Pembroke Graves Rees

Dr. Pembroke Graves Rees, 90, of Athens died Wednesday, Nov. 24, 2010, at Huntsville Hospital. A celebration of his life will be at 11 a.m. Saturday at Saint Timothy’s Episcopal Church. The officiating priest will be Mother Mary Hassell.

Visitation with family will immediately follow the service at the church.

Dr. Rees was born July 21, 1920, in Philadelphia, Pa., to Arthur Pembroke and Mary Graves Rees. He is survived by his wife of 54 years, Penley Rees.

Dr. Rees graduated from the University of North Carolina with a degree in physics. He loved flying airplanes and immediately volunteered in the U.S. Navy. He served in the Naval Air Force during and after World War II and recently attended the honor flight for World War II veterans to see their memorial in Washington, D.C.

After the war, he worked as an aeronautical engineer and received a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology. Later, while living in Atlanta, he received a Ph.D. in decision sciences from Georgia State University.

He taught administrative sciences at the University of Alabama in Huntsville for several years.

A lifetime member of the Episcopal Church, Dr. Rees was devoted to his family and to his many friends. He worked enthusiastically at the Athens Veterans Museum. He enjoyed camping, worldwide traveling, working at his church and helping his friends and neighbors.

He was preceded in death by his parents, and his devoted uncle, Louis Graves of Chapel Hill, N.C.

He is survived by one daughter, Beth Whatley and husband Jerry of Mimbres, N.M.; sons, William Hooper Rees of Palo Alto, Calif., and Thomas Rees of Amherst, Mass.

Interment of his ashes will be in the spring in the family burial plot in Chapel Hill, N.C.