J. Vinton Lawrence ’60

Class act.

Art history major. Varsity lacrosse. Dined at the Vine. Ravishing Triangle chorine whose hairy gams left debutantes agog in Philly and Chicago.

After graduation, Vint became the CIA’s key field agent in the massive covert war in Laos. A rising foreign-policy star, he had no taste for backbiting and sucking up, so he quit and became an artist. His elegant caricatures, barbed but never brutal, appeared on scores of magazine covers; later he turned to watercolors, a medium that — Vint being Vint — he mastered.

Flashbacks: Son of James ’29, brother of Star ’65. Two cherished daughters. Labradors ever underfoot. Summers horseback riding in Montana. Highbrow but never high-hat. Civic-minded, locally and globally. Fastidiously organized. Indifferent dresser (putting it generously). Clan motto on his wall: “Overbearing in Victory, Surly in Defeat.” Married for 30 years to Anne Garrels, acclaimed foreign correspondent of whom he was enormously proud.

More so than most, Vint authored just the life he was meant to lead, much of it outdoors, his boundless creativity given full rein. He died April 9, 2016 (cancer), and is mourned and missed by his adoring family and a legion of friends who prized the pleasure of his company, his affectionate needling, and his open heart.