1989 President Rosemary Richartz Kenney

Rosemary Richartz was born and reared on a dairy farm near Walla Walla, Washington. After the family moved to Umapine, Oregon, she attended the Umapine Public Schools, graduating as valedictorian from Umapine High School.

1989 - ROSEMARY RICHARTZ  KENNEY

After graduation from Oregon State University and dietetic internship at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, she combined her professional career and her love of travel. Home base was always Portland, Oregon. No matter whereshe traveled, she always returned to Portland where she worked as a dietitian at various times, at St. Vincents Hospital, Beth Kaiser Hospital, University of Oregon Health Science Center, University of Oregon Dental School, Emanuel Hospital, and at the U.S. Veterans Medical Center both in Portland and at the Vancouver Division.

Enjoyable work was found in Casablanca, Morocco; Denver, Colorado; Walla Walla, Washington; Los Angeles, California; and Corvallis, Oregon. The high points of Rosemary's career were working for the Indian Health Service Hospital at Fort Defiance, Arizona on the Navajo Indian Reservation, and at Royal Adelaide Hospital, Adelaide, South Australia. On one of her return trips to Portland, she married Albert Kenney, former president of GSOC.  They combined their interests of geology, paleontology and travel.

She always had an interest in geology, but it began in earnest when she attended a night course at Portland State University taught by Dr. Ruth Hopson Keen. That sparked motivation to attend more and more classes. She joined GSOC in 1962 and has served the society on the Refreshment Committee and held offices of Librarian and Secretary, in addition to President.

Our fifty-fifth President took an early retirement in 1989 to enjoy life without the interference of work.

Historical note from Carol Hasenberg in 2024:

Rosemary also maintained her contact with GSOC quite well in the years prior to the COVID pandemic. She hosted all the GSOC board meetings for many, many years. During the first 10 years or so of my stint as GSOC newsletter editor (2000-2020 and now the archive document post 2020), Rosemary was the newspaper publisher and indexer, and you can still see those indices printed on her old dot matrix printer in the January newsletters from that era. She also did some volunteer work at DOGAMI and PSU.

She moved to Newberg with her friend and companion, GSOC member Jan Kem, in the fall of 2022. She passed away peacefully on May 5, 2024, after a period of declining health.

To read more about Rosemary’s life, go to the GSOC tribute written after her death.