College Station, Texas ? Howard Graves, who retired as Texas A&M University System chancellor in late August as he battled cancer, died Saturday. He was 64.

Graves, who became chancellor in 1999, was diagnosed in 2001 with sarcoma, a rare form of cancer that began in his abdomen and spread to his lungs. He died at his home in College Station, surrounded by his family, according to a university news release.

“From serving our country in the U.S. Army to serving our state as chancellor of The Texas A&M University System, his life was always about helping others and never about himself,” Gov. Rick Perry, a graduate of Texas A&M, said in the news release.

Graves kept up a grueling schedule over the past 2 1/2 years despite chemotherapy and radiation treatments at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and its affiliate in Bryan-College Station. He announced early last month that he was discontinuing his treatment after being told further chemotherapy would have little effect.

“I don’t want to picture this as a crisis or a failure. The fact is we won the battle for two-and-a-half years,” Graves said in early August. He said he wanted to stay on the job as long as possible, but decided less than three weeks later that it was time to quit.

He stepped down as chancellor on Aug. 31. A. Benton Cocanougher was named interim chancellor by the A&M System Board of Regents.

Graves was a native of Roaring Springs, about 60 miles northeast of Lubbock. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., in June 1961 and attended Oxford University in England as a Rhodes Scholar, earning bachelor of arts, master of arts and master of letters degrees.

He was a former Army general who returned to West Point to serve the academy for five years as its superintendent.

Graves also commanded the United States Army War College at Carlisle Barracks, Pa.

Survivors include his wife, two children and five grandchildren.