BON VOYAGE, SEAN

Our good friend, Sean Kearney, died back in mid-September of an unexpected illness. Back in the old days Sean was a member and board member of the Utah Wilderness Association. He moved on, following his job, and amazingly enough showed up at a High Uintas Preservation Council presentation in the late ‘90s having followed his job back to Utah! In the blink of an eye he was a board member of HUPC. He had to follow his job again, reluctantly, and found himself in California then Minnesota. But he came nearly every year to our Rendezvous.

There was no missing his blazing white hair framed by, literally, a never-ending, all encompassing smile. He embraced everybody with hope and a goodness that was sometimes unimaginable in the face of every-moment problems. Four weeks before the 2008 Rendezvous Sean left a phone message saying he would be there and that he was feeling better after a summer of nagging health problems. Three weeks before the Rendezvous I received an email from him: he was waiting for an ambulance because of some nagging lung problems--”probably won’t make it to the Rendezvous; more later.”

How typical of Sean to fire off an email in the midst of personal disaster, apologizing for not making it out, undoubtedly smiling and hopeful! Well, he didn’t make it out here and we lost a good friend. We sent our howl out across the Uintas, thinking of Sean, his wife Sheila and his young son Bobby.

Dick Carter