Reese Hawkins, Jr.

Allan Reese Hawkins, Jr. was born in Greer, South Carolina, on December 22, 1916, and died peacefully on June 23, 2012. As a boy he spent many happy hours on his grandfather's farm in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains and in his hometown of Greer. After the Depression he graduated from North Greenville Junior College (now North Greenville University) and then received a B.S. Degree in Chemistry from Furman University in 1943.

He joined the Service during World War II, becoming a Naval Officer aboard the Destroyer, USS Roe. He saw combat in the Pacific Theater. While in port in California, Reese met Margaret Benson, a Red Cross social worker at the U.S. Navy Hospital on Mare Island. They were married in the living room of her parents' home in Bottineau, North Dakota, in 1946.

Reese earned a degree in Pharmacy from North Dakota Agricultural College (now North Dakota State University) in 1950 and became the owner and floor mopper of Guilford Drug in Guilford College, North Carolina. He worked seven days a week until they decided to sell the store and move to North Dakota. After spending a year as a pharmacist in Bottineau, Reese bought Clinic Drug in Jamestown, North Dakota. He became the owner and manager, renaming it Hawkins Drug (now Walz Pharmacy).

Reese was an enthusiastic and active participant in the life of Jamestown. He was President of the Jamestown Chamber of Commerce, the Jamestown Lions Club, and the Metropolitan Dinner Club of Greater Jamestown. An amateur actor, he enjoyed being a member of Shoestring Productions, was a member of St. John's Lutheran Church, and a former member of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Greer and Trinity Lutheran Church in Jamestown.

He played basketball in college, and golf in later years, while continuing to cheer on the Duke Blue Devils in basketball and watch sports on television.

A great pleasure in Reese's life was his friendship with the frontier writer Louis L'Amour. When Louis came to North Dakota with his family to receive the Rough Rider Award, the friendship began. The travels and conversations they shared inspired Reese to write his first book, Remembering Louis L'Amour . Having become an author in his eighties, Reese then wrote a second book, Grandmother Alice , based on the journals of his grandmother. It tells stories of life in South Carolina from before the Civil War to the 1930's. Along with his wife Margaret, Reese was very active in promoting tourism. They contributed three buildings to museums that preserve North Dakota history -- two to the Rugby Museum and a schoolhouse which was the first building at Frontier Village in Jamestown. Many tourists stopped to visit with Reese at the village's Writer's Shack, where he shared the memories of his experiences with Louis L'Amour.

In 2000 Reese and Margaret received the Outstanding Citizens Award from the Jamestown area Chamber of Commerce, then the North Dakota Travel and Tourism Award in 2001, and the Greater North Dakota Chamber of Commerce Tourism and Recreational Development award in 2004. This spring the 2012 North Dakota State Pharmacy Convention was dedicated to Reese.

He is survived by his daughter Meredith Hawkins Wallin, his son Allan Hawkins, granddaughters Taresa Neale, Tamarie Sayger and Jessica Mace, and five great-grandchildren.

Memorial Service: 11:00 a.m., Thursday, July 5, 2012 at Williams-Lisko Funeral Chapel, Jamestown.

Interment: Melankton Cemetery, rural Bottineau, North Dakota.

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