Howard E. Butt Jr., oldest son of Texas H-E-B family, dies at 89

Howard E. Butt Jr., the brother of H-E-B Chairman and CEO Charles Butt and the oldest son of the grocery chain’s namesake founder Howard E. Butt Sr., died Sunday at his home in Kerrville. Howard E. Butt Jr., the brother of H-E-B Chairman and CEO Charles Butt and the oldest son of the grocery chain’s namesake founder Howard E. Butt Sr., died Sunday at his home in Kerrville. Photo: Lisa Krantz /San Antonio Express-News Photo: Lisa Krantz /San Antonio Express-News Image 1 of / 45 Caption Close Howard E. Butt Jr., oldest son of Texas H-E-B family, dies at 89 1 / 45 Back to Gallery

NOTE: This story was originally published in 2016.

Howard E. Butt Jr., the brother of H-E-B Chairman and CEO Charles Butt and the oldest son of the grocery chain’s namesake founder Howard E. Butt Sr., died Sunday at his home in San Antonio due to complications from Parkinson’s disease. He was 89.

“We are deeply saddened by the loss of my brother, Howard,” Charles Butt said in a statement. “His decades of inspired leadership, philanthropy and humanitarian efforts will forever be missed by our family and those he impacted across the U.S.”

Howard Butt Jr. is best known to the public as the evangelistic member of Butt family and as the folksy, comforting voice of one-minute radio spots titled, “The High Calling of Our Daily Work.”

He operated the H.E. Butt Foundation, established in 1933 as one of the state’s earliest and largest philanthropic foundations. He also ran Laity Lodge, an ecumenical Christian retreat center in the Hill Country.

Born in Kerrville, Texas, on Sept. 8, 1927, Butt grew up in the grocery business founded by his grandmother, Florence, in 1905. He attended Baylor University in Waco, Texas, graduated in 1947 with a degree in business, and soon afterward married his longtime sweetheart, Barbara Dan Gerber.

Howard Butt Jr. was one of five family members who owns the family fortune, an estate estimated at $11 billion in value by Forbes magazine, similar in size with New York’s Rockefeller family.

In addition to his brother Charles, Howard Butt Jr. is survived by his sister, Eleanor Butt Crook, a former schoolteacher who became a public education advocate and a world hunger activist; his wife Barbara Dan; his daughter Deborah Dan Rogers, who runs the H.E. Butt Foundation with her husband David Rogers; his sons, Howard Butt III, who heads the grocery chain’s Mexico division, and his wife Pamela and Stephen Butt, who runs Central Market, and his wife Susan.

He is also survived by eight grandchildren, Howard IV and wife Kristen, Hillary and husband Tom, and Jeffery (Alexandra) Butt; Sarah and Shelby Butt; and Katherine, Alexandra, and Jackson Rogers; and one great-granddaughter, Charley Butt.

Howard Butt Jr. was initially groomed to run the grocery chain, having worked in stores since age 7. He delivered groceries, became a checker at 12 and then a relief store manager. By 1948, he managed his own store.

He was drawn, however, to the Christian youth movement in the 1940s while attending Baylor University and combined his business career with a second calling as a lay minister preaching at revivals and speaking nationally. The burden was excessive, he has previously said, and differences with his parents over his career path plunged Howard Butt Jr. into a decade-long depression.

“I had been living my whole life with Dad wanting me to be part of the company,” he said in a 1996 interview. Howard Butt Jr. was candid about his depression and eventually sought help, which he said “was very suspect in the whole Texas culture and even more so in the Baptist culture. There were family members that didn’t even know.”

Howard Butt Jr. wrote about his bout with depression in a 1996 book titled, “Renewing America’s Soul: A Spiritual Psychology for Home, Work and Nation.”

A conversation with his younger brother, Charles, resolved the problem.

“In a sudden exhibition of grace in my life,” Howard Butt Jr. said in a 2007 interview, “my brother, Charles, and I talked about our dreams. I dreamed of doing something long-term in lay renewal. Charles dreamed of doing great things in the grocery business.”

Howard Butt Jr. left the day-to-day operation of the grocery company and stepped into the vice chairmanship of H-E-B and chaired the H.E. Butt Foundation. Charles Butt eventually succeeded his father as H-E-B president in 1971 and chairman of the company in 1984.

“Charles has an enormous gift for business, and he wanted to exercise that, and I’m so proud of the way he’s made H-E-B such a wonderful corporate citizen,” Howard Butt Jr. said in 1996.

The H.E. Butt Foundation was first operated by Howard Butt Jr.’s mother, Mary Holdsworth Butt. It is a separate entity from the H-E-B grocery chain. It operates programs ranging from free camps for disadvantaged children at a ranch along the Frio River to faith-based retreats for groups of people at Laity Lodge near Leakey, which opened in 1961. The foundation has helped build several hospitals, libraries and other philanthropic projects throughout South Texas.

Howard Butt Jr. became foundation president in 1982. In 2013, the foundation built Headwaters, a family camping facility.

The foundation expanded along with Howard Butt Jr.’s ministry. He spoke at an early National Prayer Breakfast during the Eisenhower Administration. He was a board member of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and a founding board member of Christianity Today magazine. President John F. Kennedy appointed Howard Butt Jr. to the first Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity.

“Howard’s success in lay renewal has been worldwide. He’s been a catalyst for lay involvement in all denominations,” the late Rev. Buckner Fanning said in 2007. Fanning, the longtime minister at Trinity Baptist Church, and Howard Butt Jr. were friends for nearly seven decades.

In 2000, Howard Butt Jr. started “The High Calling of Our Daily Life,” a series of one-minute radio-spot homilies that were written weekly and often cited extraordinary successes of ordinary individuals who kept their faith involved in their careers, relationships and daily lives.

Howard Butt Jr. won several awards. In 2000, the National Conference for Community and Justice honored him for leadership in serving the San Antonio community. In 2004, he received the first Newport Foundation Leadership Award for his work on bridging the secular and religious worlds.

In 2005, he was presented the Outstanding Citizenship Award by the San Antonio Community of Churches.

Remembrances may be sent to the Friends of The H.E. Butt Foundation, P. O. Box 290670, Kerrville, Texas 78029-0670. A memorial service celebrating the life and witness of Howard E. Butt, Jr., will be held at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 17, 2016, at Trinity Baptist Church, 319 E. Mulberry Ave., San Antonio, Texas 78212. The Porter Loring Mortuary is assisting the family with arrangements.

For full coverage of Howard Butt’s death and community impact, go to ExpressNews.com later today or read tomorrow’s paper.