David F. Kennedy, Whose Ad Agency Put Nike on the Map, Dies at 82

David Franklin Kennedy was born on May 31, 1939, in Wichita, Kan., the only child of Melinda Jane (Spoon) Kennedy, a bank administrator, and James Franklin Kennedy, a second-generation wildcatter. He had what his Advertising Hall of Fame profile called “an idyllic, Tom Sawyer childhood, fishing trout streams and rivers he had no idea were world-class” in Oklahoma and other states along the eastern face of the Rocky Mountains.

His first job, at age 13, was as an apprentice welder. At first he wanted to be a geologist, but art had a stronger pull. His childhood hero was Bill Mauldin, the Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist, whose work Mr. Kennedy traced while learning to draw.

After spending a day and night on an oil rig, he decided to try college. He graduated from the University of Colorado in 1962 with a degree in printmaking and metal sculpture.

He also served six years in the Marine Corps Reserve.

Mr. Kennedy met Kathleen Murphy in 1961 in Colorado through a fraternity brother who was dating her sister. They married in 1963, moved to Chicago and had five children. He is survived by his wife; his daughters, Cathlin, Erinn and Siobhan; and a son, Brendan. Another son, Ian, died in 2016.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/15/business/media/david-f-kennedy-dead.html