George Arthur Brown was born on February 24,1933, in Orange, New Jersey, the second son of Dr. Nelson R. and Gladys Kinney Brown. An older brother, Richard, and in 1936 a little sister, Beverly, completed the Brown family.
George's father died young, and his mother Gladys stepped into his shoes to run his optometry business to support the family. Their grandfather, Frank Martindale Kinney, Sr.--“Pops”--stepped up to fill the role of father-figure. “Pops” was proud of their heritage as Mayflower Descendants, and of the civic and military contributions made by intervening generations of his family; he instilled this pride in his children, and welcomed the opportunity to do the same for his grandchildren: duty to family; duty to country and community; duty to God; and love of the outdoors. He remained George's foremost hero to the end of his life.
George was possessed of a hungry scientific genius that began to show itself at an early age. With a child's chemistry set, by the age of 12 he was making his own gunpowder and bombs, one of which had a short fuse and blew up his grandmother's '36 Ford, leaving George with a rear end full of shrapnel. “This was NOT funny at the time,” his sister emphasized.
After graduating from West Orange High School in New Jersey in 1951, George moved on to nearby Rutgers University, where he would graduate in 1955 with degrees in Geology/Paleontology AND Engineering. It was at Rutgers that George toughened his swimming ability by engaging in Ocean Swimming, and where he first fell in love with the sport of Lacrosse, which would remain a lifelong passion.
After graduation, George completed his military obligation at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal in Colorado, where he distinguished himself not by winning military honors and promotions, but medals for Uniform Ironing Competitions; you did not want to go up against George with a steam iron. Assigned to embossing military-I.D. "dog tags," it was a no-brainer that George would immediately crank out a complete set for himself with each of the religious symbols on them, guaranteeing himself additional days of leave for religious holidays of all faiths.
George came to love Colorado, and settled there after his term of service was completed. His geology and engineering education quickly gained him a position with the Colorado Water Department as a Water Resource Engineer in 1957, and in 1961 he moved on to the Colorado Water Conservation Board, where it became clear to George that he could better further its cause as part of its legal team. The fact that he was not an attorney barely slowed him down. He enrolled in the University of Denver's School of Law, graduating and becoming admitted to the Colorado State Bar in 1966. As a result, very early in his legal career, he found himself practicing before the US Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., in a complex case regarding water rights between Colorado, Texas & New Mexico, under the Rio Grande Compact of 1938.
At the same time, he was also an active player with the Colorado Lacrosse Club. In 1963, George started the Adams City Lacrosse team, and was later credited with "spearheading the inception of Lacrosse in high schools in Colorado under his competent leadership," according to the Mile High Lacrosse Association's publication. By 1965, he was a member of the first Executive Board of the Colorado Lacrosse Association.
Nor was George content to merely promote water appreciation from behind a desk. In about 1970, inspired by the grandeur of nature in Colorado's canyons and rivers, George bought a used military landing craft, and doggedly and solitarily beat himself up learning the skills of river rafting, a course of self-education he felt he would never have survived without his Ocean Swimming training. When he had mastered it, he invested in smaller crafts, recruited and trained several guides, and founded Adventure Bound River Expeditions, which still operates today, offering canyon tours on Colorado's rivers.
George next decided to use his practice of law to espouse the cause of abused and defenseless children as a child-advocacy attorney in the family court system, where he helped countless families and individual children to find “safe haven” in their times of trouble.
Some of the ugliness he witnessed in that practice led George to a crisis of faith, prompting him to delve deeply into religion. While still serving the legal needs of children and never abandoning his stewardship of Lacrosse, he also began to attend Denver's Iliff School of Theology, where he obtained a Master's Degree in Divinity in 1977 and was ordained as a Methodist minister, and began leading a number of congregations over the years, the longest at Heritage United Methodist Church in Denver.
In 1978, George founded and coached the Columbine High School Lacrosse Club, as he himself moved into the Grand Masters League (for players 45 and older) for his own participation.
