Obituary of Glenn George Capps

Glenn George Capps, died in his home on December 25, 2016 after a thirty-year battle with multiple sclerosis. George was brilliant, witty, charming, and brave and inspired everyone lucky enough to have known him. Even as he faced life threatening challenges in the last six weeks of his life his courage, dignity, grace, sense of humor, and zest for life did not waver. "George" was born in Galveston, Texas on June 22, 1964 to Dr. Glenn R. ("Bucky") Capps, MD and Ann S. Capps. A natural and graceful athlete, in his youth George enjoyed mid-distance running, horseback riding, and fly fishing. Intellectually precocious, George also excelled in school. After graduating from Austin High School in 1982 he entered the University of Texas at Austin as an engineering major. He switched to Biology and earned a BS in Biology with honors 1985. He attended the University of Texas Law School for a year but then left law school to enter the PhD program in Microbiology at the University of Texas. He was awarded a highly coveted National Science Foundation Gradate Research Fellowship in 1987. As a graduate student, George designed and executed research projects, mentored undergraduates in the lab, and served as graduate student representative at faculty meetings. Using his excellent computer skills he made creative cartoons for research seminars and for a departmental brochure. He could fix anything and kept lab equipment in good working order. He earned his PhD in Microbiology in 1990, even as MS began to rob him of his physical prowess. George then became a Research Scientist at the Department of Biology (now the Department of Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology) UCSC where he did immunological research and mentored undergraduate students. He was the primary author on all of the research publications from his lab. After MS made it impossible for him to work at the lab bench George continued to mentor undergraduates, some of whom now have research careers of their own. George faithfully attended the annual Midwinter Conference of Immunologists, where he invariably posed insightful questions. George was kind and generous and was admired and beloved by all who met him. He always was ready to help anyone, including complete strangers. George's natural charm and indomitable spirit endeared him to the physicians, nurses, and therapists who cared for him in the last weeks of his life. Although MS mercilessly inflicted ever more indignities, George continued to appreciate life and to become wiser and kinder. For thirty years George and his wife, Martha Zúñiga, were inseparable even during George's hospital stays. George is sorely missed by his wife, his mother, Ann S. Capps, sister Nancy Capps, aunts Sally Capps and Gail Pate, uncle Francis Pate, cousins Sara Gail Cranford, Betsy Droddy, and Frank Pate, and their children, and numerous Zúñiga family members and dear friends, all of whose lives he enriched immeasurably. In lieu of flowers the family requests that donations be made to Shared Adventures (http://sharedadventures.org/), a non-profit organization that provides recreational opportunities to disabled persons. Shared Adventures enabled George to enjoy ocean kayaking even after becoming quadriplegic and for this he and Martha were deeply grateful. Memorial services and a celebration of George's life will be held in Mason, TX and in Santa Cruz at a yet to be determined date in the spring of 2017.