Austin L. Beall · 1993 Honoree

Austin has been called many things among them son, brother, uncle, friend, and Commander. One name typifies why Austin is a 1993 Capitol Hill Community Achievement Award recipient. That name, “Do it Beall,” was bestowed on him over 20 years ago by his fellow members of the Kiwanis Club of Capitol Hill. It is as appropriate now as it was then. Austin’s patience with whys, wheres, pros, and cons wears out quickly. When it does he announces, “We’ve masticated on this long enough. Let's stop talking and just do it.”

Austin grew up in a staunch Methodist “do it” family in Damascus, Maryland. Both parents were morticians, but Austin followed his own career path. Along the way, he gathered the tools for making Capitol Hill a better place. Austin’s always loved plants; his earliest job was tending his family’s lawn and flowers. Even today, Austin hangs plants in the Restoration Society’s ticket kiosk.

At Western Maryland College and George Washington University, Austin studied to be a teacher. Student teaching changed his mind. Too often he found himself taking a student’s viewpoint, not the administration’s. Austin retains and effectively uses this ability not to follow old ways blindly. Early in his 1962-64 presidency of the Capitol Hill Restoration Society, he received a phone call challenging the Society’s acceptance of its first non-Caucasian member. Austin responded with, “And, why not?” He proved his point by doubling the Society’s membership in two years, a feat he has repeated several times since.

Austin’s first Washington job was as a government clerk in the 1930s. He excelled at meticulous record keeping and brought this skill to his organizational work on the Hill. Under Austin’s watchful eye, no potential member goes unrecruited; no member goes uncounted or unsolicited; and no contribution goes unrecognized.

During World War Il Austin served as a Lt. JG, USN. His desk? Administration at the Bureau of Personnel and Ships. Next he polished his already considerable social skills as the aide to a Navy captain. To this day no one on Capitol Hill advises our organizations’ presidents, wears white tie and tails, or delivers a well-deserved rebuke quite like Austin.

After the war ended, Austin rose to the rank of Commander in the Naval Reserves. As a State Department civilian personnel officer he traveled all over the United States and Europe, and caught a wanderlust that hasn’t been sated. Still in 1960 Austin wanted to put down roots. He tried Virginia and considered Georgtown. He chose Capitol Hill. A neighborhood centered on the US Capitol appealed to his strong sense of patriotism. “Where else,” he muses even now, “can you walk out the front door of your house, go a few steps, and see the Capitol?”

Where else indeed? Capitol Hill is the better for Austin's choice. For 33 years Austin L. Beall has been our dashing man about town, our leader, our personnel recruiter, our record keeper, our supporter and ally, our challenger to “just do it”, and then to “do it” better next time. He has become the Patriarch of Capitol Hill.