John William Thompson Jr. ’36

JOHN, RETIRED associate editor, V.P., and director of THE WASHINGTON STAR newspaper, died of pneumonia Mar. 28, 1993, at his winter home in Delray Beach, Fla. He was born in Washington and summered in Bethesda.

After graduating from Lawrenceville School, he came to Princeton, where he majored in history and was a member of Campus Club.

During WWII, he served three years in the European Theater as a field artillery captain, for which he received the Bronze Star and five battle stars.

John lived a busy and productive life. He had been president of the Metropolitan Washington Board of Trade; a director of Riggs National Bank, the Acacia Mutual Life Insurance Co., the National Permanent Savings and Loan Assn.; chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Greenshere, N.C.; and president of three TV stations.

He had served as a trustee of George Washington Univ., Sidwell Friends School, and the Washington Hospital Center. He was a past president of the D. C. Society for Crippled Children. He was a past president of the Chevy Chase Club and a member of the Princeton Club of Washington, the Alfalfa Club, the Broadcasters Club, the Correspondents Assn., and the U.S. and Potomac Power Squadrons.

John's first wife, Muriel Webb Thompson, died in 1983. He is survived by his wife, Donna Gilmore Thompson; son Anthony J. '63; daughters Joan Secrest and Elizabeth Young; and seven grandchildren.

We will indeed remember this loyal classmate and Princetonian who gave so much of himself to his family and community.

The Class of 1936