Jacque Zivic Houck’s career as a phys-ed teacher included 10 years at the University of Delaware, where she taught synchronized swimming, produced routines, and wrote a textbook on the sport with hand-drawn illustrations.

Pittsburgh-raised Houck ’48, ’49 MEdu H&HD spent a lifetime diving into her passions. She didn’t merely shuttle daughter Cyndy to gymnastics and diving meets, she got certified in both as a volunteer judge. While raising their family of three kids, she and husband Kenneth ’48 MEng got a community pool built in Wilmington, Del. 

As a Penn State student, she was a varsity swimmer and part of the 1947 U.S. Telegraphic Intercollegiate Swimming Championship freestyle relay team, for which schools saved travel money by racing  simultaneously on their own campuses and comparing times via telegraph. After earning her master’s in education, she shared PE teaching duties with another first-year instructor, a young assistant football coach named Joe Paterno.

In retirement, Houck spearheaded a campaign to pressure the town of Hilton Head, S.C., to build a park with public tennis courts, and she volunteered teaching at-risk kids to read and swim. “She really did have a heart for the less fortunate,” says son Ted. 

A founding member and first president of the Alumni Association’s Low Country Chapter, Houck was an accomplished Masters and Senior Olympics swimmer. She was still exercising regularly up to a week before she died.

Houck (CO), 97, died Sept. 11, 2024, on Hilton Head Island. Besides her son, she is survived by a daughter, Marsha Beaumont, five grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. —Meri-Jo Borzilleri