Donald Glenn Harris

The Little Cahaba Coal Company owned the house and the town, the small coal mining community of Piper in Bibb County, Alabama, where Don was born in 1940 to Samuel Glenn Harris and Thelma Elaine Shelton. Don, his brother, Larry, and a sister, Patsy Dolores, who died in infancy, were all delivered at home by the company doctor. A job with the Frisco railroad in Birmingham at the end of WWII got Sam out of the mines and saved Don and Larry from them.

Don spent his school years in Birmingham moving among three elementary and two high schools. After graduating from Ramsay High School, he worked his way through seven years of college and law school, mostly at night, with full-time employment at an engineering firm and the GI Bill. He received his LLB degree in Law from the Birmingham School of Law. Prior to law school his undergraduate work was completed at the University of Alabama Birmingham and the University of Hawaii at Manoa in Honolulu. He was also a graduate of the U.S. Army Intelligence School in Baltimore, the University of Tennessee Executive Development Program in Knoxville and the International Operations Management Program at the Stockholm School of Economics' Swedish Institute of Management (Institutet for Foretagsledning) in Sigtuna, Sweden.

A few weeks after law school graduation Don joined a start-up environmental company licensing German technology. For the next thirty-five years he served in operations management, CEO and ownership roles for several environmental technology companies in the United States, Sweden, France and Germany executing major power plant and industrial projects in locations worldwide as well as throughout the U.S. He also served for a time as an officer of a trade association and environmental lobby in Washington D.C.

Don's career led him to frequently travel, often for extended periods, mostly in Europe and throughout the U.S. while he maintained homes at various times in Birmingham, Baton Rouge, Knoxville, Atlanta, South Bend, New Orleans, Denver, Murfreesboro TN and Fearrington Village NC.

During the Vietnam War Don served four years on active duty in the U.S. Army with the 500th Intelligence Corps Group in Tokyo, from which he was later detached to the Navy and Marine Corps with the Joint Cubi Special Projects Facility team based in the Philippine Islands, and the last year with the 171st Military Intelligence Platoon, Office of the Chief of Staff G2, Headquarters U.S. Army Pacific in Honolulu. The Commendation awarded Don at the end of his active service read, in part, “...his skill, dedication and devotion to duty gained for him the respect and confidence of all with whom he was associated...his outstanding achievements were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Army and reflect great credit upon him and the military service.” Signed General John K. Waters, Commander in Chief, United States Army Pacific.

Don was a lifelong outdoorsman and conservationist. Until his later years he hunted widely in Columbia, Mexico, Sweden and Canada as well as the southern and western states; most frequently at his favorite camps in south Louisiana, northern California and western Colorado. He never took any game that didn’t go to the table. He fished salt waters in Hawaii, Mexico, the Caribbean, the Gulf Coast and Pacific Coast from Alaska to Baja. He fly fished remote spots in Saskatchewan, British Columbia, the Rockies and Smoky Mountains and his favorite; Alabama’s Little Cahaba River where, in their youth, he and his brother regularly camped and fished with their Dad in what is now the Cahaba River National Wildlife Refuge.

He was a passionate Alabama football fan in good times and bad. He loved dogs and owned thirteen over the years who were as devoted to him as he was to them. He was a voracious reader with a personal library of over two thousand volumes. His closet was filled with bespoke suits but he invariably wore jeans or khakis except on Sunday mornings. He loved good food and wine and was an accomplished cook who preferred to dine at home but also sought out restaurants, both dives and upscale, where the food was special. He enjoyed a scotch or two every evening accompanied by a bit of Tony Bennett, Al Green or smooth jazz.

Don was never much of a joiner but he was, at the end, an active member of Saint Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church in Pittsboro, NC and the Association of Former Intelligence Officers in Falls Church, VA.

Most of all Papa Don loved his family. Those who survive him are his beloved wife of thirty-six years, Cheryl, and daughter by an earlier marriage, Kelly Cole West of Homewood, AL; brother, Larry Harris (Brenda) of Hoover, AL; sister Mary Nell Harding of Carrollton, GA; and cousin Dolores Hubbard of Centreville, AL; step children, Elizabeth Eble (John) of Chapel Hill, NC; Benjamin Friedman (Lea) of Atlanta; seven grandchildren: Matthew West; Emma, Allison Bass (Charlie), William and Benjamin Eble; Andrew and Caroline Friedman; cousins: Kenneth (Kenny) Sanders, Ernestine (Butch) Creasman, Marie Pinnix, Carla Key and Sandra Oliver. He is also survived by numerous nieces and nephews and their offspring including Ian Harris, Michael Shea Brazil, Josh Sanders, Timber Woods and Glen Harding as well as best friend Anne Hill and her children Michael and Allyson.

"Do not go gentle into that good night

Old age should burn and rave at close of day

Rage, rage against the dying of the light

Though wise men at their end, know that dark is right"

—Dylan Thomas

Our days may come to seventy years,

Or eighty, if our strength endures;

Yet the best of them are but trouble

And sorrow,

For they quickly pass, and we fly away.

—Psalm 90:10

"...Of all the wonders that I yet have heard

It seems to me most strange that men should fear

Seeing that death, a necessary end,

Will come when it will come"

—Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

Donaldson Funeral Home & Crematory is honored to serve the Harris family.