College’s musical mainstay is gone
Dr. J. Ronald Keith died Sept. 6 in Gilbert. He was 73.
Just as with the passing of former EAC athletic director and football coach Ladd Mullenaux in August, the crowd at the Eastern football game Saturday offered a moment of silence in honor of Keith.
Keith took over the EAC band program in 1970 and grew it into one of the largest junior college marching bands in the nation. He also served in a number of administrative positions for the college, eventually retiring in 2006 as the vice president of student and academic affairs.
“I came here in 1970. We were only going to stay here two years, and then 37 years later, we retired. The reason was that we fell in love with the kids. And we had only been here two years and decided we didn’t want to go anywhere else,” Keith said in a video interview for EAC’s 125th anniversary last year.
“Ron Keith always had a twinkle in his eye and a grin. As he grew older, he never lost the boyish excitement of discovery and learning,” EAC President Mark Bryce said. “He cared deeply about his family and the students of Eastern Arizona College. These wonderful qualities and many others he brought to the several positions that he held at the college.”
Keith also enjoyed telling stories, a result of his third love — behind family and music — sports broadcasting. Almost from the time he started at EAC, he connected with KATO radio to do football and basketball play-by-play. He was the voice of Gila Valley sports from the 1970s until his final broadcast in 2004.
“Last year, at half time during the 125 year (EAC) anniversary game, I brought him up to the booth for a 10- to 15-minute chat that went on for 30 minutes,” KATO Sports Director Lee Patterson said. “He loved it. When I first started, I was just doing the halftime show while he would go out and listen to the band. He is still the only partner I have ever had, and he was a great guy to learn from — a guy who was self-taught.”
In relating stories about Keith, person after person ended the same way with: “The most important thing to him was family.”
His family includes his wife, Connie, seven children and 36 grandchildren.
“We raised all our family here. They all graduated from EA; they all did their first two years here. This is home and it’ll probably be home until my dying days,” Keith said in the EAC video.
His membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints led Keith to holding a number of different positions, including bishop of a ward in the Thatcher Stake.
“There was one time we were met with a challenge. Before we went to meet with this person, we actually went to (Keith’s) office and had a moment of prayer,” former student and colleague Jeanne Bryce said. “He was a spiritual man and a spiritual leader to a lot of people who looked to him for advice.”
Even though it’s been almost a decade since he waved a baton, Keith’s presence is still felt today in the college band room. The EAC marching band that he started is now the only community college marching band in Arizona.
Current EAC band director Geoff DeSpain said Keith once told him, “‘I will never say that your band is better than mine, but they are as good as mine ever was.’ It was the ultimate compliment coming from him. He’s gong to be missed.”
There will be a special reception, where family will receive friends, at the Eastern Arizona College Fine Arts Center, Friday, Sept. 12, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. A second reception will take place Saturday, Sept. 13, from 9 a.m. to 9:45 a.m. at the Thatcher LDS Stake Center Relief Society Room.
Funeral services will be conducted Saturday at 10 a.m., and concluding services will be at the Thatcher Cemetery.
