Dr. Donald Ray Butts, a devoted husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, physician, teacher, veteran, outdoorsman, and respected leader in the Texas medical community passed away on August 5, 2026, surrounded by close friends and family at Houston Northwest Hospital. He was 90 years old and just three days shy of his 91st birthday.

Don was born on August 8, 1935, at his father's lumber camp along the Red River in Northeast Texas. He was delivered at home by his grandfather, Dr. Thompson "T.R." Butts, a country physician who cared for families throughout Bowie and Red River counties. His mother was Johnnie Mae Reeder Butts and his father was T.C. Butts.

Because his father operated lumber mills, Don spent his childhood in several towns throughout Texas and Arkansas. He grew up around horses, heavy machinery, sawmills, river bottoms, and hardworking men and women. He learned responsibility early, working alongside his father in the family lumber business and obtaining a special driver's license at the age of 13 after his father suffered a heart attack.

As a young boy, Don frequently accompanied his grandfather on medical house calls. A fishing trip could be interrupted by a family needing a baby delivered, an injury treated, or a patient comforted. Watching his grandfather serve others made a lasting impression. By the age of four, Don had decided that he, too, would become a doctor.

Don attended Texas A&M University beginning in 1953, where he was a member of the Corps of Cadets. His family moved to New Mexico and then Arizona for lumber mill opportunities after one year. Following the death of his father when Don was only 19, he returned to Texas and continued his education at North Texas. While still a student, he taught freshman botany laboratories, even before he had taken the course himself, and worked long hours at his uncle's grocery store to help finance his education. He graduated from North Texas in 1958 and entered medical school at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.

While in Galveston, Donald met the love of his life, Jo Ann Durso. They were married on Easter Sunday, April 2, 1961. Don embraced Jo Ann's Catholic faith before their marriage, beginning a lifelong commitment to the Church that remained an important foundation of their family life.

Don earned his medical degree from UTMB in 1962 and completed a rotating internship at Hermann Hospital in Houston. In 1963, during the doctors' draft, Dr. Butts entered the United States Navy. He volunteered to serve as a destroyer squadron physician and was responsible for the medical care of sailors aboard multiple ships traveling through the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Mediterranean. He treated illnesses and injuries at sea, transferred between moving ships by highline cable, and cared for sailors during hurricanes and international military tensions. He later served at Naval Air Station Kingsville, where he organized improved treatment and observation facilities for servicemen and their families.

After completing his military service, Dr. Butts returned to Houston for his general surgery residency at Hermann Hospital. He distinguished himself as an exceptionally capable surgeon, researcher, and teacher. He helped advance central venous access techniques for critically ill infants, participated in early cancer-treatment research, and received the Violet Keeler Award as the outstanding resident among all specialties at Hermann.

Dr. Butts then helped design a new colorectal surgery fellowship program and became its first fellow. He completed his colorectal training in 1970 and entered private practice. In 1972, he and Dr. James Hampton founded the Colorectal Clinic of Houston.

What began as a small practice grew into one of Houston's most prominent colorectal surgical groups, with offices throughout the city, 14 physician partners, and four fellows at its height. At its peak, the Colorectal Clinic of Houston was the largest of its kind in the nation. Dr. Butts served as the clinic's president for many years and helped educate generations of surgeons. Dr. Butts trained several hundred colorectal surgeons, who went on to serve patients and lead medical programs throughout the United States and abroad.

Over the course of a medical career spanning nearly 50 years, Dr. Butts cared for several thousands of patients. He was known for accepting the most difficult cases and for finding creative solutions when conventional approaches failed. He helped introduce and improve techniques involving colonoscopy, colorectal cancer treatment, bowel reconstruction, and outpatient anorectal surgery. His greatest professional satisfaction did not come from awards or titles, but from seeing a patient recover and return to a full life.

Dr. Butts also gave generously of his time to organized medicine. He became the first president of the North Branch of the Harris County Medical Society and later served as president of the Houston Academy of Medicine. In 2004, he served as president of the Harris County Medical Society.

He was a prominent advocate for physicians and patients during the campaign for Texas medical liability reform, organizing physicians to travel to Austin and meet directly with legislators. He later served three terms on the board of the Texas Medical Liability Trust, representing Texas physicians in Austin and Washington. After Hurricane Ike, he worked with others to oppose efforts to move UTMB away from Galveston. In 2016, he served on the Harris Health System board before retiring fully from medicine and medical leadership.

Among the professional honors Don received were the Violet Keeler Award and the Ashbel Smith distinguished alumni honor from UTMB. Although he appreciated the recognition of his peers, he always believed that the true measure of a physician was how faithfully he cared for his patients.

Don's life outside medicine was every bit as remarkable. He was an avid hunter, fisherman, traveler, storyteller, and adventurer. His journeys took him throughout North and South America, Europe, Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. He rode into the Shoshone Wilderness, crossed African swamps in a narrow dugout, survived an Alaskan whiteout, and famously survived the charge of an African lion on his 48th birthday. Don was the recipient of the Houston Safari Club Lifetime Hunter Achievement award in 2008.

He shared many of these adventures with his family, friends, and fellow physicians, while Jo Ann joined him on travels throughout Europe and other parts of the world. Their home in Ponderosa Forest became a gathering place for family, friends, physicians, and neighbors. It was also filled with books, photographs, awards, flags, hunting trophies, and reminders of a life fully lived.

Despite his many professional accomplishments and extraordinary adventures, Donald's most important legacy was his family. He and Jo Ann raised six children and built a family that now spans four generations.

Don Butts is survived by his beloved wife, Jo Ann Butts, and five of their six children, Katy Butts-Dehm (Todd), Donald Butts II (Christine), Turner Butts (Ann), Anthony Butts(Vanessa), Josie Leetch (Dylan), and Scott Miller (Son-in-Law); and his 12 grandchildren, Donald Butts III (Amanda), Abby Butts, T.C. Butts (Brianna), Thompson Butts, Lydia Butts, Michael Butts, Malee Leetch, Dylan Leetch, Wyatt Butts, Charlotte Butts, Kai Leetch, and Antonio Butts.Donald was preceded in death by his eldest daughter Leslie Miller.

He is also survived by his two great-grandchildren, CamrynButts and Donald Butts IV, with two additional great-grandchildren expected soon.

Don encouraged his children, grandchildren, students, and fellow physicians to work hard, remain curious, choose careersthey love, and take care of the people entrusted to them. He valued courage, loyalty, faith, humor, service, and the willingness to undertake responsibility when others needed help.

Looking back upon his long and extraordinary life, Don said, "I don't have any regrets. I think that I've lived an honorable life."Those who knew and loved Dr. Donald Ray Butts would agree. His was a life of faith and family, courage, service, healing and adventure. A life lived fully, generously, and honorably.

Well done, good and faithful servant.