In 1994, George became an inaugural member of the Colorado Lacrosse Foundation's Hall of Fame. He had become well-known and greatly loved in the greater-Denver area both for his leadership and promotion of LaCrosse and for his “less God, more good” approach to religion with a liberal sprinkling of the bluegrass music he loved and played himself--which ruffled the feathers of some in his church hierarchy even though it brought about the desired result of growing his congregation. George never lost much sleep over ruffled feathers, and in 1999 he and his banjo retired from the ministry and returned to his legal practice of advocating children.
He was still coaching Lacrosse that year at Columbine High at the time of its infamous massacre. With his ministerial background, he was untiring in offering comfort and counseling to a number of students as well as several of the parents who had lost children in that senseless bloodbath.
When 9/11 stunned the world in 2001, the tragedy became personal to George when he lost nine Lacrosse Grand Master friends in the terrorist attack that day--in a Lacrosse Association office on the 102nd floor of one of the Twin Towers. George played his own final Lacrosse "Grand Masters" game that year at the age of 68, making him the oldest active Grand Master up to that time.
In 2008, George was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Rather than turn his attention inward, the scientist within him prompted George to join clinical studies in an effort to help himself and others; he attended and contributed to seminars about the disease and its treatment. 'Readers' Digest' published an interview with him about his treatment experience. He began to voraciously read and research cellular evolution until he was conversant in cellular dynamics on a sophisticated level.
Even with such a full and fast-paced life, packed with adventure, challenge and the gratification of successfully helping others and furthering causes, George privately very much felt the lack of the one thing that could make his life whole and complete. On a golden day for George in autumn of 2009, at the age of 76, he stumbled upon his soulmate and the supportive helpmeet of his increasingly difficult late years--a kind and loving blond Brit with an adventurous past of his own, whose unfailing kindness was a balm for the increasing infirmities of George's old age; who could go head-to-head with George in intellectual discussions; jointly adopted their beloved rescue beagle “children” Bernie and Ettie; and with a shared love of gardening joined in tending George's great horticultural pride, his garden of platter-sized dahlias: Anthony--Tony--Armstrong was the only antidote that George ever found to calm the restlessness of his mind and emotions--with abiding love and a strong dose of garden-variety common sense. The two became the most devoted of partners.
George retired from the law in 2013, at the age of 80. But he could not sit idle, and as a lifelong animal lover, he was moved to advance yet one more “cause.” Along with attorney colleague Juliet Piccone, he drafted an Initiative to prevent euthanasia in animal shelters in Colorado except on the express medical order of a licensed veterinarian due only to pain or illness; and at 81, he defended the measure before the Colorado Supreme Court. Many supporters helped to promote the Initiative and collected signatures to ensure that it made it onto the ballot in the fall of 2014, and it was a great moral victory to George that it was approved by the voters.
Also that autumn, George was honored for his contribution to the sport of Lacrosse with an honorary game--the George Brown Cup--bringing together players of a wide range of ages, who had been coached and mentored by George in the 1970's to the early 2000's. Those who actually took to the field that day did so under the name of “Reverend Brown's Holy Rollers,” and had started in Lacrosse with George as their coach and mentor and were now mid-life family men themselves; many crowded around after the game to share memories and catch up with George, and a surprising number thanked him for his interest in their lives at a time that had prevented them from making “wrong turns.” This was a very rich day for George.
But not the richest of days; after years of struggling to clear the way for Tony (in the post-9/11 era of heightened international suspicion) to be allowed by U.S. Immigration to reside in the U.S., their request was granted just as the legal bond of marriage became possible--and George and Tony were married on September 3, 2015. THIS was George's richest day, granting his most fervent and urgent wish, to truly belong to the one he loved.
After a lengthy battle with prostate cancer through which Tony comforted and sustained him, George passed away on June 23, 2016. According to his wishes, no services were held, and his ashes scattered as privately directed. It was his wish that his atoms and molecules simply return to the universe from whence they came.
