John Hawkins Anderson Estate Donation to Historical Society

The family of John Hawkins Anderson, a 1948 Nashville High School graduate, has made a special donation to the Howard County Historical Society in his memory. Daughter Carolyn Gray Anderson and other family members presented the organization with a $2000 donation on Friday (October 25), and several of his personal effects that have a local connection.

As a youth, Anderson dreamed of being a professional pilot. He was fortunate enough to meet a military veteran in Nashville who taught him to fly at the age of 14. Anderson played football at NHS, sang in the glee club, and edited the school’s yearbook and newspaper. He graduated in 1948 and enrolled at Harding College, where he studied two years before enlisting in the U.S. Air Force and serving in southern Germany during the Korean War. In 1953, Anderson went west for a summer job and stayed in California to complete his undergraduate degree at Long Beach State College. In 1958, he earned a Master of City Planning at the University of California, Berkeley. As a Bay Area city planner for some three decades, he worked in San Francisco City Hall under several mayors in the 1960s and 1970s. Joyce Woodruff of Nashville is a sister of John Anderson. Heath Wallis is pictured with Carolyn Gray Anderson and HCHS President Freddie Horne.