Palestine High School Alumni Association

02 / 02 / 1941  –  12 / 26 / 2006

Doris Henderson Allen, born February 2, 1941, grew up in the East Texas town of Palestine. After high school the 17-year old Doris moved to Dallas where she attended Marinello Beauty School.  After she married her husband Bert Allen and moved to Harlingen in the Rio Grande valley her career path led her to start her own shop, Curls & Things, which eventually she expanded to 4 other locations in the Harlingen area.

Doris started playing bridge in 1991 and just 4 years later she had become an Accredited ACBL Bridge Teacher. Mrs. Allen became a club director in 1997 and within 18 months had moved up to directing at higher levels of competition. She also gave Bridge lessons and owned the Dynamite Duplicate Bridge game in Harlingen. She started directing full time for ACBL in 2003 where she ruled at all levels of competition. She was one of the “original” tds at the now defunct E-Bridge where she directed under the name “Dallen.” She joined the ACBL team at BridgeBase Online in 2004 where she took up the designation ACBL_13. She ran her online tournaments with the same southern charm, grace and good spirits that characterized her popular tournaments in face to face bridge and landed her the 2005 Professional Tournament Directors Association Fred Friendly Award. Doris was in the hospital at the time so they rang her up so she could hear what the ACBL Daily Bulletin described as “rousing applause” given by the tournament directors present at the meeting upon the announcement of her award.

In her spare time Doris liked to garden, work logic puzzles and read. She is survived by her husband of 46 years Wilbert (Bert) Allen of Harlingen; one son Troy (Sheila) Allen of Delta Lake; daughter Elizabeth (Betsy) Allen of Philadelphia; brother Don (Jackie) Henderson of Old Hickory, Tennessee; grandchildren Brandi, Kevin, and Chris Thomas.  The face to face service celebrating her life is/was held at 10:30am on 30 December 2006 at the Wesley Methodist Church in Harlingen, TX. The online memorial tournament is/was held on 30 December 2006 at 3:00 pm est at BridgeBase Online.

The family requests in lieu of flowers that interested parties make contributions to the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX.