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McDonogh lost a beloved teacher on Thursday, July 26, 2012 when E. Carey Kenney passed away. The Colonel, as he was known, would have turned 98 on August 3.

The following is excerpted from Colonel Kenney's Alumni Association Distinguished Service Award recognition in 2008.

Edward Carey Kenney, fondly known as "The Colonel," created McDonogh's visual arts department in 1947 and ran it until he retired from full-time teaching in 1980. Colonel Kenney set the standard for McDonogh art teachers and was both an art teacher and a professional artist. Visitors to the school can still see his paintings and murals hanging all over campus. The Colonel was also a fine role model—a disciplined, demanding, and encouraging presence. Alumni still talk about the valuable guidance they received from him, and like great teachers do, the Colonel taught life lessons.

Ed Kenney spent the early part of his life in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and as a teen, he moved with his family to Baltimore. Ed graduated from Calvert Hall and went on to earn a fine arts degree from the Maryland Institute College of Art, where he met his wife, Joan. Drafted into the Army in 1941, Ed served as an infantry officer in Italy during World War II. He was discharged in 1946 as a captain and was promoted to colonel after serving in the Army National Guard for many years.

In 1947, McDonogh was a semi-military school and made the perfect place for an Army veteran with a newly earned Maryland Institute teaching degree and a passion for painting. In the late forties, McDonogh commissioned Ed to produce three murals for the Alumni Memorial Field House. He created art for a space built to honor McDonogh men who had given their lives in the armed forces. Ed was able to tap into his own wartime experiences as he painted.

During his thirty-three years at McDonogh, the Colonel painted the school, its people, its history, and its ever- changing campus. He painted portraits of several McDonogh notables: Josepha Selden Young, A. Ogden Ramsay, Duncan Campbell Lyle, Robert White, Ray Oliver, Paul Carre, and Eddie Wilson. He also created nine panels on wood depicting scenes from the school's history that hang in the Osborne Alumni Room in the Rollins-Luetkemeyer Athletic Center. Additionally, Ed ran the Cleveland Gallery in the basement of the old gym, now the Tuttle Gallery in Lyle Building.

When not in the classroom, in the gallery, coaching a team, or playing tennis, Ed could be found in the woods with brush and easel, capturing the serene beauty of McDonogh's campus. One of his former students once said, "the Colonel's influence went far beyond the arts. He was a gentleman and an officer whose influence we fondly remember."

In addition to receiving the Alumni Association Distinguished Service Award, Ed was inducted into McDonogh's Athletic Hall of Fame for having coached the rifle squad and tennis. In the fall of 2008, the school produced "E. Carey Kenney's McDonogh," a book with over 100 pages of the Colonel's McDonogh artwork, his philosophy on teaching and on art, and more.

Ed is survived by his wife, Joan, two daughters, and three sons, including Ned '71 and Pat '80. A memorial service is being planned for this fall at the Tagart Chapel.

Read Ed's obituary in The Baltimore Sun.

View an interview conducted by John Van Meter's class in 2008.