© C. Kinney, June 2016
George's father died young, and his mother Gladys stepped into his shoes to run his optometry business to support the family. Their grandfather, Frank Martindale Kinney, Sr.--“Pops”--stepped up to fill the role of father-figure. “Pops” was proud of their heritage as Mayflower Descendants, and of the civic and military contributions made by intervening generations of his family; he instilled this pride in his children, and welcomed the opportunity to do the same for his grandchildren: duty to family; duty to country and community; duty to God; and love of the outdoors. He remained George's foremost hero to the end of his life.
George was possessed of a hungry scientific genius that began to show itself at an early age. With a child's chemistry set, by the age of 12 he was making his own gunpowder and bombs, one of which had a short fuse and blew up his grandmother's '36 Ford, leaving George with a rear end full of shrapnel. “This was NOT funny at the time,” his sister emphasized.
After graduating from West Orange High School in New Jersey in 1951, George moved on to nearby Rutgers University, where he would graduate in 1955 with degrees in Geology/Paleontology AND Engineering. It was at Rutgers that George toughened his swimming ability by engaging in Ocean Swimming, and where he first fell in love with the sport of Lacrosse, which would remain a lifelong passion.
After graduation, George completed his military obligation at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal in Colorado, where he distinguished himself not by winning military honors and promotions, but medals for Uniform Ironing Competitions; you did not want to go up against George with a steam iron. Assigned to embossing military-I.D. "dog tags," it was a no-brainer that George would immediately crank out a complete set for himself with each of the religious symbols on them, guaranteeing himself additional days of leave for religious holidays of all faiths.
George came to love Colorado, and settled there after his term of service was completed. His geology and engineering education quickly gained him a position with the Colorado Water Department as a Water Resource Engineer in 1957, and in 1961 he moved on to the Colorado Water Conservation Board, where it became clear to George that he could better further its cause as part of its legal team. The fact that he was not an attorney barely slowed him down. He enrolled in the University of Denver's School of Law, graduating and becoming admitted to the Colorado State Bar in 1966. As a result, very early in his legal career, he found himself practicing before the US Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., in a complex case regarding water rights between Colorado, Texas & New Mexico, under the Rio Grande Compact of 1938.
At the same time, he was also an active player with the Colorado Lacrosse Club. In 1963, George started the Adams City Lacrosse team, and was later credited with "spearheading the inception of Lacrosse in high schools in Colorado under his competent leadership," according to the Mile High Lacrosse Association's publication. By 1965, he was a member of the first Executive Board of the Colorado Lacrosse Association.
Nor was George content to merely promote water appreciation from behind a desk. In about 1970, inspired by the grandeur of nature in Colorado's canyons and rivers, George bought a used military landing craft, and doggedly and solitarily beat himself up learning the skills of river rafting, a course of self-education he felt he would never have survived without his Ocean Swimming training. When he had mastered it, he invested in smaller crafts, recruited and trained several guides, and founded Adventure Bound River Expeditions, which still operates today, offering canyon tours on Colorado's rivers.
George next decided to use his practice of law to espouse the cause of abused and defenseless children as a child-advocacy attorney in the family court system, where he helped countless families and individual children to find “safe haven” in their times of trouble.
Some of the ugliness he witnessed in that practice led George to a crisis of faith, prompting him to delve deeply into religion. While still serving the legal needs of children and never abandoning his stewardship of Lacrosse, he also began to attend Denver's Iliff School of Theology, where he obtained a Master's Degree in Divinity in 1977 and was ordained as a Methodist minister, and began leading a number of congregations over the years, the longest at Heritage United Methodist Church in Denver.
In 1978, George founded and coached the Columbine High School Lacrosse Club, as he himself moved into the Grand Masters League (for players 45 and older) for his own participation.
