Robert Scott Mckinnon

Robert Scott McKinnon, age 84, passed away on July 7, 2022, while receiving home hospice care for esophageal cancer. He is survived by his wife, Suzanne; his two children, Christopher (Arcolar) and Wendy (Dan Maxwell); three grandchildren, Maxwell (Irina) McKinnon, Clare Maxwell, and Zoe Maxwell; and his great-grandchild, Alexei McKinnon. Bob was born in Portland, Oregon on October 27, 1937, to Angus and Vivian McKinnon. When he was eight, the family moved to Oakland, California. Bob graduated from Castlemont High School and attended Oakland Junior College before transferring to the University of Montana with a full-ride swimming scholarship. He spent three college summers on extensive boat trips, the last recorded in the movie Riverbusters, which premiered on Catalina Island. After college, Bob taught English for a year in Poplar, three years at Paris Gibson Junior High School in Great Falls, and 28 years at Charles M Russell High School. He retired in January 1993 to provide home care for his mother, Vivian. Bob met his wife, Suzy Cook, at the University of Montana, while producing a winning one-act play he authored for a contest. They were inseparable for the next 62 years, supporting each other, and building meaningful relationships with thousands of people world-wide through gardening, ballroom dancing, playing music, playing chess, canoeing, bicycling, raising tropical fish, greyhound racing, swimming, coaching, teaching, writing, and traveling. Bob and Suzy ran a summer swim school, beginning at the old Holiday Inn pool in 1968, and three years later, started teaching in a self-designed and built backyard indoor pool. The program taught thousands of kids how to swim until COVID-19 forced things to a stop in 2020. In addition to teaching swimming lessons, Bob coached the local swim team, Gus’s Guppies, as well as both high schools, to several state championships. Many of those swimmers learned how to swim at “The Guppy Country Club.” Bob also continued to swim competitively, setting many Montana Masters records, and even winning a race at the 2009 Canadian Masters national meet. He enjoyed retelling how Suzy, Wendy, Chris, and he swam a medley relay in 2010 in Nanaimo, British Columbia, and placed in the US Masters yearly top ten. His book, The Guppy Country Club, relates some of the highlights of his swimming career. Bob had a great love for animals. In his teens, Bob became an aviculturist, raising parakeets in his bedroom for profit, and then using the proceeds to buy a horse. He and Sugar rode many memorable miles together on the undeveloped hills around Oakland. Bob later had hunting dogs, greyhounds, tropical fish, peacocks, turkeys, ducks, rabbits, and cats. Several of these appeared as characters in his numerous books. Bob’s first published book, Moose, Bruce, and the Goose, borrowed from his own experience of adopting a retired racing greyhound and then raising his own litters of pups for racing. He had one dog, Ol’ Honch, that won his first twelve races, and another dog, Ol’ Rose, that placed fourth in a large stakes national derby race. He eventually gave up raising greyhounds when it became too emotional to send the dogs off to the track to race. His final dog was an adopted greyhound he dubbed Jones. Jones is featured in his book, Down Under Jones, and a video Bob made for the Iowa Greyhound Association, Montana, I Luv Ya, to support greyhound adoptions. Bob also developed an early and lifelong musical talent. Both of his parents were professional musicians. Gus was a tenor singer, and Vivian was a classical pianist. At the age of 12, Bob obtained the piano sheet music for Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and taught himself to play it. He auditioned for a Bay area symphony on the violin as a teenager, and took up the tenor banjo in college. He played his banjo for many years at Shakey’s Pizza, played with the Montana Chorale on a tour through Europe, recorded with the Missoula symphony, accompanied the Last Chance Dixieland band, won a national banjo contest in Iowa with Chris, and regularly played at a local nursing home. A memorial service is planned for August 7, 2022, at 1:00 p.m. at the Mansfield Theater, followed by a reception at the guppy country club. Donations in Bob’s name may be made to FastFriends, For The Fishes, or the YMCA. During his illness, Bob really enjoyed having a large number of people at the hospital poke their heads in to say that he had taught them swimming and/or English, and how much it meant to them. Bob’s family would like to thank the many people at Benefis Hospital, the Sletten Cancer Institute, and Peace Hospice for their caring service, and in particular, Dr. Brice Addison, who swam for Bob and played the lead role in two of his plays.