Obituaries : * George R. Wallace; Ex-Oil Drilling Superintendent

George R. Wallace, a former oil drilling superintendent for Chevron Corp. and a seasoned world traveler who had lived in Camarillo, died Tuesday. He was 82.

Born in 1912 in Palestine, Tex., Wallace moved to California with his family during the Depression. Wallace graduated from Taft Union High School in Taft in 1933. A year later, he married his high school sweetheart.

“We met out on the lawn in front of the high school,� said Wallace’s widow, Lura Wallace. “Kids would sit out there during breaks and after school.�

After graduation, Wallace went to work for Chevron, which was then Standard Oil, as a rig builder in the San Joaquin Valley. He ascended through the ranks, working as a roustabout, a drilling foreman, supervisor and superintendent before he retired in 1978.

While he worked for Chevron, the couple moved up and down the West Coast, living in Bakersfield, Seattle and Alaska. Avid travelers, the Wallaces circled the globe on vacations that included a 99-day cruise around the world on a Russian ship.

“We have been on every continent except Antarctica,� said Lura Wallace, 80, referring to their many travels. “We have gone to every state in the union and my husband took a picture of every capital of every state.�

Wallace’s siblings remembered Wallace as a sports enthusiast who was something of a pool shark as well as a voracious reader.

“If you wanted to know something, you could ask him,� said Wallace’s brother, Lynn Wallace, 65. “He generally knew.�

In addition to his wife, Wallace is survived by sons Robert G. Wallace of San Francisco and Gary L. Wallace of New York; brothers Warren Wallace of Fresno and Lynn H. Wallace of Silverton, Ore.; sisters Kathryn Curtis of Simi Valley and Ann Van Wie of North Hills; five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

Services will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday at Pierce Brothers Griffin Mortuary Chapel in Camarillo.

Donations in memory of George R. Wallace may be sent to the American Heart Assn.

Arrangements are under the direction of the Pierce Brothers Griffin Mortuary in Camarillo.