In 1994, George became an inaugural member of the Colorado Lacrosse Foundation's Hall of Fame. He had become well-known and greatly loved in the greater-Denver area both for his leadership and promotion of LaCrosse and for his “less God, more good” approach to religion with a liberal sprinkling of the bluegrass music he loved and played himself--which ruffled the feathers of some in his church hierarchy even though it brought about the desired result of growing his congregation. George never lost much sleep over ruffled feathers, and in 1999 he and his banjo retired from the ministry and returned to his legal practice of advocating children.
He was still coaching Lacrosse that year at Columbine High at the time of its infamous massacre. With his ministerial background, he was untiring in offering comfort and counseling to a number of students as well as several of the parents who had lost children in that senseless bloodbath.
When 9/11 stunned the world in 2001, the tragedy became personal to George when he lost nine Lacrosse Grand Master friends in the terrorist attack that day--in a Lacrosse Association office on the 102nd floor of one of the Twin Towers. George played his own final Lacrosse "Grand Masters" game that year at the age of 68, making him the oldest active Grand Master up to that time.
In 2008, George was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Rather than turn his attention inward, the scientist within him prompted George to join clinical studies in an effort to help himself and others; he attended and contributed to seminars about the disease and its treatment. 'Readers' Digest' published an interview with him about his treatment experience. He began to voraciously read and research cellular evolution until he was conversant in cellular dynamics on a sophisticated level.
Even with such a full and fast-paced life, packed with adventure, challenge and the gratification of successfully helping others and furthering causes, George privately very much felt the lack of the one thing that could make his life whole and complete. On a golden day for George in autumn of 2009, at the age of 76, he stumbled upon his soulmate and the supportive helpmeet of his increasingly difficult late years--a kind and loving blond Brit with an adventurous past of his own, whose unfailing kindness was a balm for the increasing infirmities of George's old age; who could go head-to-head with George in intellectual discussions; jointly adopted their beloved rescue beagle “children” Bernie and Ettie; and with a shared love of gardening joined in tending George's great horticultural pride, his garden of platter-sized dahlias: Anthony--Tony--Armstrong was the only antidote that George ever found to calm the restlessness of his mind and emotions--with abiding love and a strong dose of garden-variety common sense. The two became the most devoted of partners.
George retired from the law in 2013, at the age of 80. But he could not sit idle, and as a lifelong animal lover, he was moved to advance yet one more “cause.” Along with attorney colleague Juliet Piccone, he drafted an Initiative to prevent euthanasia in animal shelters in Colorado except on the express medical order of a licensed veterinarian due only to pain or illness; and at 81, he defended the measure before the Colorado Supreme Court. Many supporters helped to promote the Initiative and collected signatures to ensure that it made it onto the ballot in the fall of 2014, and it was a great moral victory to George that it was approved by the voters.
Also that autumn, George was honored for his contribution to the sport of Lacrosse with an honorary game--the George Brown Cup--bringing together players of a wide range of ages, who had been coached and mentored by George in the 1970's to the early 2000's. Those who actually took to the field that day did so under the name of “Reverend Brown's Holy Rollers,” and had started in Lacrosse with George as their coach and mentor and were now mid-life family men themselves; many crowded around after the game to share memories and catch up with George, and a surprising number thanked him for his interest in their lives at a time that had prevented them from making “wrong turns.” This was a very rich day for George.
But not the richest of days; after years of struggling to clear the way for Tony (in the post-9/11 era of heightened international suspicion) to be allowed by U.S. Immigration to reside in the U.S., their request was granted just as the legal bond of marriage became possible--and George and Tony were married on September 3, 2015. THIS was George's richest day, granting his most fervent and urgent wish, to truly belong to the one he loved.
After a lengthy battle with prostate cancer through which Tony comforted and sustained him, George passed away on June 23, 2016. According to his wishes, no services were held, and his ashes scattered as privately directed. It was his wish that his atoms and molecules simply return to the universe from whence they came.
© C. Kinney, June 2016
George Arthur Brown was born on February 24,1933, in Orange, New Jersey, the second son of Dr. Nelson R. and Gladys Kinney Brown. An older brother, Richard, and in 1936 a little sister, Beverly, completed the Brown family.
