Columbus, N.C. - John Kevin Dunne, 92, of 1064 Mills St., Columbus, N.C. , died early Saturday, November 17, 2007 in Columbus, of natural causes, and will be sorely missed. Kevin Dunne was born in Dublin, Ireland, on June 3, 1915, the son of Matthew and Kathleen Purcell Dunne, and emigrated to this country as a young boy in 1922. The family settled in Hartford, Connecticut, where Kevin was educated, graduating from Trinity College in 1939. English literature, and especially Shakespeare, was his great love. He also excelled in and coached tennis and swimming.He joined the National Guard in 1941 and was sent to Camp Blanding, Florida, with the 43rd National Guard. During the war he trained soldiers at various locations here and overseas, retiring in 1945 with the rank of major. In 1945 he joined the Hartford firm of P. Garvan, Inc., a textile by-product dealer, as a traveling representative. Kevin brought his family to Spartanburg in 1954. Rising to become the firm's executive vice president he played a key role in the company's move to Spartanburg in 1959. In 1975 he left P. Garvan to found his own successful textile by-product company, Dunne and Hill, which he directed until retiring in 1986. Besides serving as director in these firms, Kevin was active in other business ventures in which his personal charm, hard work and ability to bring the best out of others contributed to their success, and to the successful relations between the southern and northern textile industries. He was president of the Textile By-Products Association and director of Packaging and Specialty Papers. He also served as an officer of many additional organizations where his low-key diplomacy skills and practicality contributed to their success. He served in the Greenville Power Squadron, President of the Pisgah Chapter of Trout Unlimited, Chairman of St John's Catholic Church Council, Director of Polk County Hospice, director of the Sheltered Workshop, and director of Red Fox Country Club, and president of the Hunting Country Trails Association, among others. He was a member of the Piedmont Club. Known as the "perennial quiet man," Kevin combined modesty, kindness and generosity, a deep love of nature with inborn business ability, and these qualities drew people to him and made him a natural leader. He had numerous devoted friends of all ages, of whom, as one of them said "everyone who knew him came away the better for it." Kevin was a patient and dedicated trout fisherman; and loved the outdoors.Kevin is survived by his wife, Ann Elizabeth O'Brien Dunne, whom he married in 1941, and with whom he had three sons: John Kevin Dunne, Jr., of Dallas, Texas; Theodore Matthew Dunne, who predeceased him in 1969; and Christopher Crawford Dunne, of Athens, Greece. A sister, Hilda Irene Dunne Simms, predeceased him in 2003. Funeral services will be held at St. John's Catholic Church in Tryon, N.C. on Monday, November 19th at 11:30 A.M. and interred at Greenlawn Memorial Gardens in Spartanburg at 1:30 P.M. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Hospice of the Carolina Foothills, 130 Forest Glen Drive, Columbus, NC 28722 or to St. John's Catholic Church in Tryon, 180 Laurel Avenue, Tryon, NC 28782.
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