Following graduation from OWU, Keith began a career in the Louisville public schools as a teacher, then principal and later an administrator. The years were interspersed with study at the University of London, military service and a lengthy government sponsored seminar in India. On the local scene (Louisville, KY) Keith has been actively involved in both educational and interfaith nonprofit organizations. Those organizations have provided more than four hundred scholarships to outstanding Kentucky college students and high school teachers for a project centered on a Gandhi/Thomas Merton Peace Pilgrimage (58 miles) from Bardstown, KY to the Muhammad Ali Museum in Louisville. Local groups provided lodging and meals for the “pilgrims” en route.
In reflecting on college days, Keith recalls the following: Robert Lorish’s classes that motivated him to pursue graduate study in the social sciences. William H. Eels (recently deceased as reported in the November, 2007 OWU Magazine) at the then Institute of Practical Politics arranged a memorable ride on the 1956 presidential campaign train across northern Ohio. Dining alone with Adlai Stevenson and waving to the cheering crowds from the rear of the train remain vivid memories to him. Keith notes that in retrospect, he hopes that today’s students have more opportunities than we did to meet informally with professors and explore ideas both related and unrelated to the academic disciplines. Of course, the friendships at the Beta house continue as a source of pleasure, said Keith.
Keith reported that on a recent family-related “Roots” trip with his niece, Amy ’84, to a tiny church cemetery in Norway and the subsequent discovery of astonished relatives living high on a “mound-tane” above a glittering fjord. The youngest son in the family said he had been to America but he did not like it very much. When asked where he had been, he replied “Los Angeles”.
At present, Keith is the Executive Director of Scenic Kentucky, Inc. and spends weekends at his cottage in utopian New Harmony, Indiana.
Keith Eiken ’57
Theta Pledge Class – Sept./Oct. 1946 — First Row – L to R: Bill Wright,
“Moon” Naughton, Momma Linn, Bob Barracka, Al Long, Ed Dobson
Back Row – L to R: Bill Pratt, Bob Rouge, Keith Gaspitch, Skip Cheseldine,
Ned “Spease” Speasmaker, Earl Cramer
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