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Original Eckerd professor, 79, dies

Kenneth Keeton, a professor of German, helped integrate the St. Petersburg college in 1962.

By CRAIG BASSE
Published January 26, 2007

ST. PETERSBURG - He helped found Eckerd College, integrate its classrooms and marched in Selma, Ala., with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

"I went to Selma because I was compelled to go," Dr. Kenneth Keeton wrote in a 1965 report to the college's president. "All my Christian training and living, my education and experiences have been a preparation for just such an act."

Dr. Keeton, who retired in 1995 after teaching German at Eckerd for 35 years, died Wednesday (Jan. 24, 2007) at James A. Haley VA Medical Center in Tampa. He was 79.

Dr. Keeton had undergone open heart surgery last year and had returned to the hospital for more surgery, his wife, Cecilia, said Thursday.

He was Eckerd's last living founding faculty member.

"He was the youngest of the founders," Cecilia Keeton said. "He was the baby. They never let him forget that."

Dr. Keeton helped shape the college's curriculum and end segregation in classrooms.

In 1962, he encouraged an African-American student at Gibbs Junior College to apply to Eckerd, then known as Florida Presbyterian College. The student was denied admission.

Dr. Keeton rallied the faculty to write letters threatening resignation. The trustees agreed to integrate the college.

Three years later, on the night before the first Selma march, Dr. Keeton and a few others gathered at the home of philosophy professor Keith Irwin to listen to news on the radio of the civil rights unrest in Selma. In a "spur of the moment" decision, the group drove to Selma, Irwin said Thursday.

The journey was an example of "moral conscience and responsibility," said Rabbi David Susskind of Temple Beth-El, who also went.

Born in Owensboro, Ky., Dr. Keeton was drafted into the Army after finishing high school at 18. While serving in the Allied occupation of Germany at the end of World War II, he made a career-changing discovery: the German language.

"He was a music major," his wife said. "He went to Germany and imbedded with the German people and decided what he wanted to do."

After the war, Dr. Keeton enrolled at Georgetown College in Kentucky with a vocal music scholarship but graduated with a major in German. He earned a master's degree at the University of Kentucky and a doctorate at the University of North Carolina.

In 1960, word spread in college teaching circles that a new liberal arts college was opening in St. Petersburg. Dr. Keeton, then a professor of German language and literature at Wake Forest University, applied.

"It was considered a utopia for a language professor," he said shortly before he retired. "We felt privileged to be able to help plan a curriculum for a college with humanities as its background."

Survivors in addition to his wife include a daughter, Deborah Genz of Asheville, N.C.; a son, Jonathan of Mill Valley, Calif.; a stepdaughter, Julia Chesser of Wilmington, Del.; a stepson, Matthew Green of St. Petersburg; a sister, Dorothy Hindman of Russellville, Ky.; and two granddaughters.

There will be a memorial service at 4 p.m. Feb. 4 at Fox Hall, Eckerd College, 4200 54th Ave. S. Contributions can be made to Eckerd College's Scholarship Fund for International Study.

National Cremation Society of Clearwater is in charge.

Information from Times files was used in this obituary.

[Last modified January 26, 2007, 00:52:47]