As a professor at Savannah State University, Dr. Kenneth Taylor expected the very best of his students. He would lock the classroom door the moment class was scheduled to begin and if a student was a few seconds late, he or she was marked absent. “He felt they had to learn the value of punctuality before they entered the world of work,” said his wife, Dr. Marilyn Taylor.
One of his former students, Sharon Turner-Scott of McDonough, remembered him as strict but caring motivator.
“Once in the 1980s I had to run a mile to get a passing grade in his class, and I told him I just couldn’t – to which he replied, ‘That’s OK – I guess I’ll have to give you a failing grade,’” she said. “Well, I managed to run that mile, I got an A in his class, and these days I can run three to four miles at a stretch – all thanks to his purposeful prodding.”
As an administrator, he was a visionary, said Jacquelyn Byers, a Savannah State math professor. She recalled that when he was head of the school’s health, physical education and recreation department, he was an advocate for the wellness concept and for improved air quality indoors before either was a widely recognized cause.
Dr. Taylor also practiced what he preached, she said. “Kenn [cq] might have driven his car to campus each day, but after that he would walk everywhere he needed to go the rest of his working day.”
Dr. Kenneth Francis Taylor, 72, of Fayetteville, died Tuesday at Piedmont Hospital of heart failure. His memorial service is at noon today at the Atlanta Metropolitan College’s Student Center, Conference Room A, 1630 Metropolitan Pkwy. SW, Atlanta. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Arthritis Foundation, 550 Pharr Road NE, Suite 550, Atlanta 30305. Murray Brothers Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.
An Alabama native, Dr. Taylor got his doctorate in education from the University of Alabama after a hitch in the Army during the early 1960s. He began his 25-year career at Savannah State in 1972.
He looked the part of a professor, regularly wearing a tweed sport coat, sweater vest and tie. “Kenn said whenever you leave the house, you should look like a professional,” his wife said.
And he was bookish. “He must have gone shopping at local bookstores once or twice a week,” his wife said. His tastes ran to history and sports, mystery novels and cookbooks.
He knew his way around the kitchen. Making pastry was a specialty of his – key lime pies, lemon meringue pies, bread puddings and what he said was a Southern creation, hummingbird cake, which he would fill with white raisins, pineapple and bananas and finish with a cream cheese topping. “After he retired, he often fixed dinner and would have it ready for me when I came home from a long hard day,” his wife said.
In retirement, he and his wife settled in metro Atlanta, and he served for a time as an assistant to the president of Atlanta Metropolitan College. For the past three years, she has worked as a consultant in the United Arab Emirates, and the two of them took advantage of her posting to travel together to Egypt, Jordan and Oman.
He was above all a straight-shooter, said a brother, Harrison Taylor of Tuscaloosa, Ala. “Not long ago, he gave a second car of his to the Salvation Army, but before he did, he took it into the shop for repairs. I asked him why bother, and he said he did it because whoever got the car wouldn’t have the money to fix it.”
Survivors include a daughter, Lesley Taylor of Fayetteville, and another brother, Joseph Taylor of Sacramento, Calif.
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