Justice Eugene A. Cook, ’85,
passed August 23, 2020 at age
eighty-two. Justice Cook served
on the Texas Supreme Court
from September 1988 until the
end of 1992. As chair of the
Supreme Court’s Committee
on Professionalism, created at
his urging in 1989, he led the
drafting of the Texas Lawyer’s Creed, adopted by the Supreme
Court and Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in November
1989. Justice Cook earned a bachelor’s degree in
accounting in 1961 from the University of Houston and
his law degree from the University of Houston Law Center
in 1966. In 1992 he earned a master’s degree in judicial
process from the University of Virginia School of Law.
Justice Cook’s survivors include his wife and two children.
Robert Driscoll Corette, ’84, passed peacefully on October
17, 2020 at the age of eighty. RD was a 3rd generation
Butte lawyer. Born in Butte, RD’s favorite memories were
summers on the Corette Ranch south of Butte, mending
fences, haying, riding and roping. After graduating from
Butte High School in 1958, he joined the Marine Corps
Reserves and then attended the University of Montana,
where he was on the Rodeo Team. He graduated in 1963
with a B.S. degree in Business Management, and in 1966
earned his J.D. degree from UM Law School. RD was survived
by his wife of forty-five years, Patty, and six children.
Clinton Austin Curtis, ’78, eighty-three, passed away
on September 21, 2015 after a long struggle with Parkinson’s
disease. Clint entered the U.S. Air Force after
high school and met and married Florence Senn while he
was stationed at Bartow Airfield for flight training. Clint
earned his law degree in 1958 and settled in Bartow to
practice law. In 1976 Clint argued the constitutionality
of the death penalty before the United States Supreme
Court. In 1981, Clint was called upon by the Governor
to serve as a Circuit Judge. Clint is survived by Florence
and their large family.
Michael Peter DeFanti ‘87, passed away on April 11,
2022 at age eighty. Mick graduated from the University
of Rhode Island in 1965. He studied philosophy at
Brown University and then received his J.D. from Boston
University in 1969. Mick focused on corporate and
commercial litigation. He retired in 2008. In 1960, Mick
met his future wife, Anne, known to friends as “Chip.”
They married in 1967 and traveled the world during
their fifty-three years of marriage. Mick was survived by
his Chip, their sons, and four grandchildren.
Ronald Conrad Dilthey ’88, was eighty-six when he
passed on March 26, 2022. Born and raised in New York
and Pennsylvania, Ron first saw North Carolina in 1953
when he arrived there for college. He never left. He met
Shirley Ann Burrus and they were married in 1956, while
he was in law school and she was a senior. Ron served two
years as Vice President of the North Carolina Bar Association.
Ron was a lecturer at the National Institute of Trial
Advocacy at the University of North Carolina School
of Law and for nearly thirty years he taught an annual
course for the new North Carolina attorneys at the North
Carolina Bar Association Skills Course. For ten years he
was a judge for the National Moot Court Competition
in Richmond, Virginia. In 1978 he offered to teach civil
trial litigation for one year to assist Campbell University
Law School in their accreditation, but the course was so
popular that he continued teaching for thirty-five years as
an adjunct professor. Ron served his country in the U.S.
Army in the Military Police Corps. Ron was survived by
his wife of sixty-five years, daughter and four grandchildren.
Charles Henry Duff, ’69, was
ninety-five when he passed on February
7, 2020. He was a member
of the Class of ‘45 at Virginia Military
Institute, but had his college
education interrupted in 1943 by
World War II, becoming a commissioned
officer in the United
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