Larry Patrick

LARRY PATRICK - Henry Lawrence Patrick, Jr., age 66 retired President of American Rafting Association, died Sunday, October 25, 2015 of complications at Carolinas Medical Center, Charlotte, NC. He had been fighting a degenerative lung disease since 1998. Born February 4, 1949 in Camp Lejeune, NC he was the son of a very proud Marine, Captain Henry Lawrence Patrick and Mary Helen Hambright Patrick. At that time his father was second in command of the Second Armored Amphibious Battalion. Growing up in Kings Mountain, NC, he was active in the Boy Scouts. He reached the rank of Eagle Scout at the early age of 12 and continued his involvement until he reached the rank of Eagle Silver Bronze Palm, which was the highest rank of any Boy Scout in North Carolina at the time. He attended Kings Mountain High School and received the John Gamble Scholastic award "Youth of the Year" trophy. He played varsity football, obtaining the nickname "Bulldog" and was a member of the Monogram Club. Upon high school graduation, Patrick was appointed to West Point in 1967 by Congressman Basil Whitner and later transferred to Georgia Tech where he obtained an engineering degree in 1973. While at Tech he joined and later became President of the Delta Sigma Phi Fraternity. In 1971 Patrick started a raft race down the Chattahoochee River in Atlanta, which grew to become the Ramblin Raft Racea