Dewey Austin Goff Jr.

Dewey Austin Goff, Jr., 78, of Pearland, Texas, passed away on Wednesday, January 22, 2025, in Pasadena. He was born on May 3, 1946, in Louisville, Kentucky, and was named after his father who in turn was named for an ancestor, a Baptist preacher who stepped off a streetcar to let a lady enter and he was killed by passing traffic. Throughout his life, Dewey exhibited unselfishness and the giving, caring nature of his namesake.

As a child, he excelled in Pop Warner football and cheered on every Hopalong Cassidy show, walking to the State Theatre in downtown Elizabethtown, Kentucky to pay 25 cents to see Saturday morning movies. Despite his mother Izzy’s worries, he continued to play football throughout school, trying track and basketball, but his heart was in football, where he received many awards, and a chipped tooth kept the rest of his life. An academic scholar, he participated in marching band, playing guitar and trumpet. He joined a high school band where they knew all the words to “Louie, Louie” and played the Dave Clark Five and Ventures songs with others. His parents wisely advised him to ask a local professional musician about the music career responsibilities, and while he was in college, he joined the United States Air Force, at his friend Kenny Moore’s advice to volunteer so he would not be shot at daily in Vietnam. Both made it out of the Air Force alive, with Dewey winning awards as an E-5 Tech SSGT Laboratory Specialist who helped uncover a new strain of herpes emerging from Vietnam veterans.

He separated from the Air Force, in Texas, being accepted into the University of Houston School of Optometry where he found the courses easy but the clinics uninteresting. One of his many patients was a U of H student named Marilyn Johnson who found him very interesting until she saw his wedding ring.

Well, a year or so passed, and two people got divorced and ended up at the University of North Texas School of Library Science to obtain their Master of Library Science degrees. Walking down the hallway, Marilyn awkwardly exclaimed “I like your Snoopy tie tack. Don’t I know you from somewhere?” Yes, it was Dewey, her eye examiner from the U of H.

They became fast friends, and with buddy Sam Thomas, studied together through about two years of master’s courses while Marilyn and Dewey fell in love. With family and friends spread across the United States, they pooled their resources and spent two weeks for a marriage and honeymoon in Hawaii on the island of Maui. They saw Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward pass them at a stop sign there and had just enough money left to get the car out of the parking lot.

With a job offer from the USAF, Dewey became the Library Manager of the Kelly AFB Engineering library which had all the specifications and standards of all the (openly classified) aircraft the USAF had ever flown. Moving up, he accepted a position at Brooks AFB (also in San Antonio) where he worked in a vault with classified materials for the Strughold Aeromedical with the School of Aerospace Medicine and other entities at Brooks AFB and beyond, winning award after award for his excellence and achievements. With Marilyn working there, they rode to work and home together, ate lunch together as members of the Base Club, and went on perhaps five trips a year to Wright-Patterson, Defense Technical Information Center, and other entities across the country. Forced into early retirement, Dewey moved our household to Pearland, Texas while Marilyn found a new Medical Librarian job in Houston. Dewey continued his charitable work with MUFON, Habitat for Humanity, Scotty Rescue of Southeast Texas, Westie/Scotty Rescue of Houston, Clean the Beach,the Democratic Party, PRIDE, Keep San Antonio Clean, Keep Pearland beautiful, Pacifica Radio Houston, and then many monetary donations to the Sierra Club, World Wildlife, and too many more to count.

He was courteous, gentlemanly, practical, loving, and is terribly missed by his wife of 45 years, Marilyn Goff, his sister-in-law Linda Medellin and her son Emil, his sweet cousins Vickie Kay and Bruce Ross, his Mattingly cousins in Kentucky, cousins in Tennessee, Sealy, Nacogdoches, Houston area, and friends and relatives from coast to coast. His cremated remains will be inurned at Houston National Cemetery on a later date.

A memorial service to honor Dewey's life will be held on February 23, 2025, at 2:00 pm. Following the service, there will be a reception from 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm, providing an opportunity for family and friends to gather and remember the cherished moments shared with Dewey.

He will be remembered fondly by all who knew him.