GEORGE'S PERSONAL PAGE
I was born in Miami, Florida in 1942 and assigned the name, George Douglas Kennedy, III (Birth Certificate). My biological parents were Jack Kennedy (1912, Boston, Massachusetts) and Leray Finch Kennedy (1913, Wilson, North Carolina). Leray had been previously married to William E. Butler with whom she had three children: Ann, Elinor, and Bill. My half-siblings were approximately 11, 10 and 5 when I was born. My Father, Jack, was a professional gambler who left my Mother hastily and unexpectedly six weeks before my birth. I know nothing more than this about Jack. Unable to keep me, Leray gave me up for adoption to Pope A. and Ora N. Poole who were foster parents for the state of Florida. Pope and Ora already had one natural child, Dwight, ten months my senior. Leray believed my temporary foster parents would make good permanent parents and she encouraged Pope and Ora to adopt me. Fortunately, they did, and Pope and Ora went on to have three more children, Pam, Donnie, and Debbie.
My growing up years in Miami were great. I learned I was adopted at age six and thought it to be a big deal. On several occasions, as a toddler, my adopted grandmother took me to visit a "strange woman" at Burdines Department store who, unbeknownst to me, was my biological Mother. The next time I saw Leray was in 1992.
In Miami, I was a fair student. But I loved to read, write, and tinker with dangerous experiments involving caps and black powder. I performed better as an athlete and loved to play baseball and football. My speed on foot helped me to overcome my vertically challenged stature. Mathematics never really interested me (D's and C's) until I took a course in Plane Geometry from Harvey Melton at Hialeah High School in 1957 (the year of Russia's Sputnik). In this course I excelled and loved it. As a teen I became involved in Boyscouts, Explorers and the DeMolays. My Dad, Pope, was a career Navy man and at the end of my Junior year at Hialeah HS our family was transferred to Olathe, Kansas. Dad chose to live in a small town, Wellsville, 12 miles from the Olathe Naval Air Station.
I graduated from Wellsville High School in 1960 and went to Kansas State Teachers College to become a high school mathematics teacher. When I graduated from KSTC (To become Emporia State University) in 1964, I held a secondary teacher license. However, I went off to Fort Collins Colorado to attend Colorado State University. I graduated in 1966 with an M.S. degree and took off a year from school to teach at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas. In 1967 I started work on my Ph.D. in Mathematics at Texas Tech University, Lubbock.
When I completed my Ph.D. in 1972 I returned to Emporia State to teach for 13 years. The last 3 I served as Department Chair. From 1983-86 I served as Department Chair in Mathematics at Lamar University, Beaumont, Texas. I have been at East Tennessee State University for 18 years, serving as the Department Chair for 13 of those years.
My research started with Abelian Group Theory, and my dissertation at Texas Tech was written under the supervision of Dr. Thomas Boullion in the area of Generalized Inverses. Over the years I have written research papers in Generalized Inverses, Graph Theory, Number Theory, Topology, Geometry, Matrix Theory, and Numerical Linear Algebra.
For the last four years I have been very active in teacher education, especially K-8 teacher preparation. I have participated in national meetings regarding the preparation of teachers, and continue to give in-service workshops to K-6, middle school, and high school teachers in surrounding school districts.