Dade City native, town 'character' Earl McKinney dies
Remembered for his Christmas holiday high jinks, Mr. McKinney is dead at 80.
By CHASE SQUIRES
Published May 4, 2004
DADE CITY - Once described in a newspaper column as "the closest thing Dade City has to a town character," and known for his flowing white beard and offbeat sense of humor, Earl McKinney died Sunday (May 2, 2004) of complications from cancer surgery. He was 80.
Friends on Monday remembered Mr. McKinney for his merry ways and individualism.
"No one could tell Earl what to do," longtime friend John Herrmann said.
Retired St. Petersburg Times columnist Jan Glidewell was the one who recorded in print Mr. McKinney's role as town character, and on Monday Glidewell remembered Mr. McKinney's part in the town's annual Church Avenue Christmas events.
Pressed years ago by a pastor he was not especially fond of at Dade City's First Baptist Church, McKinney gave in and decorated his home for the annual Christmas celebration. Living next door to the church in a rambling Victorian house, Mr. McKinney erected a nativity scene in his front yard.
Glidewell recalled that Mr. McKinney planted dozens of plastic flamingos surrounding the manger, their backsides pointed at the church.
A new pastor took over in the mid 1990s, and he made peace with Mr. McKinney, Glidewell said. At Christmas of 1996, there were only two flamingos.
"I asked him about it," Glidewell said of McKinney. "He said, "I kind of like this fellow.' "
Herrmann and others also remembered the giant, off-color "Christmas card" Mr. McKinney put up in his yard. It featured Santa Claus' sleigh crashed into an outhouse, with Santa berating Rudolph by saying, "I said Schmitt house."
Mr. McKinney's holiday high jinks didn't stop there. A Christmas card he mailed one year featured a photograph of him on the front, wearing nothing but a baseball cap. His legs are tastefully crossed.
Inside, Mr. McKinney wrote, "The devil made me do it."
Herrmann recalled how his father made Mr. McKinney an honorary Herrmann in the early 1970s and the family embraced him. Mr. McKinney was with the Herrmann family for Easter dinner this year.
Herrmann said it was then that Mr. McKinney told him about his upcoming cancer surgery.
"He said, "I tell you, Johnny, I'm an old man, and if I don't come out from under the knife, I'm at peace with that,' " Herrmann recalled.
Friends Mandy Ruiz and Dean Landis recalled how Mr. McKinney let them stay with him when they needed a place in the 1970s, and Landis remembered the fuss Mr. McKinney put up when the two attempted to organize his house for him.
"We wanted to help him redecorate the place," Landis said with a laugh. "He would have none of it. He said he couldn't find anything."
Ruiz noted, "He seemed to know everybody, everything in town, but you never knew what to expect from him."
Businessman Otto Weitzenkorn hired Mr. McKinney in the 1960s. Weitzenkorn had just bought a furniture store where Mr. McKinney had worked.
"He said, "You've put me out of a job; now you've got to hire me. I can cook, I can clean, I can drive and do everything,"' Weitzenkorn said.
During 18 years of working with him, Weitzenkorn said he trusted Mr. McKinney completely, often asking him to drive his children or his parents, or handle thousands of dollars worth of merchandise.
"He would walk through fire for me," Weitzenkorn said. "Earl was a good soul. He was a treasure."
In recent months, longtime friend Carnes Linton stepped in to help Mr. McKinney deal with his illness. Throughout the fight, Linton said, Mr. McKinney was upbeat and a week ago was trying to regain enough strength for a trip to visit family in Kentucky.
Mr. McKinney was born in Dade City in 1923. He attended Pasco High School and served as a combat engineer in the Army during World War II in Africa, France and Germany.
He stayed in the Army until 1966, serving in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Korea, Oklahoma and Germany. Upon retirement, he returned to Dade City and worked at Otto's Department Store for 18 years.
Mr. McKinney is survived by a sister, Edith McKinney; sister-in-law Geoff McKinney; three nephews, and a niece.
The family will receive friends at Hodges Family Funeral Home, 14046 Fifth St., Dade City, from 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday. Services will be held in the funeral home chapel at 10 a.m. Thursday, with the Rev. Brad Stevens officiating. Burial will follow at Florida National Cemetery.
Herrmann said Mr. McKinney told him friends teased him for collecting assorted items and filling his house with antiques.
True to his wishes, as a final poke at those who scolded him with "You can't take it with you," Mr. McKinney's casket will be towed to his grave in a U-Haul trailer.
