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Obituary: Kevin McKibbin
The following obituary ran in the Santa Fe New Mexican on June 27, 2010.
Our friend and father, Kevin McKibbin, 79, passed away on June 13, 2010, after a long battle with Lewy Body dementia and diabetes.
Kevin was born in 1930 in St. Paul, Minnesota, to Dorothy Scarritt and Joseph Chambers McKibbin. After Joe's early death in 1931, Dorothy returned to Santa Fe with her young son, where he grew up and attended Santa Fe High School. Kevin enlisted in the Army and was a veteran of the Korean War. Upon his return from Korea he married Mary Gower (“M.G.”) Thompson, a childhood and family friend from Kansas City, continued with college, and received a degree in Geology from the University of New Mexico.
He worked for a short time as a land surveyor in Albuquerque, where daughter Anne was born, then for the Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, where daughter Karen was born. In 1964 he began a career in the National Park Service that took Kevin and family to Utah, Arizona, Arkansas, and eventually back to New Mexico. He retired from the National Park Service in 1988 after eleven years at Bandelier National Monument and continued to live in White Rock, New Mexico, until 2004 when he returned to live in Santa Fe.
His lifelong love and respect for the Southwest, its spectacular environment and many cultures, and his connections with the Los Alamos community that began during the time of the Manhattan Project are qualities and experiences he shared with his family and friends and for which he will be long remembered. He is survived by his daughters, Anne and Karen, both living in Colorado; he was preceded in death by his wife, M.G.
In lieu of flowers, donations in Kevin’s name may be made to Friends of Bandelier (www.friendsofbandelier.org), the Wildlife Center www.thewildlifecenter.org, 505 753-9505), or Presbyterian Medical Services Hospice Center (www.pmsfsouthwest.org, 505 954-2302). Cremation has occurred. A celebration of Kevin’s life will be held July 31, 2010, in Santa Fe.
Read the obituary from the National Park Service.
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