For What They Gave on Saturday Afternoon

Howie & Susan Prince

Taken From Temple Daily Telegram

Brigadier General (Retired) Dr. Howard Taft Prince II passed away Wednesday, May 19, 2021, in Austin, Texas.

Howard T. Prince II was born on March 9, 1941, in Lawton OK, to Howard Taft and Blanche Evelyn Bledsoe Prince. He was a graduate of the Belton High school class of 1958. Dr. Prince graduated from West Point Military Academy in 1962. He received his diploma from President John F. Kennedy, our 35th President, and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army and retired as a Brigadier General. Interment will be at The United States Military Academy, West Point, New York, his beloved school.

BG Prince was an experienced educator and leader who held positions of increasing responsibility throughout a lifetime of public service. He was an experienced teacher who also has published widely on contemporary leadership topics and was the senior editor of BSL’s first leadership textbook. He was active in promoting leadership education and leader development on the national and international levels for many years as a consultant and speaker. In 1996, the Association of Leadership Educators honored BG Prince with its Distinguished Leadership Service Award.

On June 1, 2001, he was appointed to be the Director of the Center for Ethical Leadership in the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, The University of Texas at Austin. BG Prince was initially appointed Visiting Professor to the Sid Richardson Chair in Public Affairs on September 1, 1999. He received the Texas Excellence Teaching Award as the outstanding teacher in the LBJ School for AY 2001-2002 on nomination by the student body. He had an independent leadership consulting practice in Austin, Texas since June 1997, serving primarily public sector organizations.

Previously he served as founding dean of the Jepson School of Leadership Studies and Professor of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond, where he was responsible for the development of the first undergraduate school of leadership studies in the world from October 1, 1990, until June 30, 1996. He then held the George and Virginia Modlin endowed chair as Professor of Leadership Studies until July 31, 1997. While in Richmond BG Prince served as a member of the board of directors of the Urban League of Greater Richmond. He also served as a member of the Honors Program at Virginia Commonwealth University, the Richmond area regional board of the Virginia Institute for Political Leadership, the advisory board of Emergency Shelter, Inc. in Richmond, and the external advisory board of the Virginia Women’s Institute for Leadership at Mary Baldwin College. BG Prince is also a graduate of Leadership Metro Richmond.

Before going to Richmond, Virginia, BG Prince was the first Professor and Head of the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York from July 1, 1978, through September 30, 1990, where he developed both graduate and undergraduate leadership programs and was instrumental in reshaping leader development throughout the U.S. Army.

BG Prince was a 1962 honor graduate of West Point and also held a Master of Arts degree in International Relations from American University. He studied economics, history, political science, and sociology at the University of Bonn in Germany as an Olmsted Scholar, and earned a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Texas at Austin. As a clinical psychologist, he was a Fellow of the American Psychological Association. He was also a graduate of the U. S. Army War College.

After serving for over twenty-eight years in the United States Army, he was promoted to Brigadier General upon his retirement in 1990 and was presented with the army’s highest award for service, the Distinguished Service Medal. His other military awards and decorations include two awards of the Purple Heart, two Bronze Stars for valor, the Bronze Star for service, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Silver Star, Ranger Tab, Senior Parachutist’s Badge, Expert Infantryman’s Badge, and the Combat Infantryman’s Badge. While on active duty as an infantry officer, he held a variety of troop command and staff positions in the 82nd Airborne and 1st Cavalry divisions before joining the permanent faculty at West Point. BG Prince was currently the president of the 5/7 Cavalry Association.

Howard is survived by his wife, Susan, of Austin, Texas, his twin sons, Brian Andrew Prince and Jefferson Todd Prince, of North Carolina. His two sisters, Judith Ann Prince Shine, of Temple, Texas, and Linda Lou Prince Etheredge, of Temple, Texas, numerous nephews, and cousins. He was preceded in death by his parents and his younger brother Robert Dale Prince of, Allen, Texas.

The Howard T. Prince II Fellowship in Ethical Leadership seeks to endow a legacy of developing future generations of Ethical Leaders. “Leaders are not born, they are made.” Howard truly lived the West Point motto, “Duty, Honor, Country.”