Born January 6, 1929, in Tulare, CA, to Charles Clayton Curlee and Laviner Victoria Curlee. He attended schools in Tulare and San Bernardino, graduating from Tulare Union High School in 1946. He then attended Visalia College and Fresno State University, where he graduated with a degree in journalism in 1951. He was sports editor and editor of the campus newspaper at Visalia College, and sports editor of the campus newspaper at Fresno State during his time there.

His first job, at age 15 when he lived in San Bernardino, was delivering ice - working on the weekends so he would have “wheels” for going out. He was on the baseball team at Fresno State University from March through October from 1945-1951 and was the co-captain of the team when they won the 1951 State Championship. With that team, he is in the Fresno State Hall of Fame.

After graduation, he married Marilyn J. Moore of Fresno, and accepted a job in the atomic energy program in Paducah, Kentucky. His uncle Jack was the construction manager and he and Marilyn lived there for three years, giving birth to their eldest daughter. He returned to Fresno in 1954 to join public relations counselor Ed Boles as account executive. He was named executive director of the Northern California Chapter, American Institute of Architects in San Francisco in 1959, and later became editor of Western Fruit Grower magazine. During this time he had relocated with his wife and four children to South San Francisco where they remained until 1974. He was named executive assistant at the Council of California Growers and later managed a trade association of table grape growers in Delano.

He returned to the Valley, and began farming in Clovis, CA (pomegranates) as well as starting his own company, Don Curlee-Public Relations in 1976. He was an accredited member of the American Institute of Public Relations. He created the “Ag at Large” column which appeared for 20 plus years in the Visalia Times-Delta and(for at least part of that time in the Tulare Advance Register), also the Hanford Sentinel and the Porterville Recorder, the Marysville paper, and the Capital Press(Salem,Oregon), the Madera Tribune and others from time to time. He sold his first free-lance article to a trade magazine while in college, and contributed articles to trade and golf business magazines for more than 40 years.

He was an avid golfer throughout his life, and at 89, “shot his age” while at his favorite course - Airways in Fresno. He also ignited his love of racing in his later years as he acquired a midget race car, which he refurbished, tuned up and raced in the “Old-Timers” races, locally. He accepted Christ at a Billy Graham Crusade when he was 20 and was active in church his whole life, instilling the love of Christ in his family.