George's father died young, and his mother Gladys stepped into his shoes to run his optometry business to support the family. Their grandfather, Frank Martindale Kinney, Sr.--“Pops”--stepped up to fill the role of father-figure. “Pops” was proud of their heritage as Mayflower Descendants, and of the civic and military contributions made by intervening generations of his family; he instilled this pride in his children, and welcomed the opportunity to do the same for his grandchildren: duty to family; duty to country and community; duty to God; and love of the outdoors. He remained George's foremost hero to the end of his life.
George was possessed of a hungry scientific genius that began to show itself at an early age. With a child's chemistry set, by the age of 12 he was making his own gunpowder and bombs, one of which had a short fuse and blew up his grandmother's '36 Ford, leaving George with a rear end full of shrapnel. “This was NOT funny at the time,” his sister emphasized.
After graduating from West Orange High School in New Jersey in 1951, George moved on to nearby Rutgers University, where he would graduate in 1955 with degrees in Geology/Paleontology AND Engineering. It was at Rutgers that George toughened his swimming ability by engaging in Ocean Swimming, and where he first fell in love with the sport of Lacrosse, which would remain a lifelong passion.
After graduation, George completed his military obligation at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal in Colorado, where he distinguished himself not by winning military honors and promotions, but medals for Uniform Ironing Competitions; you did not want to go up against George with a steam iron. Assigned to embossing military-I.D. "dog tags," it was a no-brainer that George would immediately crank out a complete set for himself with each of the religious symbols on them, guaranteeing himself additional days of leave for religious holidays of all faiths.
George came to love Colorado, and settled there after his term of service was completed. His geology and engineering education quickly gained him a position with the Colorado Water Department as a Water Resource Engineer in 1957, and in 1961 he moved on to the Colorado Water Conservation Board, where it became clear to George that he could better further its cause as part of its legal team. The fact that he was not an attorney barely slowed him down. He enrolled in the University of Denver's School of Law, graduating and becoming admitted to the Colorado State Bar in 1966. As a result, very early in his legal career, he found himself practicing before the US Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., in a complex case regarding water rights between Colorado, Texas & New Mexico, under the Rio Grande Compact of 1938.
At the same time, he was also an active player with the Colorado Lacrosse Club. In 1963, George started the Adams City Lacrosse team, and was later credited with "spearheading the inception of Lacrosse in high schools in Colorado under his competent leadership," according to the Mile High Lacrosse Association's publication. By 1965, he was a member of the first Executive Board of the Colorado Lacrosse Association.
Nor was George content to merely promote water appreciation from behind a desk. In about 1970, inspired by the grandeur of nature in Colorado's canyons and rivers, George bought a used military landing craft, and doggedly and solitarily beat himself up learning the skills of river rafting, a course of self-education he felt he would never have survived without his Ocean Swimming training. When he had mastered it, he invested in smaller crafts, recruited and trained several guides, and founded Adventure Bound River Expeditions, which still operates today, offering canyon tours on Colorado's rivers.
George next decided to use his practice of law to espouse the cause of abused and defenseless children as a child-advocacy attorney in the family court system, where he helped countless families and individual children to find “safe haven” in their times of trouble.
Some of the ugliness he witnessed in that practice led George to a crisis of faith, prompting him to delve deeply into religion. While still serving the legal needs of children and never abandoning his stewardship of Lacrosse, he also began to attend Denver's Iliff School of Theology, where he obtained a Master's Degree in Divinity in 1977 and was ordained as a Methodist minister, and began leading a number of congregations over the years, the longest at Heritage United Methodist Church in Denver.
In 1978, George founded and coached the Columbine High School Lacrosse Club, as he himself moved into the Grand Masters League (for players 45 and older) for his own participation.
