Scott Keating was a rebel from the beginning.
When Keating was a senior at Cathedral High School, he was editor of the yearbook and did the final editing.
The “finished” version he showed to the school officials had the expected dedication to a school official, recalled Craig Hart of Denver, a former priest in the Denver Archdiocese.
After the approval, Keating put in an extra dedication page, honoring several well-known anti-war activists, said Hart, who taught Keating at Cathedral.
Keating died Oct. 21 at Lutheran Hospital. He was 56.
Keating had several illnesses, some connected to his weight, which had been a problem for years, so much so that he was housebound for several years, said longtime friend Chris Kendall of Denver.
A memorial service will be scheduled later.
Keating always lived with gusto. When he was about 5, he asked his parents for a firetruck for Christmas, so they got him one. A toy one.
He took one look at it and said, “I wanted a real one,” said his mother, Betty Eldredge of Denver.
A dedicated protester, especially against the Vietnam War, Keating lived for a while in a political commune on Capitol Hill.
He was an organizer for the National Lawyers Guild and helped fight for Crusade for Justice when Denver police raided it.
Keating was a founder of the Radical Information Project in east Denver, “a central meeting place for leftist initiatives,” said Rob Prince, senior lecturer in international studies at the University of Denver.
“He had a healthy contempt for greed and naked political power,” Prince said.
Friends like to tell stories of Keating taking in people who needed a place to stay – calling his place the Dubious Boys Orphanage – of potluck dinners at his house and of his short stories and poetry, which he started writing in high school.
They tell of poker parties at which no one took home the winnings. The money was saved to throw a party later.
“It was amazing how much he knew, even being housebound,” said another friend, Charley Samson, announcer at radio station KVOD.
For the last several years, Keating was a private investigator for lawyers. One of his clients was Scott Landry, who said Keating “could find people no one else could.”
Scott Joseph Keating was born in Denver Aug. 22, 1951.
He worked at jobs including driving a cab for more than a decade, working at an auto- parts store and doing investigations for the Jefferson County district attorney’s office
In addition to his mother, he is survived by his sisters: Pamela Herbst of Seattle and Sheila Keating of Virginia; his brother, Brian Keating of Denver; and his stepfather, John Eldredge.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
