PASSINGS: Franklin D. Burgess, Dan L. Duncan

Franklin D. Burgess

Hoops star became federal judge

Franklin D. Burgess, 75, a U.S. district judge and college basketball star who led the nation in scoring at Gonzaga University, died Friday of cancer at a hospice in Tacoma, Wash.

He led the nation in scoring in 1960-61, averaging 32.4 points per game during his senior season at Gonzaga. His No. 44 jersey is one of two retired by the university; the other belongs to NBA great John Stockton.

Franklin Douglas Burgess was born March 9, 1935, in Eudora, Ark. He spent one year at what is now the University of Arkansas Pine Bluff and served in the Air Force before going to Gonzaga in 1958.

Burgess scored at least 40 points seven times while there. He scored a school-record 52 points against UC Davis in 1961.

The Lakers drafted Burgess in the third round of the 1961 NBA draft, but he opted for the fledgling American Basketball League, a precursor to the American Basketball Assn. He played two seasons with the Hawaii Chiefs before returning to Gonzaga for law school. He graduated in 1966.

Burgess became an assistant prosecutor in Tacoma, where he once chased down a defendant who had fled a courtroom. After a stint in private practice, he became a federal magistrate judge in 1981 and was elevated to the District Court bench in 1994.

Dan L. Duncan

Texas pipeline billionaire

Dan L. Duncan, 77, a Texas pipeline billionaire who gave hundreds of millions of dollars to hospitals, museums and wildlife associations, died Sunday at his Houston home, his company said. The cause was not disclosed.

Duncan was chairman of the company that manages Enterprise Products Partners, an energy giant with more than 48,000 miles of natural gas, petrochemical and crude oil pipeline and 25 natural gas processing plants. The company focuses on the processing, storage and transportation sectors within the oil and gas industry.

Duncan co-founded Enterprise Products Co. in 1968 and took Enterprise Products Partners public in July 1998. This year, he ranked 74th on Forbes’ worldwide list of billionaires, with an estimated net worth of $9 billion. He was Houston’s wealthiest resident, according to the list.

He was an avid hunter, and in 2002, his passion got him some unwanted attention after he illegally shot moose and sheep from a helicopter during a Russian hunting trip. Russian law generally forbids hunting while airborne. Duncan told a grand jury he didn’t know the hunting trip was illegal, and he and the other hunters on the trip were not charged.

Born in Shelby County in east Texas, philanthropist Duncan gave a $100-million donation to the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston in 2006.

-- times staff and wire reports

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