mount Airy and Evelyn Randolph of Stuart, Fla.; and one brother, Garnet Fawcett of Mount Airy. Survivors include wife, Shirley of the home; daughter, Laura of New Haven, Ct.; son, Christopher of Tumwater, Wash.; stepdaughter, Kelly Salinas of Lincolnton; and stepson, Mark Freeman of Marietta, Ga. He leaves 10 stepgrandchildren; two stepgreat-grandchildren; and one sister, Elizabeth Burke of Mount Airy. George graduated from Mount Airy High School in 1947. He earned an associate’s degree from Lees-McRae College in 1950 and a bachelor’s degree in education from Lynchburg College in Virginia in 1952. George received his YMCA certification from George Williams College Camp in Illinois in 1951. He began his career with the YMCA in Eden in 1952. In 1954, George was drafted into the Army, eventually being stationed in Panama where he was honorably discharged in 1956. George resumed his YMCA career in Rhode Island, then to Massachusetts, then Pennsylvania. In 1967, his YMCA career moved him and his family to Deland, Fla., where he started the Y there from scratch. His next move was to Tennessee, where he eventually retired from the Y in 1972. He then moved to Maiden, where he worked as the manager of the Maiden Times newspaper. He also helped his wife, Shirley, with her restaurant and eventually worked at Mohican Mills his final working years. George’s hobby, or vocation, was the study and investigation of UFOs. He wrote two books, numerous magazine articles, lectured at many colleges and universities and special clubs and groups in the United States, England and Panama. He donated his massive UFO collection to the UFO museum in Roswell, N.M. Warlick Funeral Home is serving the Fawcett family.