George Sentell Dickson

FORT WORTH – George Dickson, a retired high school teacher, magazine circulation manager, bookstore owner, occasional pilot and avid golfer, died Thursday, Nov. 19, 2015 after a long illness. He was 81 years old.

George Sentell Dickson III was born Aug. 11, 1934 in Shreveport, La. His father was killed in a crop duster airplane crash in 1936, when Mr. Dickson was only 2 years old, and he was subsequently raised by his mother, Ruth, and an extended family in northern Louisiana. As a child, he often roamed the neighborhoods in search of a pickup baseball game. He also played a bit of football, and was a competitive golfer, achieving his first hole-in-one at Querbes Park at age 17.

After high school graduation, Mr. Dickson moved to Texas, and earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration/marketing from what is now the University of North Texas in Denton. He also served two years of active duty in the U.S. Navy, traveling the world (and seeing the sea) aboard a high-speed transport, the U.S.S. Cook.

He worked for about two decades at Curtis Circulation Co., a nationwide magazine distribution firm. If you lived in West Texas, New Mexico and southern Colorado in the late 1960s, 70s and early 80s, his job was to make sure your local store had the appropriate number of copies of Motor Trend, Cosmopolitan, Marvel Comics and dozens of other publications.

He moved to Midland, where he met Lynette Vaught. They married in 1965 and had two sons, Gordon and David. In 1970, the family moved to El Paso and put down roots.

The family opened a small bookstore, the Book Mine, which operated for several years in the mid-1970s at its original location on North Mesa Street near the University of Texas at El Paso. Later, the store moved to an East Side location at Montwood Square, which was then a small but booming indoor shopping mall at Montwood Drive and Yarbrough Drive.

Mr. Dickson retired from Curtis in the mid-1980s and went back to school, earning a bachelor’s degree in education from UTEP. He then launched a second career as a teacher, working at many places, including the El Paso Job Corps, the Clint school district and even Odessa High School, a job for which he made a grueling 300-mile weekly commute for several years. He spent the last decade of his career at El Paso’s Austin High School, where he taught business classes until retirement in the summer of 2013.

As a young adult, Mr. Dickson dreaded flying, but in his senior years he became interested in aviation and obtained a pilot’s license. He often spent weekends flying for fun at Santa Teresa Airport, a hobby he continued well into his 70s.

Mr. Dickson was preceded in death by his wife, Lynette, in 2008. Survivors include: son Gordon, daughter-in-law Grace and grandchildren Sentell, 20, and Marshall, 14, all of Fort Worth; and son David and daughter-in-law, Beth, of Denver. In lieu of flowers or gifts, Mr. Dickson’s family is happy to recommend making a donation in his memory to a local animal shelter.