Peter David Lips, of Cross Junction, Virginia, passed away peacefully on August 17, at the age of 75, with his loving wife Dianne at his side.  

Pete was born to Heinz and Elizabeth Lips on October 28, 1947, in Wilmington, Delaware. He had three older (Bill, Tom, Walt) and three younger (James, David, Linda) siblings. Pete excelled in athletics from an early age and was a key member of championship-winning football and basketball teams at Brandywine High School. 

He met the love of his life, Dianne Marie Schmidt, in the sixth grade. Pete and Dianne began dating the day after their high school graduation, and married four years later on June 7, 1969. In between, Pete spent a post-grad year at Lawrenceville Preparatory School and enrolled at Princeton University. During his senior year at Princeton, Pete was recognized as first-team All Ivy League in football, and he set a school record for career interceptions that would stand for almost two decades. In the fall of 1969, his football team claimed a share of the Ivy League championship with an upset victory of league-leading Dartmouth. He captained the lacrosse team, during the last year of Hall of Famer Ferris Thompson’s coaching career, to a distinguished conclusion as recounted in Pete’s article, “Someone to Believe In,” in the Princeton Alumni Weekly. He was voted third-team All-American in lacrosse and received Princeton’s William Winston Roper Trophy (for the most outstanding senior athlete) and Higginbotham Award (for the most outstanding lacrosse player). 

Pete earned his MBA at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. He served six years of active duty as a Sergeant in the U.S. Army Reserve and was recognized as a Distinguished Honor Graduate of the Drill Sergeant Academy.

During the early years of his business career, he worked for Sears Roebuck and Company at Sears Tower in downtown Chicago. His role grew from retail distribution to strategic planning on new ventures. In 1984 he moved his family to Weston, Connecticut, as he became the Director of Business Planning for Prodigy Services, a joint venture with IBM that helped usher in the online age. 

After leaving Prodigy for entrepreneurial ventures in 1993, Pete was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, which then had an alarmingly small survival rate. He fought through it and spent the next three decades putting his talents to work in developing strategic plans and in other consultative roles for a variety of entrepreneurial efforts.  As he neared retirement, he served as the treasurer and senior financial officer for Independent Women’s Forum. 

Pete and Dianne relocated to Virginia in 2000 after their children all settled in and around Washington DC.  Pete is survived by his wife Dianne, by his three children and their spouses – Brad and Stephanie Lips; Carrie and Aaron Lukas; and Dan and Karin Lips – as well as twelve grandchildren: Andrew, Emma, Morgan, and PD; Molly, Meredith, Finn, Maggie, and Max; and JD, Johnny, and Jake. 

Pete was an excellent student and mastered many hobbies: among them, photography, swing dancing, and killing bees with his bare hands. His only notable weaknesses were in playing the flutophone and teaching German to young people, erroneously celebrating accomplishment with an ungrammatical “gaben ze mir die fünf” as an attempt at “gimme five.”  

Pete taught generations of family members to kiss the fish they caught off the dock at Lake Hopatcong. He invented the games “Moodoos, Stoodoos, and Cateroodoo’s” and “Rocketship to Mars.” He played an enthusiastic tickle piano, and popularized a dance called The Papa. He is remembered as a great Little League baseball and basketball coach, and for playing intense 3-on-3 basketball in his 40s with people half his age. He was a fan of lemonade stands, Norman Vincent Peale, and Ronald Reagan. He would joke with pride that – not only did all three of his kids follow him to Princeton – none of them left a socialist. He was a die-hard Cubs fan. He may be the only person to have been at Wrigley Field for both Stan Musial’s 3000th hit in 1958 and the Cubs’ pennant-clinching shutout win in game 6 of the 2016 NLCS.

Pete will be remembered by his family as an endless source of encouragement, faith, and unconditional love.  He was kind and humble, and he remained positive and cheerful to the end. He will be dearly missed. 

A celebration of Pete’s life will take place in the fall. In lieu of flowers, Pete’s family suggests donations be made to Blue Ridge Hospice, 333 W Cork St., #405, Winchester, VA 22601.