Thomas Leroy Kinney, age 90, passed away peacefully April 6, 2018, in Minneapolis, MN from natural causes. He was born March 28, 1928, in Detroit. A full obituary in his local paper can be read here.
Tom’s classmate and lifelong friend, David Cole, kindly provides the following reminiscence.
Tom and I grew up together in Royal Oak, Michigan; were classmates from the 8th grade on; and left Royal Oak High School in the summer of 1945, in the middle of our senior year to go to Deep Springs. Tom arrived in the summer and I in the fall of ’45. In Royal Oak we sang in the same high school choir, played second string on the same football team, and spent a lot of time together.
Tom’s uncle, Carlton Kinney, was a Telluride Pinhead about the same vintage as my father, Harold Cole. Carlton’s son, of the same name as I remember, also attended Deep Springs a few years later.
After two years at Deep Springs, Tom went to Swarthmore to complete his undergraduate studies, and I, after spending a year in China, went to Cornell. We both were drafted into the Army for the Korean War and then came together again at the University of Michigan for the 1953 spring semester, where we were roommates. He began graduate work in English, and I in Economics.
A year or two later, Ed Hoenicke DS46 joined us in Ann Arbor where he was in the Law School. The three of us and our respective spouses at that time spent some wonderful times together. When we finished our graduate work, Tom went to Bowling Green and never left. I went to Vanderbilt, the US Aid Program in Washington and Korea and then on to Harvard, from which I retired in 1994, one year after Tom retired from Bowling Green.
We kept in touch over the years and both attended our 50th high school reunion together in 1996, which was the last time we met. He was a good buddy, sang a good solid bass and was a dear friend.