The Foreign Service Journal, January 2008

studying at Union Theological Sem- inary in New York. Mr. Burgess took an unusual path into the Foreign Service. After being ordained as a Congregationalist min- ister in 1944, he worked for more than a decade with landless farmers and migrant agricultural laborers in the South and as a labor organizer and Georgia leader of the Congress of Industrial Organizations. In 1954, the CIO offered to nominate him as a labor attaché abroad, and he served in that position in India from 1955 to 1960. The family, with four (later five) children, lived in New Delhi, while he traveled widely in the coun- try, establishing links with the Indian labor movement. In 1961, Mr. Burgess became head of the Indonesia-Burma division of USAID in Washington. From 1963 to 1964, he served in Jakarta, heading the first Peace Corps program in Indonesia, which, due to the tense political situation, consisted almost entirely of athletic coaches. He later served as a Peace Corps recruiter in the United States. In that position he sought to sign up people with indus- trial skills, particularly from the auto- motive industry. In 1965 and 1966, he was a member of the State Depart- ment’s Board of Examiners. He resigned from the State De- partment in 1966 to move to Bang- kok as director of the United Nations Children’s Fund programs in Thail- and, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong. He moved back to the United States in 1972 and served as a senior officer at UNICEF headquarters in New York, focusing on fundraising. In 1979, he returned to full-time ministry, becoming pastor of two inner-city churches in Newark, N.J. In 1990, the Burgesses moved to Benicia, Calif. There he became an activist on housing issues, founding the Affordable Housing Affiliation and serving as its first president. The moderately priced Burgess Point apartments and townhouses in Benicia are named in his honor. His autobiography, Fighting for Social Justice , was published by Wayne State University Press in 2000. In 2005, he endured a personal trag- edy, the death of his eldest son Lyman from ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease). Mr. Burgess is survived by Alice, his wife of 66 years, of Benicia, Calif.; children Laurel, John, Genie and Steve; grandchildren Sam and Anna Koritz, Rachel Steele, Katharine and Sarah Burgess, and Erica and Wesley Castro; and great-grandchildren Nor- man Paquette and Beatrice Koritz. The family asks that in lieu of sending flowers, donations be made to the Affordable Housing Affilia- tion, 110 East D Street, Suite C, Benicia CA 94510. Robert T. Lucas , 83, a retired Foreign Service officer, passed away on Oct. 15 after a brief illness. Born in Ottawa, Ill., in 1923, Mr. Lucas enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1942 and served for three years in the Pacific theater. In 1947, Mr. Lucas joined the Foreign Service. During his career he served at 13 posts, including the opening of the liaison office in Beijing in 1973. Other postings in- cluded Calcutta, Buenos Aires, Vien- na, New Delhi, Caracas, Copenha- gen, Ankara and Washington, D.C. His wife, Thelma, served as secretary and receptionist at post during sever- al of his assignments. Following retirement from the Service in 1981, Mr. Lucas served for three years in Rome with the Multi- national Force and Observers, super- vising implementation of the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli Treaty of Peace. Mr. Lucas was a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Knights of Columbus. He and his wife served for a number of years as Eucharistic ministers and ministers to the sick in several Catholic churches in Florida. Mr. Lucas was preceded in death by his wife of 54 years. He is sur- vived by three children, five grand- children and one great-grandchild. Ralph J. Ribble , 89, a retired Foreign Service officer, died on Oct. 15 at his home in Clarksville, Texas. Mr. Ribble was born in Roxton, Texas, one of seven children in a family of beekeepers. He grew up during the Great Depression with a widely-acknowledged talent for breed- ing queen bees. After taking the Civil Service exam in 1939, he was offered an appointment in 1941 as a clerk- messenger at the Department of State, then located in the Old Executive Office Building. As Mr. Ribble later described his entry into government service to his son Richard, Mr. Percy Allen was assistant chief of personnel at that time, and he interviewed even the lowest entrants to the department. When Allen learned that Ribble had little training other than in beekeep- ing, he asked him to describe the entire process of raising a queen. When Ribble finished, Allen remark- ed that a certified beekeeper in the State Department had to be a first. In this position, Ribble’s rotating assignments included the reception entrances, from which he shuttled 76 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 8 I N M E M O R Y