David Beekley

1941 - 2020

(News story) David Beekley, a mechanical engineer, educator, and musician, who designed machinery for industry, taught at the University of Toledo, and played in area bands, died March 14 at Charter Senior Living, Sylvania Township. He was 79.

He had Lewy body dementia, his wife, Cynthia Beekley, said. His health began to decline in 2015 and 2016. The couple's biking and hiking excursions to the mountains grew more difficult.

"We traveled all over the world together, but that last year, he really struggled," his wife said.

Mr. Beekley of Springfield Township retired in 2010 from UT as an associate lecturer, a full-time post. He taught such engineering courses as machine design and mathematics courses including integral and differential calculus and high-level algebra.

"He was very precise," his wife said. "He liked to be innovative, creative, develop new ways of doing things. His degrees were in mechanical engineering, but he was basically a mathematician. He was always working math problems, even until he got the disease, really."

In the classroom, he took time to explain concepts thoroughly.

"He liked the interaction with students," said his wife, a longtime educator who was superintendent of Springfield schools from 1999-2008.

He was a supporter of his wife's career and liked to introduce himself as the "superintendent's husband." At UT, he encouraged women in engineering. Two women in an early 1990s machine design class told him that their male classmates didn't want them on their teams. The next day, he told the class that women would be on teams, and that the men didn't know how lucky they'd be to have women on their teams.

"He really believed that, that women brought a special perspective to machine design," his wife said.

Mr. Beekley worked for 16 years at Owens-Illinois Inc., until the early 1980s. He was especially proud of his work designing solar collectors. He closed his career in industry at Doehler-Jarvis Corp., where he worked about 12 years, until the die-casting firm closed.

A trombonist since sixth grade, he played in local big bands led by Johnny Knorr and Jack Runyan and at the former Rusty's Jazz Cafe. He played with UT's alumni band, the Owens Community College Concert Band, the Genoa American Legion Band, and the Polish American Concert Band. He practiced daily until he became ill.

"He loved the trombone, and he loved music," his wife said. "He liked the band playing together. He liked the jazz and the creativity it allowed him to have."

For several years he was a volunteer tutor at McKinley Elementary School, in the Mentors in TPS program developed by his friend Jay Mirrow.

He was known to offer an offbeat observation that would evoke laughter in the classroom and around the bridge table "because it was such a unique perspective on whatever we were talking about," his wife said.

He was born Jan. 18, 1941, in Pottstown, Pa., to Dorothy and Harold Beekley. His father was a tool and die maker at Doehler-Jarvis. He was a 1958 graduate of Pottstown High School and a National Merit Scholar.

He received a scholarship to UT, from which he received a bachelor of mechanical engineering degree. He had a mechanical engineering master's degree from the University of Michigan. He was in ROTC at UT and served in the Army stateside.

Surviving are his wife, the former Cynthia Xanthopoulos, whom he married June 16, 1962; sons, Matthew and Alec Beekley; sister, Linda Jackowski, and four grandchildren.

At his request, Mr. Beekley's body was donated to the University of Toledo's College of Medicine and Life Sciences, the former Medical College of Ohio. A memorial service will held later at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Maumee. Arrangements are by Coyle Funeral Home.

The family suggests tributes to Hospice of Northwest Ohio; St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Maumee, or the Owens Community College Concert Band.

This is a news story by Mark Zaborney. Contact him at mzaborney@theblade.com or 419-724-6182.