In 1994, George became an inaugural member of the Colorado Lacrosse Foundation's Hall of Fame. He had become well-known and greatly loved in the greater-Denver area both for his leadership and promotion of LaCrosse and for his “less God, more good” approach to religion with a liberal sprinkling of the bluegrass music he loved and played himself--which ruffled the feathers of some in his church hierarchy even though it brought about the desired result of growing his congregation. George never lost much sleep over ruffled feathers, and in 1999 he and his banjo retired from the ministry and returned to his legal practice of advocating children.
He was still coaching Lacrosse that year at Columbine High at the time of its infamous massacre. With his ministerial background, he was untiring in offering comfort and counseling to a number of students as well as several of the parents who had lost children in that senseless bloodbath.
When 9/11 stunned the world in 2001, the tragedy became personal to George when he lost nine Lacrosse Grand Master friends in the terrorist attack that day--in a Lacrosse Association office on the 102nd floor of one of the Twin Towers. George played his own final Lacrosse "Grand Masters" game that year at the age of 68, making him the oldest active Grand Master up to that time.
In 2008, George was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Rather than turn his attention inward, the scientist within him prompted George to join clinical studies in an effort to help himself and others; he attended and contributed to seminars about the disease and its treatment. 'Readers' Digest' published an interview with him about his treatment experience. He began to voraciously read and research cellular evolution until he was conversant in cellular dynamics on a sophisticated level.
Even with such a full and fast-paced life, packed with adventure, challenge and the gratification of successfully helping others and furthering causes, George privately very much felt the lack of the one thing that could make his life whole and complete. On a golden day for George in autumn of 2009, at the age of 76, he stumbled upon his soulmate and the supportive helpmeet of his increasingly difficult late years--a kind and loving blond Brit with an adventurous past of his own, whose unfailing kindness was a balm for the increasing infirmities of George's old age; who could go head-to-head with George in intellectual discussions; jointly adopted their beloved rescue beagle “children” Bernie and Ettie; and with a shared love of gardening joined in tending George's great horticultural pride, his garden of platter-sized dahlias: Anthony--Tony--Armstrong was the only antidote that George ever found to calm the restlessness of his mind and emotions--with abiding love and a strong dose of garden-variety common sense. The two became the most devoted of partners.
George retired from the law in 2013, at the age of 80. But he could not sit idle, and as a lifelong animal lover, he was moved to advance yet one more “cause.” Along with attorney colleague Juliet Piccone, he drafted an Initiative to prevent euthanasia in animal shelters in Colorado except on the express medical order of a licensed veterinarian due only to pain or illness; and at 81, he defended the measure before the Colorado Supreme Court. Many supporters helped to promote the Initiative and collected signatures to ensure that it made it onto the ballot in the fall of 2014, and it was a great moral victory to George that it was approved by the voters.
Also that autumn, George was honored for his contribution to the sport of Lacrosse with an honorary game--the George Brown Cup--bringing together players of a wide range of ages, who had been coached and mentored by George in the 1970's to the early 2000's. Those who actually took to the field that day did so under the name of “Reverend Brown's Holy Rollers,” and had started in Lacrosse with George as their coach and mentor and were now mid-life family men themselves; many crowded around after the game to share memories and catch up with George, and a surprising number thanked him for his interest in their lives at a time that had prevented them from making “wrong turns.” This was a very rich day for George.
But not the richest of days; after years of struggling to clear the way for Tony (in the post-9/11 era of heightened international suspicion) to be allowed by U.S. Immigration to reside in the U.S., their request was granted just as the legal bond of marriage became possible--and George and Tony were married on September 3, 2015. THIS was George's richest day, granting his most fervent and urgent wish, to truly belong to the one he loved.
After a lengthy battle with prostate cancer through which Tony comforted and sustained him, George passed away on June 23, 2016. According to his wishes, no services were held, and his ashes scattered as privately directed. It was his wish that his atoms and molecules simply return to the universe from whence they came.
