L ong-time Hyde Park resident W. Eugene George of 4314 Avenue G received the D.B. Alexander Lifetime Achievement Award presented by the Heritage Society of Austin at their recent 44th Annual Awards Celebration. The featured speaker for the event was Joseph P. Riley, the mayor of Charleston, South Carolina. Mayor Riley, a leading expert on preservation, urban design and livability issues, is serving his eighth term.

W.Eugene George     The program included a summation of the honoree's long and illustrious career, compiled by noted preservationist and fellow Hyde Park resident Peter Flaff Maxson. Among the highlights:     "Architect, educator and author Eugene George, FAIA, has for over fifty years done much to foster an appreciation of historic architecture in Austin, Texas, Virginia, Mexico and beyond. As a scholar, he researched little-documented but fascinating Texas - Mexican border architectural history. His many students gained a great appreciation of the historic built environment through his teachings. Through writing in both popular periodicals and scholarly journals, he has reached a national audience.     Gene served as chairman of architecture and architectural engineering at the University of Kansas and later

as Dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Houston. A long-time professor of architecture and architectural engineering at U.T. Austin, he most recently inaugurated a graduate program in historic preservation at U.T. San Antonio."     Following several years as Resident Architect for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, he returned to Texas and reestablished his private practice. From his Austin office, the National Park Service engaged his services to reconstruct the French Battery and Redoubt, Yorktown Battlefield, to the date of the siege, October 1781. He worked closely with a team of archeologists from the College of William and Mary.     Documentation for the Historic American Buildings Survey with teams of students has also been especially rewarding. Texas projects included the Alamo in San Antonio, and buildings in Roma on the Rio Grande. A summer spent on Nantucket Island in Massachusetts, measuring early 19th century structures was also a high point. Continued on page 11