Lewis "Lew" Dunlap

Lew Dunlap passed away at home in Aurora, CO on September 7, 2023, at the age of 97.  He was born on April 19, 1926, in Warrensburg, MO, to William Preston Dunlap and Edith Grace Boyd Dunlap.  He was the youngest of three children.  

Lew graduated from Rolla High School in 1943.  Near the end of WWII, he served in the Army-Air Corps as a radio operator on a B-17 bomber.  He then attended Missouri Valley College, earning a degree in music in 1950 and then a master’s degree in theology from McCormick Seminary in Chicago in 1952.  During his 25-year career as a Presbyterian minister and a chaplain in the U.S. Air Force, Lew and his first wife Katherine raised their three children and lived in Missouri, Texas, Alaska, New Mexico, Japan, Illinois, Louisiana, and finally Colorado.

After retiring from the USAF Lew entered the next stage of his life, but in no way slowed down.  He vigorously pursued various interests including real estate, starting a humanist bookstore, being a mediator and counsellor, and finally becoming a Unitarian Universalist minister, serving as an interim minister at churches in Iowa, Greeley, and Arizona and helping start the Prairie UU Church in Parker.  He was also active in various causes such as The Hemlock Society, the NAACP, the American Humanist Association, and various WWII veterans’ organizations.  He shared this stage of his life with his second wife of 26 years, Phyllis (Wheeler) Dolan.

Throughout his life Lew loved travel, music, bridge, and community theater.  He played the piano, guitar and trumpet, and sang tenor in various local choirs.  He also loved baseball and once again proved he had no intention of slowing down, attending the Colorado Rockies Fantasy camp for four years between the ages of 88 and 91!  He used his age as his player number.  He achieved national notoriety as “my boy Lew” when he charged the mound in 2015, 88 years young.  That year he was awarded the MVP award, Player’s Choice award, and for charging the mound…the Guts award.  (Search “Lew Dunlap” online.)

 Lew is survived by his first wife, his children Ruth Anne (Darrell) Hitchcock, Paul (Karen) Dunlap, and David (Tracey) Dunlap, and 12 grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren.  He was preceded in death by his second wife and is also survived by her four children, Kathryn Dolan, Connie Seguin, Albert Dolan, and Michael Dolan, and one grandson

There will be a memorial open house on Sunday, Oct. 15, 2023, from 2:00 to 3:30 PM at St. Andrews Village, 13801 E. Yale Ave, Aurora 80014.