© C. Kinney, June 2016
George's father died young, and his mother Gladys stepped into his shoes to run his optometry business to support the family. Their grandfather, Frank Martindale Kinney, Sr.--“Pops”--stepped up to fill the role of father-figure. “Pops” was proud of their heritage as Mayflower Descendants, and of the civic and military contributions made by intervening generations of his family; he instilled this pride in his children, and welcomed the opportunity to do the same for his grandchildren: duty to family; duty to country and community; duty to God; and love of the outdoors. He remained George's foremost hero to the end of his life.
George was possessed of a hungry scientific genius that began to show itself at an early age. With a child's chemistry set, by the age of 12 he was making his own gunpowder and bombs, one of which had a short fuse and blew up his grandmother's '36 Ford, leaving George with a rear end full of shrapnel. “This was NOT funny at the time,” his sister emphasized.
After graduating from West Orange High School in New Jersey in 1951, George moved on to nearby Rutgers University, where he would graduate in 1955 with degrees in Geology/Paleontology AND Engineering. It was at Rutgers that George toughened his swimming ability by engaging in Ocean Swimming, and where he first fell in love with the sport of Lacrosse, which would remain a lifelong passion.
After graduation, George completed his military obligation at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal in Colorado, where he distinguished himself not by winning military honors and promotions, but medals for Uniform Ironing Competitions; you did not want to go up against George with a steam iron. Assigned to embossing military-I.D. "dog tags," it was a no-brainer that George would immediately crank out a complete set for himself with each of the religious symbols on them, guaranteeing himself additional days of leave for religious holidays of all faiths.
George came to love Colorado, and settled there after his term of service was completed. His geology and engineering education quickly gained him a position with the Colorado Water Department as a Water Resource Engineer in 1957, and in 1961 he moved on to the Colorado Water Conservation Board, where it became clear to George that he could better further its cause as part of its legal team. The fact that he was not an attorney barely slowed him down. He enrolled in the University of Denver's School of Law, graduating and becoming admitted to the Colorado State Bar in 1966. As a result, very early in his legal career, he found himself practicing before the US Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., in a complex case regarding water rights between Colorado, Texas & New Mexico, under the Rio Grande Compact of 1938.
At the same time, he was also an active player with the Colorado Lacrosse Club. In 1963, George started the Adams City Lacrosse team, and was later credited with "spearheading the inception of Lacrosse in high schools in Colorado under his competent leadership," according to the Mile High Lacrosse Association's publication. By 1965, he was a member of the first Executive Board of the Colorado Lacrosse Association.
Nor was George content to merely promote water appreciation from behind a desk. In about 1970, inspired by the grandeur of nature in Colorado's canyons and rivers, George bought a used military landing craft, and doggedly and solitarily beat himself up learning the skills of river rafting, a course of self-education he felt he would never have survived without his Ocean Swimming training. When he had mastered it, he invested in smaller crafts, recruited and trained several guides, and founded Adventure Bound River Expeditions, which still operates today, offering canyon tours on Colorado's rivers.
George next decided to use his practice of law to espouse the cause of abused and defenseless children as a child-advocacy attorney in the family court system, where he helped countless families and individual children to find “safe haven” in their times of trouble.
Some of the ugliness he witnessed in that practice led George to a crisis of faith, prompting him to delve deeply into religion. While still serving the legal needs of children and never abandoning his stewardship of Lacrosse, he also began to attend Denver's Iliff School of Theology, where he obtained a Master's Degree in Divinity in 1977 and was ordained as a Methodist minister, and began leading a number of congregations over the years, the longest at Heritage United Methodist Church in Denver.
In 1978, George founded and coached the Columbine High School Lacrosse Club, as he himself moved into the Grand Masters League (for players 45 and older) for his own participation.
In 1994, George became an inaugural member of the Colorado Lacrosse Foundation's Hall of Fame. He had become well-known and greatly loved in the greater-Denver area both for his leadership and promotion of LaCrosse and for his “less God, more good” approach to religion with a liberal sprinkling of the bluegrass music he loved and played himself--which ruffled the feathers of some in his church hierarchy even though it brought about the desired result of growing his congregation. George never lost much sleep over ruffled feathers, and in 1999 he and his banjo retired from the ministry and returned to his legal practice of advocating children.
