NOTABLE DEATHS ELSEWHERE Kenneth C. Kelly, 92
Kenneth C. Kelly, a Black electronics engineer whose antenna designs contributed to the race to the moon, made satellite TV and radio possible and helped NASA communicate with Mars rovers and search for extraterrestrials, has died. The 92-yearold also worked to erase race barriers in the Navy, in California housing and on the newspaper comics pages.
Kelly was awarded more than a dozen patents for innovations in radar and antenna technology, work that appears in peer-reviewed journals from 1955-1999. His early work at Hughes Aircraft helped create guided missile systems and the ground satellites that tracked the Apollo space missions, he said in an oral history recorded by his family.
His two-way antenna designs at Rantec Microwave Systems enabled consumers to have DirecTV and Sirius XM connections, and are featured in the massive Mojave Desert radiotelescopes that search for signs of life in space, his son and JPL colleagues said.
After many years working on deep space missions through NASA subcontractors, Kelly worked directly for JPL from 1999 until retiring in 2002, helping to design robotic antennas for the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity, according to Joseph Vacchione, who manages the JPL’s antenna test range.
Kelly appeared in an Associated Press article in 1962 after he moved his family into Gardena, a middle-class suburb that had excluded Black people. To overcome a racist covenant and the repeated refusals of real estate agents, he had to ask a white colleague at Hughes to make the purchase on his behalf.
Kelly and his wife Loretta later moved near California State University-Northridge, to be closer to his job and have their children attend better schools. According to the 2017 oral history, the agent wouldn’t sell him the lot, so he had to repeat the demeaning experience of having white friends buy it for him before signing over the mortgage.
Kelly became president of the San Fernando Valley Fair Housing Council, testing listings to prove discrimination, lobbying authorities and going to court to prevent whites-only advertising.
Kelly had another role in promoting racial harmony after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. A white ally of the Kellys on the Fair Housing Council, schoolteacher Harriet Glickman, had been corresponding with cartoonist Charles Schulz, urging him to add a Black character to his comic strip. At the time, Black people were all but invisible in mass media.
Letters published by the Charles M. Schulz Museum show the cartoonist was reluctant, fearing the move would seem patronizing to Black people in the wake of King’s death. Glickman recruited Kelly to persuade Schulz otherwise.
Kelly urged the cartoonist to treat the Black character as a “supernumerary” — just another member of the Peanuts gang. Franklin soon appeared on a beach, helping Charlie Brown build a sand castle.
CTTC Ronald H. Neuman, USN Retired, 79, of Pasadena passed away on March 12, 2021. Ron is survived by his wife, Joan; children, Joseph and wife, Rhonda; Katheryn, and Michael and wife, Layla; grandchildren, Matthew, Wyatt, Zachary and Haylie, who all reside in the Maryland and Virginia area. Ron was born and raised in Buffalo, NY, where his parents, Edward and Eleanor Neuman and his brother, William predeceased him. His sister-in-law, Patricia and most of her family still reside in the Buffalo area. His nephew, Robert followed him in the Navy life and Master Chief Neuman and his wife, Kathy live in California. Ron entered the Navy in 1961, married in 1964 and together they traveled the world, raised their family and finally called Maryland their home when Ron retired in 1981. He then went to work for the Federal Government. Tours of duty included, Florida, Texas, Alaska, Hawaii, Maryland, Vietnam, Germany, Virginia and Okinawa.
The family will receive visitors at Singleton Funeral & Cremation Services, P.A., 1 2nd Ave. SW (at Crain Hwy) on Tuesday, March 16th from 4-7 pm and Wednesday, March 17th from 5-8 pm. A Funeral Mass will be Celebrated at Christ the King Catholic Church, Glen Burnie on Thursday, March 18th at 10 AM. Interment will be held at Arlington National Cemetery at a later date. In lieu of flowers, Ron requested that donations be made to: Vietnam Veterans Association; Tunnel to Towers, Wounded Warriors Project, Navy Relief Society, St. Jude Children’s Hospital and Animal Rescue. For further information, please visit www.singletonfuneralhome.com.