Lori Christine Hawkins

1966 - 2024

Lori Christine Hawkins, beloved wife and mother, cherished daughter, dedicated journalist and loyal friend, passed away unexpectedly but peacefully at her home in Austin on March 28, 2024. She was 57 and leaves behind a legacy of warmth, laughter and generosity of spirit that indelibly touched the lives of all who had the privilege to know her.

Born May 30, 1966, at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, to John Dewey Hawkins and Donna Lou (Christine) Hawkins, Lori's childhood was shaped by her father's military service. As the daughter of an Air Force officer, Lori moved around the country when she was young, first from Dayton to Palo Alto, California, and then to O'Fallon, Illinois, where her brother, Michael, rounded it out to a family of four. The family then moved to Bellevue, Nebraska, where Lori attended elementary school and retained many fond memories. The family settled for good in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where Lori made many friends for life and graduated from El Dorado High School in 1984. The traveling bug bit Lori early and thanks to her parents she was able to travel around Europe during a high school summer vacation, making memories that lasted her lifetime.

Lori was always driven, and during high school she worked at Dunkin' Donuts, Little Anita's, and Miller's Outpost. She studied journalism at the University of Arizona in Tucson, where she worked on the staff of the Daily Wildcat, made more friends for life, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1989. During one college summer, Lori had an internship with the Daily Sitka Sentinel in Alaska, a formative experience for her.

Lori had a fondness for Latin American culture and took a break from the University of Arizona to study Spanish at Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara in Mexico. During another college break, Lori traveled with a group of students to Nicaragua, where they helped pick coffee for the Sandinistas – an unexpected bit of knowledge that she always enjoyed dropping on people later in life.

After graduating from college, Lori worked for Reuters, first in Mexico City, then in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and Monterey, Mexico. Lori returned to the United States in 1991 to take a job as a news reporter for the San Antonio Light. Thanks to her always positive energy, upbeat personality, thoughtfulness, sense of humor, infectious laugh, and ever-willingness to listen, Lori quickly gained a circle of reporter friends in San Antonio, who often gathered after work at Joey's bar on St. Mary's to hash over the events of the day.

In November 1992, thanks to a serendipitous sequence of decisions and events, Lori met her later-to-be husband, Paul Sunby, in the Phoenix airport while Paul was living in Tucson. They struck up a conversation and learned they had many things in common, with perhaps the oddest of all being that Lori had been college roommates with the daughter of the man that founded the Arizona-based company where Paul was, and still is, employed. As fate would have it, Paul was asked in December 1992 if he would be willing to transfer to the new office in Austin, Texas, which Paul did readily in February 1993 with thoughts of getting closer to Lori in mind.

At the same time, the San Antonio Light closed, forcing Lori to consider other newspaper opportunities, including many far from San Antonio. Instead, she took a job as a producer with radio station KTSA in San Antonio to stay close to Austin. She quickly realized that being a radio producer was not for her and took a job with the Houston Business Journal. For the next several months, she and Paul drove to see each other on weekends.

A year after they met, Lori and Paul found themselves living in the same city when the Austin American-Statesman hired Lori as a business reporter in November 1993. She worked at the Statesman until the day of her passing, except for a brief stint at BusinessWeek magazine in the early 2000s that quickly drove home the fact that Lori was a daily newspaper reporter to her core.

During the 1990s, Lori covered the booming technology scene for the Statesman and continued to cover high-tech companies for much of her career. She had recently been assigned to cover the retail beat, which beautifully meshed her love of journalism and shopping.

Lori absolutely loved her time at the Statesman. She loved the controlled chaos of a newsroom, and the interaction between so many intelligent, passionate, talented, inquisitive and sometimes (maybe often) quirky individuals. The Statesman was a big family composed of many people who positively influenced Lori's life and career and gave her many dear friends for which she was very grateful.

Lori and Paul were married on November 12, 1994, at the Driskill Hotel in downtown Austin after a fun and festive rehearsal lunch the day before at the Salt Lick in Driftwood. They bought a house in Travis Heights in 1997 whereby pure happenstance they moved next door to the best neighbors imaginable.

Lori and Paul's own family began with the birth of their daughter, Sora, in April 2000. Sora was followed by Will in April 2002. Sora and Will started their education at Montessori House of Children, which through talking to other parents at drop-off and pick-up allowed Lori to increase her ever-expanding circle of friends. Sora and Will moved on to Barton Hills Elementary School, where Lori exponentially gained friendships with so many similarly fun-loving and outgoing "Barton Hills Moms." Sora and Will's paths diverged after elementary school, which served to double up the number of friends Lori made from the parents of middle schoolers and high schoolers.

Lori was extremely proud of her two children and their accomplishments, and was excited, but sorry, to see a fully-fledged Sora move to Chicago in September of 2022 after graduating from the University of Texas at Austin. Will is currently finishing his college education at Stephen F. Austin State University.

Lori's vibrant personality endeared her to a vast network of friends and loved ones, and she valued those relationships and maintained them thanks in no small part to her patron saint, Alexander Graham Bell. Lori loved to travel, particularly to Albuquerque, Paul's home state of Wisconsin, and Latin America. She had fond memories from many unforgettable family trips to the Caribbean and her own trips to reunite with her friends from high school and college. She loved working in her gardens, going on walks through the neighborhood, and watching reality TV. She always ordered the spiciest foods in restaurants and took wonderful care of the family pets.

Lori is predeceased by maternal grandparents James and Mildred Christine, paternal grandparents Dewey and Viola Hawkins, her aunts Effie Margarete Hawkins and Dennie Lee (Christine) Allen, and her uncle Welden Allen, all of Bethel, Missouri, and Paul's Auntie Mil (Mildred Duffy) of North Springfield, Virginia, who had a special place in Lori's heart.

She is survived by her husband Paul Sunby, her children Sora and Will Sunby, her parents John and Donna Hawkins of Albuquerque, New Mexico, her brother Michael Hawkins and his fiancé Cheryl King of Albuquerque, her nephew Matthäus Hawkins of Los Angeles, California, her nephew Carsten Hawkins and his wife Ryen Hawkins of Houston, Texas, her nephew Jürgen Hawkins of Los Angeles, and her sister-in-law, Jean Sunby, and mother-in-law, Mary Sunby, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Lori is also survived by her uncle and aunt Noble Lee and Emmelyne Hawkins of Bethel, Missouri, and aunt and uncle Mary Jo (Hawkins) and Dean Perrigo of Cincinnati, Ohio. She is further survived by beloved extended family and countless friends in Texas, New Mexico, Wisconsin, and beyond.

Lori's passing leaves a void in the hearts of the people who knew her, but her memory will endure through the lives she touched and the stories she shared. A celebration of Lori's life will be held in Austin at Guero's Taco Bar Live Oak Garden on Sunday, April 14th, starting at 2:00 p.m. The family wishes for any donations in the name of Lori Christine Hawkins to be made to Austin Pets Alive! To make a donation to Austin Pets Alive!, please visit the Give In Tribute page. When filling out the donation form, please be sure to select to dedicate your donation at the top of the form so the family may be notified of your donation. The family appreciates the overwhelming outpouring of love and support from Lori's friends and her Statesman family.