Deceased December 27, 2022
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in memory
Robert Francis Denny passed away in Williamsburg, Va., shortly after Christmas 2022. Bob is survived by wife Julie, three married daughters, five grandchildren and five sisters. It may say a lot about our redheaded, adventurous one-time class president that he came to us from within a circle of sisters in Missouri who attended, and perhaps attended to, his growing up.
Bob traveled from Mexico, Mo. (less than 30 miles north of the site of Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech); to Amherst; to Waco, Texas; to Sacramento, Calif.; to East Hampton, Long Island; to Marco Island, Fla.; to Williamsburg. Long-distance driving, from home to college and back, gave way to flying as a captain, navigator and instructor of navigators in the U.S. Air Force and to boating Florida’s inland coast and the Chesapeake Bay.
A Theta Delt at Amherst, Bob got an M.A. at Baylor University and, upon discharge from active duty, joined an insurance firm in East Hampton. By his own account, he took up insurance by actually reading contracts and learning from them as he gradually assumed charge, for a long, prosperous while, of a business where he was, according to Charlie Updike ’61, “a sophisticated professional with many clients with far more than a local footprint—and a droll sense of humor.” On his watch, his company grew to employ 125 people.
I find it easy to imagine Bob now, driving his small family when all were young, in their American sedan, from Waco to Sacramento, then from California to Long Island, since I remember well the tenacity of his driving. I’d relieve him some, but not a whole lot, as we’d drive all night and greet the morning on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, coming through the Tuscarora or Kittatinny Mountain Tunnel, looking for coffee, on our way to Amherst.
David Hamilton ’61