Charles Markell III ’63

Chip died March 13, 2026, at his home in Sparks, Md., with his wife, Bonnie, at his side.

He was one of eight to come from Gilman School, where he was on the lacrosse and debating teams. At Princeton, where his father was a member of the Class of 1931, he majored in history, took his meals at Colonial Club, and was on the lacrosse team junior and senior years.

Chip earned a law degree from the University of Maryland in 1967 and then joined the Peace Corps. He was sent to Yap, a remote island group in Micronesia in the western Pacific, where he helped write the islands’ constitution. At age 27, he returned to the U.S. and lived in San Francisco for the next seven years. He worked as a private investigator in the naval maritime industry and later for Wells Fargo in Sausalito and resumed playing lacrosse. “Chip’s lifelong love of lacrosse brought him an enduring circle of friends who remained central to his life,” Bonnie said. “The sport reflected his character — competitive, loyal, and spirited — and he was later inducted into the California Lacrosse Hall of Fame.”

Returning east, Chip went to work for the Department of the Interior and settled in Bethesda, Md. He spent most of his professional career in Washington, D.C., working in both government and the private sector for 28 years.

Chip always kept his ties to Baltimore, and a friend there introduced him to Bonnie, who would become the love of his life. They married in 2000, lived first in Annapolis, and then settled in Baltimore.

In addition to Bonnie, his wife of 26 years, Chip is survived by stepchildren Elizabeth Gredlein, Caroline Ruhl, and David Mark Jones II; and eight grandchildren.