Harris "Bud" George

On August 9, 2023, Harris ("Bud") George passed away peacefully, surrounded by his family. Born to Tassa and James Theodore George in 1930, Bud grew up among a thriving Greek community and extended family in Towson. He graduated from Towson High School and matriculated to Duke University where he was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, the National Honorary Society. After graduating from University of Maryland Law School, he was admitted to the Bar of the State of Maryland at the age of 22. Joining the U.S. Navy through Officer Candidate School during the Korean War, Bud served as Legal Officer aboard the USS Midway and was part of the original crew of the first supercarrier, the USS Forrestal. After his honorable discharge from the U.S. Navy, he was selected to be a law clerk to the Honorable Hall Hammond, Judge of the Court of Appeals of Maryland, Maryland's highest court and later was Deputy County Solicitor before leaving for full-time private practice. In 1965, he established the Towson Business Association, Inc., which has now been renamed the Towson Chamber of Commerce.

He was a lawyers' lawyer, well known for being a repository of case law, tactics, theory and statutory law and was a long-standing member of the Dissenters Law Club. His general law practice was focused primarily on business and family law, but included many multi-faceted areas of general practice - from foreclosing a chattel mortgage on a herd of cattle to reversing the mail-fraud conviction in federal Court of the Defendant in Maryland's first savings and loan scandal.

Authoring a memoir entitled "By George", Bud recalled mostly humorous experiences of growing up in Baltimore's Greek community, during his Naval service, and in his law practice of that spanned 65 years.

Bud was a true gentleman, great friend, and brilliant raconteur. He was well known for his storytelling, as well as for his love of nickel poker, bridge, billiards, fishing, and golf. He is remembered by those who were lucky to know him as incredibly warm and engaging - a mentor to younger lawyers, a teacher on subjects far and wide, and advisor and father figure to many outside his immediate family.

He was fortunate to have enjoyed a full life right up until his passing and is survived by his wife Joan of 54 years, his two children, and his grandson.