Dr. Ned Dudney loses battle with cancer
By MARY ALYS CHERRY
mcherry@hcnonline.com
Dr. Ned Dudney, the family physician who was one of the founding fathers of League City and worked for years to improve it, died Friday, Jan.1¸ after a long battle with cancer. He was 84. A leader in Texas medicine for 50 years, he and his wife, Fay, came to League City in 1954. After setting up his medical practice, the Magnolia, Ark., native quickly became involved in shaping the future of his new hometown.
He served on the first League City Charter Committee in 1961 and was one of the original group that incorporated the north Galveston County city in 1962 and a member of the municipality’s first city council, serving from 1962-64. Often called the “father of Clear Lake Hospital,” Dudney was chairman of the Founders Group that developed the hospital, now known as Clear Lake Regional Medical Center in Webster. He helped found the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership in 1967 and served on its board until his death, served as president of the League City Chamber and was a founding member of St. Christopher Episcopal Church in League City. Perhaps of even more importance, he was chairman of the League City GO Bonds 1981, which enabled the city to build a new sewer plant and provided the foundation for the growth of the city in the past three decades.
UT GRADUATE
The Dudneys came to the Bay Area on after he completed his medical studies at the University of Texas at Austin, entering the UT Medical Branch at Galveston. After earning his medical degree in 1949, he completed his internship at Jefferson Davis Hospital in Houston before serving as a captain in the U.S. Army Medical Corps in Korea. When he first came to the Bay Area, he said there were “only three doctors serving the Clear Creek School District area and Friendswood.” Today there are well over a hundred.
HONORED BY MANY
Over the years, he served as president of the Galveston County Medical Society, the Eighth District Medical Society, the Galveston County Chapter of the American Academy of Family Physicians and the UTMB Alumni Association. He also served as chief of staff at Mainland General Hospital in Texas City and on the board of the Texas Academy of Family Physicians and the State Board of Medical Examiners and as a member of the House of Delegates of the Texas Medical Association.
UTMB in 1966 named him recipient of its Distinguished Alumni Award. Last year, the city he helped grow renamed the Clear Creek Nature Park on Highway 3 the Dr. Ned and Fay Dudney Nature Park to honor the Dudneys’ contributions to the community through the years.
Arrangements are pending.
Mary Alys Cherry
Editor Emeritus
The Bay Area Citizen
100 E. NASA Parkway, Suite 105
Webster, Texas 77598
Phone 281-674-1401 Fax 281-332-6901 |
