Published on: Thursday, May 20, 2010

Richmond “Max” Keeney, 79, of Montgomery Village, Md., died at Shady Grove Hospital April 27 after a seven month battle with cancer. Born June 27, 1930, in Newton, Mass., he moved to Winchester, Mass., with his parents before his first birthday.

The son of Robert Morgan Keeney, a longtime principal of Winchester High School who died in 1955, he attended Winchester schools through high school, graduating in 1948. In a memoir about his boyhood days, he recalled taking an English class taught by his dad, ”the best teacher I ever had.”

He went on to Amherst College, his father’s alma mater, where he received his B.A. in History in 1952. Shortly after graduation, because the Korean War was still being fought, he joined the Air Force. After meteorological training, he was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the Air Weather Command. Weather forecasters in the days before satellite technology were in great need for safe air travel, he noted in his memoir.

After short assignments at bases in Arkansas and Massachusetts, he was stationed at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. When the war was over, he left active duty in 1956 and began career training for the insurance industry in Washington, D.C. Later that year he married the former Gail Keating Conway of Dover, and they made their first home in Bethesda.

In 1958 he joined the Air Force Association whose offices were then in D.C., as its Insurance Director, and remained with the association, also as Membership Director, for almost 40 years, retiring in 1997.

During his years with AFA, he was also active in a number of community groups, holding offices in the Jaycees, the PTAs at his children’s schools, and other civic associations.

In 1960 he was elected to the Montgomery County Council. His knowledge of the county and of state and local governments and their land use and parks issues then led to his appointment in 1975 to the Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission. After a short gap to give full-time to the AFA, he accepted a reappointment to the Planning Commission, and worked with it for a total of 14 years before stepping down.

A swimmer since college days, a skier, a tennis player and golfer, he bought a getaway home almost 20 years ago in the Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania where he and his family and friends have continued to enjoy all those sports.

The U.S. stamp collection he began as a small boy, initially bought with money he made in after-school and summer jobs in Winchester, grew to be one of the finest in the nation. He also collected fine leather-bound volumes of the classics, and small elephant sculptures. A jigsaw puzzle enthusiast, he owned several hundred rare, unusual, one-of-a-kind difficult puzzles. There was always one waiting on a table to be finished in both of his homes.

He volunteered with senior citizens’ nursing homes, often just being a pal to a lonely resident. Up until a few months before he died, he led two different groups, one

to stimulate cognitive abilities, and one for residents to discuss past and current events, in the

National Lutheran Home in Rockville.

Through the years, he remained in close touch with friends from his Winchester school days, as well as from college and the Air Force. They often visited and traveled together with their families, and before computers and e-mail, kept the Postal Service busy with letters.

His mother, Vesta Richmond Keeney, remained in the family’s Winchester house until her death in 1960. His sister Ann, who died in 2004 in Winchester, and her husband Keith Russell and their children later lived in the family home.

Surviving, along with his wife Gail, are two daughters, the Rev. Caroline Keeney Meyers of Amherst, Mass., and Susan Keeney Brown, of Bethesda, and a son, John Richmond Keeney of Chicago, Ill.; sons-in-law Thomas Meyers and Matthew Brown; and grandchildren Rebecca and Sam Meyers, Christopher and Benjamin Brown, and Colm Keeney.

Services will be at 2 p.m. May 10 at Emmanuel Lutheran Church, 7730 Bradley Blvd., Bethesda, Md., with interment in the church’s columbarium.

The family suggests in place of flowers, that contributions honoring him may be made to the American Cancer Society chapter in their area, or to the American Kidney Fund at 6110 Executive Blvd., Suite 110,Rockville, Md. 20852, or to the Montgomery County Housing Partnership, 12200 Tech Road, Suite 250, Silver Spring, Md. 20904.