William Rawle Weeks, Jr.

William Rawle Weeks, Jr., "Bill", was born in Denver on October 23, 1920, to a prominent Wyoming frontier family and died peacefully at his home in that city on May 5, 2009. He was an award winning author, a passionate pilot and ran a small but successful family oil company. Bill attended Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire and graduated from Stanford in 1943. After serving in the army, he joined the CIA in the early 1950s, working on and off over the years for the Agency. He published "Knock and Wait a While" in 1957, winning the Mystery Writers of America "Edgar Allan Poe" Award for best first novel.

A staunch supporter of the Democratic Party, Bill did advance work on the campaigns of several state and national candidates, including Senator Edmund Muskie's Vice-Presidential campaign in 1968. He was in Mississippi in 1971 to help ensure black citizens the right to vote during Charles Evers campaign for governor and crossed party lines briefly in 1972 to work for Republican anti-Vietnam war candidate Pete McCloskey, who was challenging President Richard M. Nixon.

Bill resided for long periods, and had many good friends and business associates, in Washington D.C., Denver and the San Francisco Bay Area. He often flew his single-engine planes across the continent and around Mexico, and was a constant traveler, especially to Europe, but also to the Middle East and Asia.

A gifted storyteller, known for his humor, toughness of mind and generosity, Bill is survived by his second wife, Sarah Bushong Weeks; his children, Tacy Hahn and Stephen Weeks; and four grandchildren as well as his first wife Suzanne S. Weeks and stepchildren Meghann and Aaron Norris.

Donations to the Go For It! Foundation, www.gfifoundation.org/, which helps to motivate children to succeed in school and life, would be preferable to flowers.

A memorial will be held in Denver on Saturday, May 23. Friends are welcome.