John Huggins

Huggins
John Michael Huggins, of Houston, Texas, died on October 5, 2011, after a long illness. John was born on December 19, 1939, in Quanah, Texas, and grew up in the Texas Panhandle town of Plainview. He played football and golf and ran track in high school and learned how to ski, which he did expertly, in nearby Santa Fe, New Mexico. At The University of Texas at Austin he majored in business administration between long afternoons water skiing on Lake Travis. He then attended The University of Texas School of Law, where he was on the Texas Law Review and graduated with honors in 1965. After law school John joined the Houston law firm of Baker Botts, where he practiced corporate and securities law. He represented many issuers and underwriters, handled a number of mergers and acquisitions, and was one of the first American lawyers to represent clients in negotiations with the Chinese government following normalization of relations in the late 1970's. At various times during his 40 years with Baker Botts, John served as the chairman of the corporate department, a member of the executive committee, and the partner-in-charge of the New York office. Following his retirement in 2003, he helped open the Dubai and Hong Kong offices of the firm.
John loved the outdoors and was an accomplished athlete. He played tennis and ran whenever time allowed. He often took his daughters and their friends to the Rocky Mountains to ski and hike during the summer and on school vacations. In later years he concentrated on golf, fly fishing, and shooting sporting clays. An excellent shot, he earned All-American honors in 1991 from the USSCA. An unexpected characteristic of this serious sportsman was his willingness to offer gentle informed assistance to accompanying friends if they happened to be less experienced than he.
John almost never turned down an opportunity to shoot with friends, traveling often to South Texas, South America, England, and Scotland. He had an adventurous spirit and an inquisitive mind. A gifted amateur photographer, he was keenly interested in other cultures and took many beautiful photographs of the people he met and the places he visited in Africa, Nepal, and Tibet. John enjoyed riding motorcycles and cheerfully ignored his family's objections to zoom off in search of country roads with lots of curves. He was a lifelong New York Yankees fan, having grown up listening to their games as a boy in Plainview. He was also a proud Texas Longhorn who delighted in wearing his burnt orange attire in rural Connecticut, where he spent summers after retiring.
John was a former board member of the Houston Ballet and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. He was a current or former member of the Houston Country Club, The Coronado Club, The Argyle, The Tejas Breakfast Club, The Sharon Country Club, Tamarack Preserve, The Links, and The Old Baldy Club.
John is survived by his wife of 29 years, Kathleen. He is also survived by his two daughters and their families; Joyce Marilyn Goettee, her husband James Lee Goettee, and their children James and John; and Jennifer Huggins Modesett and her children Jack, Michael and Ford. His former wife and the mother of his children, Joyce Manford Huggins, also survives him. He was the only child of his parents, Fay and John Paul Huggins, who died in 1972.
His many good friends and family will miss his unfailingly sound advice, his calm demeanor, and especially his sense of humor, which stayed with him to the end.
There will be a private family memorial service for John at the Chapel of St. John the Divine. The family will receive friends for a celebration of his life on Wednesday, October 12, from half past five o'clock until half past eight o'clock in the evening at the Bradshaw-Carter Home. Online tributes may be posted at www.bradshawcarter.com.
The family requests that no flowers be sent. Instead, friends who wish to send a donation in John's memory may direct it to the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, The Houston Hospice, the Houston Area Parkinson's Society, or to the charity of their choice.