Gary Diebel
I first met George in the early 80's when I had graduated from College in Kansas and moved to the DFW area starting work for the Santa Fe Railroad commercial real estate department. Then, a couple of years went by and we met again. This time, I was no longer with the Santa Fe as I was thinking about starting my own real estate company. George had just come through some tumultuous years of building homes and we continued talking and eventually formed our own company, The Devlan Development Group. Devlan was George's idea for Develop Land. We became very close even with our age difference. I always loved George and was so shocked when I was looking for him on Facebook today to discover that he died several years ago. I so wanted to reconnect with him. When he and Gay were married, they exchanged their vows in the home of my wife, Marcia and I in Carrollton. Shortly thereafter, I lost my father, so Marcia and I felt we were supposed to move back to Kansas to raise our son John near Marcia's parents and my mother. While in Kansas City we added to our family with two beautiful daughters. George and I stayed communicated off and on gradually getting to the point where we unfortunately lost contact with each other. My life evolved around raising my children and the miles did not permit George and I to see each other. We did move back to the DFW area and for the last six months have been living in Fort Worth. I am so sad that we did not get a chance to reconnect. I will always remember his soft-spoken demeanor and his engineering mind, and of course his love of golf! I don't know if he ever got a chance to attend the Master's, but that was a goal of his, I hope he was able to fulfill it. He was almost old enough to be my father, but I never viewed him that way, instead he was more like a big brother. Even though the years and the miles have separated our friendship, I will always remember George and our many chats we had! Rest in Peace, I love you my friend!