Maybe Kay McKenna got interested in bridge when she was a tiny baby sitting in her high chair watching her parents play cards.
She was colicky as a baby, and the only thing “that kept her from being fussy” was to watch those bridge games, said her niece, Nancy McDowell of Sierra Vista, Ariz.
In any case, McKenna took bridge to new heights.
“It was a passion. She was very, very competitive,” McDowell said.
McKenna, who seemed to excel at everything she did, died at her home in Boulder on Sept. 16. She was 87.
Tap dancing was another early pursuit of McKenna’s, and she was in various tap groups, including one at the University of Colorado. She belonged to a performing group called the Rhythm Circus, and at least once, when the group was staging a comedy routine, McKenna taught CU football players to tap for the number.
She also competed in ballroom dancing.
McKenna majored in French and taught Spanish, Latin and English at Rio Grande County High School in Monte Vista. Because of her language skills, she got a job with the government during World War II censoring civilian mail between the United States and Mexico, said her sister, Lou Hutchinson of Longmont.
McKenna was a “grammar cop,” said her daughter Marjean McKenna of Salt Lake City, and put fear into relatives who made errors in writing or speaking.
If a person made a grammatical error, “Kay would give you a look that made you know she thought it sounded like a fingernail on a blackboard,” McDowell said.
Kay Hickman was born Dec. 30, 1917, in Corning, Ark., and moved to Colorado Springs with her parents when she was 2 years old because her father, H.C. Hickman, had tuberculosis.
The family lived in Yoder, near Colorado Springs, and later moved to Boulder.
She married Jim McKenna of Boulder on Nov. 21, 1942. They played bridge on their first date. He died in 1988.
Kay McKenna was Boulder’s first life master in contract bridge and Colorado’s first female life master.
“She was a fireball, and it was fun to be related to her,” McDowell said, recalling McKenna’s outgoing, warm personality.
Family members “teased her unmercifully” because she had no sense of direction, McDowell said.
“She couldn’t find a bathroom in a restaurant, but she could recall every bridge hand of the last six months,” McDowell said.
In addition to her daughter and sister, McKenna is survived by daughters Kathleen McKenna of Booneville, Calif., and Carla McKenna of Boulder; sons Michael McKenna of Hockessin, Del., and Kenneth McKenna of Bozeman, Mont.; nine grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at vculver@denverpost.com or 303-820-1223.
