Thursday, January 4, 2007 11:00 AM

Lawrence Franklin SkibbieArmy Officer

Lawrence Franklin Skibbie, 74, a retired Army lieutenant general whose assignments included deputy commander for research, development and acquisition of the Army Materiel Command, died Dec. 10 at his home in Arlington County. He had cancer.

Gen. Skibbie, who was born in Bowling Green, Ohio, graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., in 1954 and received a master's degree in mechanical engineering from New Mexico State University in 1961.

He also attended the Command and General Staff College, the Industrial College of the Armed Forces and artillery and ordnance schools.

Gen. Skibbie held a variety of command and staff positions during his 33-year military career, including commanding general of the Army Communications-Electronics Command in Fort Monmouth, N.J., commander of the Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois and associate professor of ordnance engineering at West Point.

In 1968 and 1969, he served in the Vietnam War as commander of the 63rd Maintenance Battalion.

His military decorations included two awards of the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star and four awards of the Meritorious Service Medal.

Gen. Skibbie retired from active military duty in 1987. He then became president and chief executive of the American Defense Preparedness Association, as well as its successor organization, the National Defense Industrial Association.

He retired again in 2001 and focused on volunteer work, including as vice president of the National Military Family Association, which advocates for military families.

He was a member of the board of defense industry firms, the Boy Scouts of America, the National Science Center and the Easter Seal Society.

He was a member of the Washington Institute of Foreign Affairs, an inductee of the Army Ordnance Corps Hall of Fame and a parishioner of Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church in Alexandria.

His pastimes included gardening and tennis.

Survivors include his wife of 52 years, Nancy Joan Skibbie of Arlington; four children, Dana Best of Wheaton, Michael Skibbie of Hopkinton, N.H., David Skibbie of Takoma Park and Mark Skibbie of Bethesda; a brother; and six grandchildren.

Sidney Dealey Butterfield Jr., 84, a World War II Army veteran, former FBI special agent and government investigator, died Dec. 7 at his home in South Bethany Beach, Del. He had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Mr. Butterfield, a native of Jamestown, N.Y., attended American University before joining the Army during World War II. He survived the sinking of an ammunition ship as he took part in the initial landing at Anzio, Italy. He later told his family that he was one of the first Americans to greet Pope Pius XII as the Allied forces arrived in Rome.

After the war, Mr. Butterfield became an FBI agent and worked in the field offices in Salt Lake City, Indianapolis and Newark. He was later transferred to FBI headquarters in Washington and helped in major crime investigations, including the great Brinks robbery in Boston.

In 1957, he left the FBI and started a real estate company in Bethesda, followed by a residential construction business he opened with his father and brother.

In 1968, he took a position with the State Department as a foreign assistance inspector. He then worked as an investigator for what was the Department of Health, Education and Welfare and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, from which he retired in 1975.

In retirement, Mr. Butterfield worked a few years as executive director of the Federal Law Enforcement Association, which provided training for federal officers.

He also organized several army reunion trips to Italy in the 1980s and 1990s. On his last trip to Italy, Mr. Butterfield presented the mayor of Anzio with a bronze plaque commemorating the U.S. landing at Anzio.

In the late 1990s, Mr. Butterfield moved from Bethesda to South Bethany, where he served on the town council.

His wife of 59 years, Virginia Garland Butterfield, died in 2004.

Survivors include six children, Christine Long of Rockville, Elizabeth Bridgman of Dunwoody, Ga., Melissa Bourne of Rockville, John Butterfield of Fairfax, Michael Butterfield of Stevensville, Md., and Margaret Saylor of North Potomac; a brother, James R. Butterfield of Rockville; and 12 grandchildren.

James Robert McNesby, 84, a scientist and academic who retired in 1982 after six years as chairman of the University of Maryland chemistry department, died Dec. 12 at his home in Arlington. He had Alzheimer's disease.

Before joining the University of Maryland faculty, Dr. McNesby had worked nearly 20 years at what is now the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

His positions at NIST included chief of the office of air and water measurement, manager of measures for air quality, chief of the physical chemistry division and section chief of photochemistry and radiation chemistry.

In the 1950s, Dr. McNesby worked at the U.S. Naval Ordnance Test Station in China Lake, Calif., conducting research on photochemistry of highly reactive molecules. He became a leading authority in the field, chairing national and international photochemistry conferences, lecturing, writing or co-writing several book chapters, and publishing more than 80 articles in scientific journals.

Dr. McNesby was a native of Bayonne, N.J., and a Phi Beta Kappa chemistry graduate of Ohio University. After serving in the Army at the end of World War II, he earned a doctorate degree in physical chemistry from New York University.

His professional honors included the 1958 Rockefeller Public Service Award, the Commerce Department's Silver and Gold medals, and the Robert Rowan award for service to the University of Maryland.

A sports fan throughout his life, he cheered the old St. Louis Browns baseball team and continued to follow them after the team moved to Baltimore and became the Orioles. He was a Washington Redskins season ticket holder for more than 40 years.

Survivors include his wife of 58 years, Helen Louise Rittenhouse McNesby of Arlington; three children, Kevin McNesby of Churchville, Md., James McNesby of Falls Church and Shawn Fischer of Tivoli, N.Y.; and five grandchildren.

Sara Mae Hammond Knight McIntyre, 93, a government lawyer who retired in 1972 as assistant general counsel for the Small Business Administration, died Dec. 30 at her home in Arlington after a series of strokes.

Mrs. McIntyre was born in Summerville, Ga., and raised in Alabama. She graduated from the University of Alabama, where she also was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of its law school in 1936.

After beginning her career in Birmingham as a project lawyer for the federal Resettlement Administration, she moved to Washington in 1937 to take a position with the Social Security Administration.

In 1938, she moved to the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, and subsequently to the Small Business Administration.

She was a parliamentarian of the Washington Club as well as a member of the club's preservation fund committee. She was a member of First Baptist Church in Washington, where she was a recipient of its Truman Award for Christian service and a member of the board of directors of the First Baptist Church Foundation.

She also belonged to the Phi Mu social sorority.

Her first husband, C. Louis Knight, died in 1985, after 41 years of marriage. In 1988, she married former deputy assistant Postmaster General C.A. McIntyre. He died in 1996.

Survivors include a stepdaughter, Joy McIntyre of Sarasota, Fla.