Harry Lucas, Jr.

Born on February 25, 1932, in Orange, Texas, to Mildred Bland Lucas and Harry Lucas, Sr., Harry and his younger brother by two years, Philip Bland Lucas (Sr.), grew up and attended schools in the shadows of oil boom town Beaumont, Texas.

Harry attended classes at the University of Texas (in Austin) in the fifties and graduated from Lamar College (University) in Beaumont with a degree in mathematics. After teaching math for a while at Lamar, he founded Lucas Petroleum Group based in Beaumont and Houston.

But, as a young student at UT, it was a class in topology (maps) under Professor R. L. Moore (1882-1974) that had a lasting and transformational effect on Harry's overall approach to life. Moore’s use of the Socratic method in the classroom focused on the individual student’s ability to be inquisitive and self-searching in solving challenging math problems on their own. It was later in life that Harry came to fully appreciate the transformational potential of those experiences. In the nineties, looking for “a project in my retirement,” Harry moved to Austin and, using his Educational Advancement Foundation, launched a nationwide effort to promote the educational benefits of what came to be known as Inquiry Based Learning.

In the sixties, Mr. Lucas began annual summer travels to London, England, to escape the Texas heat. From this vantage point, he learned about geopolitics from a worldview and became interested in investment opportunities in the North Sea. He also began to learn about the early days of The Oxford Group and its founder Frank Buchman (1878-1961). It was Buchman’s belief that world peace could come through individual transformation, one person at a time, by practicing the four principles of honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love. These principles were a source of inspiration to Bill Wilson (1895-1971) in the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous and The 12 Steps. Harry worked endlessly to practice these principles, as well as those from that long-since math class, in all his affairs for the rest of his life, one day at a time.

Mr. Lucas planned for the continuation of Lucas Petroleum Group and the Educational Advancement Foundation.

He is predeceased by his parents, his brother, and his nephew Philip Bland Lucas, Jr.

Harry Lucas, Jr., passed away peacefully on April 18, 2022, in the good and loving care of family,

friends, colleagues, Westminster Manor Health Care Center and Hospice Austin.

He is survived by: two nieces, Caroline Lucas Cotter (Jace Waylon Kline) and Karen “Candy” Lucas Williams (Kyle David Williams); nephew, William Terrell Lucas; Carol Lucas (widow of Philip Bland Lucas, Jr., deceased); grand nieces Elissa Fielding Cotter; Emily Lawless Bennett, Sarah Louise Lawless Westphal; Laura Lucas Kutcher (Bryan, husband, children Lucas and Oliver), and, two grand nephews Lucas Alan Cotter, and Philip Bland Lucas, III, (Maria).