Robert Hawkes, 66; Scholar of George Mason

Robert T. Hawkes Jr., 66, a George Mason University history professor who was the school's first specialist in the Revolutionary War-era statesman the university is named for, died of cancer March 4 in the room where he was born in Blackstone, Va.

Dr. Hawkes taught the history of the South and courses in late-19th-century history. He was scholar-in-residence at Gunston Hall, Mason's home, and he was a Mason Commonwealth scholar. He also founded the school's continuing-education department in 1973, just after the school split from the University of Virginia, and served as the departmental dean until 1991.

He then returned to teaching history and retired in 2006.

"People ask me how I've managed to stay at the same institution for so long. To them I say, 'In 37 years, I have been at many different institutions.' What characterizes George Mason is change," he told the Mason Gazette, an online newsletter for the school's faculty and staff. He said his favorite comment on an evaluation form was: "In every lecture, you gave me something that I thought about for the rest of the day."

"That was such a moving comment," he said. "That's what I always wanted to be as a teacher."

Dr. Hawkes was named faculty member of the year in 1996 by the school's alumni association. Upon his retirement, the history and art history department started the Robert T. Hawkes Endowed Professorship Fund to emphasize excellence in teaching and caring relationships with students.

He graduated from Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Va., and received a master's degree in history in 1967 and a doctorate in history in 1975 from the University of Virginia. He also did postdoctoral work at Harvard University.

He joined George Mason in 1969. The Fairfax school, then part of the University of Virginia, was so little-known that "in order to get publicity, we'd have to send a student out to climb the flagpole and then call The [Washington] Post and tell them that. It rarely worked," joked Dr. Hawkes, who was known for his dry wit and deliberate style of speaking.

He was a resident of Fairfax since 1969 but moved back to his family's home in southern Virginia two weeks ago.

He enjoyed traveling and for 18 years took his parents on trips across the United States.

His sister, Mary Sue Wilson of Crewe, Va., said he spoke at every opportunity, to groups large and small, about Virginia history.

"He had the most unique Southern drawl," she said. "I won't even begin to imitate it, but I've never heard anyone else speak that way. It was very slow. . . . When he was in high school, he would speak at church, and it was thought he might even become a preacher. But he turned to teaching, not preaching."

In addition to his sister, survivors include a brother, Benjamin White Hawkes of Kernersville, N.C.