He was still coaching Lacrosse that year at Columbine High at the time of its infamous massacre. With his ministerial background, he was untiring in offering comfort and counseling to a number of students as well as several of the parents who had lost children in that senseless bloodbath.
When 9/11 stunned the world in 2001, the tragedy became personal to George when he lost nine Lacrosse Grand Master friends in the terrorist attack that day--in a Lacrosse Association office on the 102nd floor of one of the Twin Towers. George played his own final Lacrosse "Grand Masters" game that year at the age of 68, making him the oldest active Grand Master up to that time.
In 2008, George was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Rather than turn his attention inward, the scientist within him prompted George to join clinical studies in an effort to help himself and others; he attended and contributed to seminars about the disease and its treatment. 'Readers' Digest' published an interview with him about his treatment experience. He began to voraciously read and research cellular evolution until he was conversant in cellular dynamics on a sophisticated level.
Even with such a full and fast-paced life, packed with adventure, challenge and the gratification of successfully helping others and furthering causes, George privately very much felt the lack of the one thing that could make his life whole and complete. On a golden day for George in autumn of 2009, at the age of 76, he stumbled upon his soulmate and the supportive helpmeet of his increasingly difficult late years--a kind and loving blond Brit with an adventurous past of his own, whose unfailing kindness was a balm for the increasing infirmities of George's old age; who could go head-to-head with George in intellectual discussions; jointly adopted their beloved rescue beagle “children” Bernie and Ettie; and with a shared love of gardening joined in tending George's great horticultural pride, his garden of platter-sized dahlias: Anthony--Tony--Armstrong was the only antidote that George ever found to calm the restlessness of his mind and emotions--with abiding love and a strong dose of garden-variety common sense. The two became the most devoted of partners.
George retired from the law in 2013, at the age of 80. But he could not sit idle, and as a lifelong animal lover, he was moved to advance yet one more “cause.” Along with attorney colleague Juliet Piccone, he drafted an Initiative to prevent euthanasia in animal shelters in Colorado except on the express medical order of a licensed veterinarian due only to pain or illness; and at 81, he defended the measure before the Colorado Supreme Court. Many supporters helped to promote the Initiative and collected signatures to ensure that it made it onto the ballot in the fall of 2014, and it was a great moral victory to George that it was approved by the voters.
Also that autumn, George was honored for his contribution to the sport of Lacrosse with an honorary game--the George Brown Cup--bringing together players of a wide range of ages, who had been coached and mentored by George in the 1970's to the early 2000's. Those who actually took to the field that day did so under the name of “Reverend Brown's Holy Rollers,” and had started in Lacrosse with George as their coach and mentor and were now mid-life family men themselves; many crowded around after the game to share memories and catch up with George, and a surprising number thanked him for his interest in their lives at a time that had prevented them from making “wrong turns.” This was a very rich day for George.
But not the richest of days; after years of struggling to clear the way for Tony (in the post-9/11 era of heightened international suspicion) to be allowed by U.S. Immigration to reside in the U.S., their request was granted just as the legal bond of marriage became possible--and George and Tony were married on September 3, 2015. THIS was George's richest day, granting his most fervent and urgent wish, to truly belong to the one he loved.
After a lengthy battle with prostate cancer through which Tony comforted and sustained him, George passed away on June 23, 2016. According to his wishes, no services were held, and his ashes scattered as privately directed. It was his wish that his atoms and molecules simply return to the universe from whence they came.
© C. Kinney, June 2016
Gravesite Details
Tony lovingly scattered George's ashes (and those of six dogs he loved) between Echo Lake and Evansville, Colorado, in a copse of aspen trees among evergreens just beyond a field of tall grass, where people do bring their dogs for a long walk.
