Linwood Grant Lawrence III – 50th Reunion Essay

Linwood Grant Lawrence III

Date of Death: 26-Mar-2009

College: Branford

(The first part of this memorial is reprinted from the Class Notes September/October 2009. The second part is reprinted from UVA Magazine.)

Subrata Chakravarty reports on the death of Linwood Lawrence: Lin Lawrence died March 26 of kidney failure. Lin got his degree in psychology and lettered in sailing at Yale. He moved to Ossining, New York, after graduation and spent five years as an elementary school teacher in Irvington, New York. He earned his master’s in education at Columbia at night before going on to law school at the University of Virginia. He then joined Shearman & Sterling in New York before he was hired away by Pepsico. In recent years, he became an excellent amateur photographer, mainly of nature, and e-mailed the pictures to his friends. There was a memorial meeting for Lin at the Ethical Society of Northern Westchester in Ossining on April 4. Randy Tankoos, Dave Coit, and his younger brother Dan ’71 represented the Yale sailors. Steve Wilkinson and I, Lin’s freshman-year roommates, stood in for Lin’s friends at Branford College. Lin is survived by his wife, Cheryl, who would like to hear from those with memories of Lin.

Linwood taught elementary school in Westchester County, New York, before attending law school. At the University, Mr. Lawrence was executive editor of the Virginia Journal of International Law and was awarded the 1977 Hardy Cross Dillard Prize for writing the best student note in the journal. He served as corporate associate with the Wall Street law firm of Shearman & Sterling from 1977 to 1980. After joining PepsiCo in 1980 as a staff attorney, Mr. Lawrence held a number of progressively responsible positions with the company, retiring in 1999 as vice president and division counsel. He received the company’s 1998 “Right Side Up Award” in connection with the successful completion of separate agreements with KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and their respective franchisee communities concurrent with the spinoff of these restaurant concepts by PepsiCo.