Bobby L. Denney

1937 - 2021

Bobby L. Denney

February 16, 1937 - December 19, 2021

Bobby L. Denney was born in 1937, in Holdenville, OK, to Robert C. and Pearl Gardner Denney. He attended elementary schools in Oakland, CA, and in Holdenville and graduated 1955, from Holdenville High School. He was a talented coronet player and in high school formed his own jazz band which played for several years for many school and social functions. He played Taps at hundreds of military funeral throughout central OK. He served for three years in the 45th Infantry Division in the Oklahoma National Guard. He passed away at HopeWest Hospice December 19, 2021, from heart failure.

He attended East Central University in Ada, OK, on a music scholarship but because of his aptitude for math and physics, he was hired by Western Electric in 1957 and moved to Boston, MA for training in the then new field of computer programming. His first assignment was working with computers on the SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment) radar program with the USAF which was associated with the DEW (Distant Early Warning) line during the Cold War with Russia. He was later associated with Aires Corporation and Computer Sciences Corporation where he worked on contracts at the Pentagon, NASA Goddard Naval Air Station and the Applied Physics Lab in the Washington, D.C. area.

In 1971 he moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota to create a new computer library system at the University of Minnesota for their Bio-Med Library. In 1975, he began collaboration with the Minneapolis Memorial Blood Center for a computer system for tracking their units of blood. Early in 1976 he began installing one of the first ever complete computer system for use by Community Blood Banks - approximately 900 inter-working but individual programs. The system was used exclusively at the blood banks in Minneapolis, Sioux City, IA and Bonfils Blood Center in Denver for 19 years. In 1994 the FDA deemed his computer system a medical device and demanded documentation that Bob estimated would take 2-3 people to write and several million dollars to accomplish, so he donated his system to each blood bank. He remained an employee-consultant with each blood bank until his retirement in 2002. During his computer career he also wrote a computerized paternity testing system used in Minneapolis and other genotype labs, and a hepatitis patient testing and tracking computer system for the Minneapolis facility.

Bob had an intense love of flying, but since he wasn't tall enough to become the military pilot he aspired to be, he became an expert in radio control airplanes which he flew frequently for more than 55 years. He served several terms as president and other board positions of the DCRC club in Washington, D.C. and belonged to several other radio control airplanes clubs in Minnesota, Arvada, CO, and the Grand Junction Modeleers. His workshop was filled with mostly electric sailplanes in varying stages of completion and repair.

He also had a love for sport cars, primarily Datsun/Nissan Z's, and had owned at least one of every model of Z made including his favorite pewter colored 1992 300ZX Twin Turbo along with a 280Z bored out and equipped for road courses and racing. He loved driving the road course on the old Stapleton Airport site in Denver, but also drove at Second Creek Raceway, Pikes Peak International Raceway, Hallet Raceway near Tulsa, OK and Texas Motor Speedway. He served several terms on the board of the Z Car Club of Colorado and was a past member of the Grand Junction Gem and Mineral Club.

He had an unquenchable thirst for reading and read nearly all of a couple of sets of encyclopedias and their yearbooks as well as many works of humorists, political satirists and commentators mostly read while propped up on one elbow in bed at night while munching cashews.

He married Nancy Martin in 1956. Five sons were born to this union. They divorced in 1985. Later that year he married Mary Anne Ghumm after meeting her via a computer bulletin board (forerunner of the Internet). They moved to Grand Junction in 2002 to retire.

Bob is preceded in death by his parents; infant brother, Phillip, in 1941; infant sister, Mary Ellen, in 1942, and son, Mark in 1963. Nancy Martin Denney died in 2004.

He is survived by his loving wife, Mary Anne, of Grand Junction; sons, Christopher Denney, Minneapolis, MN; Gary (Keri) Denney, Ireland; David Denney, Thornton, CO; Adam Denney, Harrah, OK; step-sons, Brian Ghumm, Brighton, CO, and Kevin Ghumm, Conover, NC; two granddaughters; one great-grandson, and Cassie, a gray tabby.

Bob had a never ending quest for a good pot roast and a cup of coffee - black, please; and a soft spot in his heart for dachshunds, Louis, Ella, Oscar, the MJQ, Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition and volcanoes. Bob did not want a funeral - too much fuss. He wished any final donations to go to the Roice-Hurst Animal Shelter in Grand Junction.