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Don’s wife, Natalie Ann
DeBlasio Kirkman, became nationally known as the executive director of the National
Council of University Administrators, an organization based in Washington whose members
direct university and medical research. Don and Natalie spent their early years in Kent, OH where he was a beat reporter for the Beacon Journal and she a Latin, French and Spanish teacher at West Geauga High School in Chesterland, OH (near Cleveland). |
| They lived in Kent in
the late 1950s and early ‘60s, in Glendora, CA and Wheaton, MD in the mid ‘60s,
then settled in Annandale, VA in 1968. Natalie, born on Christmas 1933 and whose named means "Christmas Child", is a daughter of Alex and Emilda "Millie" DeBlasio of Youngstown, OH. She graduated from Youngstown South High School in 1951 and from Kent State University in 1955. She married Don on June 15, 1956 and has four children: Christian Kirkman V, Kathryn Ann, Kenneth Donald and Karen Dina, 6 grandchildren and 1 great grandchild. During the mid-1970s Natalie became an employee of the East Central College Consortium in Washington, then named the much respected executive director of the 3,000-member, Washington based NCURA. During an 18-year directorship, she expanded NCURA’s Washington headquarters from a one person hole in the wall operation to a highly trained and acclaimed group of experts who organized national and regional research administration meetings. She retired in 1997. After a battle with heart disease, breast cancer, and lung cancer Natalie decided join her beloved husband Don on January 27th 2008. "Together Forever" |
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