Beverly Mackin Baetge

Beverly Mackin Baetge, 90, died in Bryan/College Station, Texas on Monday, November 28, 2022

Born on Monday, April 11, 1932, in Little Rock, Arkansas, Bev expressed a love for sports, horses, and dogs from an early age. As a child, she cleaned stables in exchange for getting to ride horses. She graduated from Little Rock Central High School and from 1950-1952 she attended Monticello College in southeast Arkansas. Monticello College would now be considered a combination of finishing school and Junior College. She then transferred to and graduated from the University of Colorado, Boulder where she majored in Physical Education while making some lifelong friends as a Chi Omega. In 1956 she took an extensive, six-week grand tour of Europe on the Queen Mary to celebrate her graduation. Upon her return, she attended Florida State University where she attained a Master of Science degree and in 1959, she married George Donald Baetge.

Beverly’s favorite hobby, at which she excelled, was golf; she was the Women’s Texas State Senior Match Play Champion eight times and the Fort Bend Country Club Champion multiple times. Another favorite pastime was reading, having read and loved every Louis L’Amour book ever written.  In the 1980’s, Bev began the second phase of her life with Diane Cornwall at the historic McFarland Ranch, just south of Aledo. They met at a golf tournament in 1982 and bought their first cattle together in the late 1980s. As co-owners of the “D Bar B Cattle Company”, they bred award-winning heifers, topping their division at the invitational commercial heifer show, earning reserve champion as well as winning blue and red ribbons at the Fort Worth Stock Show. Because of their dedication to the conservation of ranch land, they received the Resident Conservation Award in 2002 for Region V of the Soil and Water Conservation District of Texas. A cowgirl to the bone, Bev was especially pleased and honored to be involved with the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame.

She was preceded in death by her husband, George Donald Baetge; her parents, Robert James and Gladys Mackin; and her only brother, Robert Mackin, Ph.D., in 2019, whom she was proud of for everything from his purple heart to his work at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab.

Closest to her heart, however, are her surviving sons and granddaughters; George Donald Baetge Jr., and his two daughters Georgia Mary Baetge and Jaxon Gail Baetge with Susan Gail Book of Lanai City, Hawaii; and James Mackin Baetge, daughter-in-law Dr. Courtney Lane Baetge, and their two daughters Hannah Lane Baetge and Hailey Ann Baetge of College Station, Texas. 

No service is scheduled at this time. Beverly will be cremated, and her ashes spread at the McFarland Ranch in the spring.

In lieu of flowers, please send a donation to Ronald McDonald House, Little People of America, or the charity of your choice.