Gwyn Dollar

Gwyn Dollar, 82, died on Dec. 19 in Tallahassee, Fla., after a brief illness. He was born Aug. 29, 1935, in Cairo, Ga. He was the only child of Earl Lee Dollar, a farmer, carpenter and small businessman, and Decie Burks Dollar. The family moved to Tallahassee while he was a young boy and he later graduated from Leon High School, a student in the same era as two of its most famous alumni: Ricou Browning, who played “The Creature from the Black Lagoon,” and actress Faye Dunaway. In the mid-1950s, he joined the United States Army and was stationed in Europe. The period was one of his life’s great adventures, and led him to a base in England. While there, he went out to the Lyceum, a dancehall in London’s Covent Garden, where one night in 1956 the lanky American serviceman met a spirited Cockney lass named Shirley Ann Tythe. When Gwyn returned to Tallahassee, she soon followed, and they wed in 1957. The next year, their son Steven was born. Over the next decades, Gwyn moved between professions. After working as an engineer in the lab of the Florida State University physics department, and its Van De Graaff accelerator, he joined Southeastern Surgical Supply, where he applied both his deft social skills and keen business sense as a salesman. He adapted to changing times, moving into computers and software programs for medical offices as a salesman for the Megas Corporation. Throughout his life, he was an avid golfer – and member of the Havana Country Club – who once was part of a winning Pro-Am Team led by Tom Watson at the Killearn Country Club. Friends and colleagues knew him as a convivial and generous host, a game raconteur with an encyclopedia of jokes and fish stories that could be both risque and laden with home truths. His passion for cooking never waned, as anyone who sampled his oyster stew or Spanish bean soup knew. No bunch of farm-fresh collard greens was ever in better hands. Gwyn also loved Willie Nelson, “Gunsmoke,” vacation cruises, the FSU Seminoles and his home on Lake Talquin. Only a couple of months before his death, he was back in Biloxi, Miss., where he frequently gambled, often quite successfully, in games of Mississippi Stud poker. At his side was his wife Donna (nee Howard), an old friend whom he married in 2016, after Shirley’s death the year before. They honeymooned in New Orleans, one of the many adventures they had planned together. He is survived by his wife and son. A visitation is scheduled Friday, Dec. 29, in the library of Bevis Funeral Home, 200 John Knox Road, from 4 to 6 p.m. Todd Wahlquist of Bevis Funeral Home (850-385-2193, www.bevisfh.com) is assisting the family with their arrangements. Donations in Gwyn’s memory can be made to Hilton Terrace Baptist Church, 2236 Warm Springs Road, Columbus, Ga., 31904.(706)327-3943 hiltonterracebaptistchurch.com.

Tributes

Gwyn Dollar

August 29, 1935 - December 19, 2017