Kirby Russell Thwing ’40 died on November 13, 2007, in Buckland, Massachusetts, as the result of a single-car accident.

Born on January 31, 1918, in Mansfield, Mass., he prepared for college at Winchester (Mass.) High School and became a member of Psi Upsilon Fraternity at Bowdoin. Following his graduation, he was a salesman in Wakefield, Mass., and in Waukegan, Ill., and then served in Army intelligence for the U.S. Army Air Corps in World War II from 1943 to 1945, attaining the rank of sergeant. He was a teacher and principal in Shelburne, Mass., from 1946 to 1948, a teacher and principal in Greenfield, Mass, from 1949 to 1951, a teacher and counselor in Holyoke, Mass., from 1954 to 1966, and a counselor in Longmeadow, Mass., from 1966 until his retirement in 1978. He was a volunteer with congregational churches in Greenfield and Holyoke and also the Federated Church in Charlemont, and he was also a lay preacher for churches in Franklin County. He was active with the Holyoke Community Concerts and the Interfaith Council of Holyoke and served as a waterfront director with the Boy Scouts of America. In Hawley, he was a Hospice volunteer, a justice of the peace, a member of the School Committee, the Planning Board, and the Conservation Commission, and was active in the Foster Grandparent Program at Hawlemont School in Charlemont. He was married in 1941 to Charlotte Cox, who predeceased him, and is survived by two sons, the Reverend William C. Thwing ’64 of Ebensberg, Penn., and Kirby Thwing, Jr. of Hawley, Mass.; a daughter, Lisa Thwing of Hawley; six grandchildren; and a great-grandson.