The Very Reverend George H. Peek

George Hooper Peek was born January 11, 1908 to George Washington Peek and Zephyr Dyer in Woodward, Oklahoma. The family moved while he was a boy to homestead near Lamar, Colorado. George lived with his family until his parent’ divorce in 1921. At age 13, he stayed one year alone on the homestead while his mother moved to Kansas and his father and brothers moved into Lamar. He joined them in Lamar a year later and worked his way through high school, excelling at debate.

After graduating from high school, he taught and coached at Two Buttes and then followed his brothers to Illinois where he worked as a mechanic, serving sometimes as mechanic for Indianapolis racer, Wilbur Shaw. He then attended college at Emporia and the University of Kansas. George returned to Colorado, converted to Christianity, met and became engaged to Dorothy Lucille Urie of Greeley. Bishop Irving Peake Johnson married them at Trinity Church, Greeley, June 19, 1934. George worked as a District Supervisor of Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company until the outbreak of World War II; he then worked at Denver’s Remington Arms plant until he could enter the Navy. He served stateside as a radar technician and several of his improvements in radar technology were credited with saving many lives in the Pacific. While he was in the service, he and Dorothy became parents of their only child, Charles Arthur, born October 8, 1942.

Following the war, George returned to Greeley, to complete his undergraduate education and a Masters degree at the University of Northern Colorado (then CSTC). He wrote his thesis on the history of the Episcopal Church in Colorado. He worked those years as both custodian and youth leader for Trinity Church, as well as acting as Lay Vicar for the Episcopalian congregations in Loveland and Ft. Lupton. Fr. Charles Young presented him as a postulant for Holy Orders and in 1947 Bishop Ingley sent him to Seabury Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois, where he graduated in 1950 with a Masters in Sacred Theology and was ordained. The Peeks moved to Salida, Colorado where George was Rector of the Church of the Ascension and Vicar of Saint Luke’s, Westcliff. While there, the church and rectory in Salida were renovated, Westcliff became an independent mission, and Fr. Peek revived the church’s work in Buena Vista. Fr. Peek accepted a call to become Rector of St. Alban’s, McCook, Nebraska, in 1953, and served there nine years, building an addition to the church, renovating the church interior and rectory, and doubling the size of the congregation. While there he sponsored two men, Frs. Don Hays and Greg Harring, for the priesthood. In 1962, George accepted Bishop Russell Rauscher’s invitation to become Chaplain for Episcopalian students at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. During his time as Chaplain he assisted eight men on the path to ordination: Bishop Rod Michel and Frs. Wayne Carlson, Don Hanway, Rod Moore, Charles Peek, Jim Ransom, Jim Roach, and Mel Schlachter. Joined by lay people gathered from around Lincoln for worship and activities in St. Nicholas House, and with the help of the Diocese and the Untied Thank Offering, George saw to the construction of the present St. Mark’s-on-the-Campus before leaving the chaplaincy in 1967 to become Dean of Saint Mark’s Pro-Cathedral in Hastings, Nebraska and priest at Grace Church, Red Cloud and Saint John’s, Harvard. When he retired from full-time parochial ministry there in 1973, he was made Dean Emeritus by the Cathedral.

George and Dorothy retired to Grand Island where, over the next 20 years, he served as a Priest Associate, and twice as interim Rector, of Saint Stephen’s; as an officer of the St. Francis Hospital Corporation Board, as counselor at St. Francis Rehabilitation Center; and, for a year when the Diocese of Nebraska was between Bishops, as Pastor at Large of the Diocese. At various times in his life George was active in DeMolay, JayCees, Civil Air Patrol, PTA, and Rotary International. He was an honorary member of Acacia Fraternity.

Failing health sent the Peeks to the God Samaritan Center in Wood River, Nebraska, in 1994. George was preceded in death by his father, mother, and step-mother (Lela Samuelson), his sister Grace (who died in infancy), his brothers Ralph, Ken, and Raymond (who died during childbirth) and by his nephews George M. Peek and Ralph B. Peek; and, on his wife’s side, by his father- and mother-in-law, Charles and Lena Urie, and his brother- and sister-in-law, Arthur and Margaret Link. He is survived by his wife, Dorothy, his son Charles and daughter-in-law Nancy, his grandson George and wife Reggie; and his granddaughter Noelle Ptomey, husband Harlan, and their son, George’s great-grandson, Rowan; by nephew Ted Peek and wife Carol, niece Lois Kay Race and husband Harrison; and, on his wife’s side, by nieces Mary Goodman and Dorothy Leeds and husband Ray.

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