In Memoriam
B. Keith Huffman, Jr.
Keith Huffman
1964 Yale graduation
Keith Huffman ’64 died on July 3, 2026 of prostate cancer. See below for his obituary, followed by essays he wrote for three reunion books.
Obituary
July 7, 2026
Legacy.com
Keith Huffman
recently
Byron Keith Huffman, Jr. (age 85), of Great Falls, Virginia, died peacefully at Reston Hospital Center on July 3, 2026.
Keith was born on May 23, 1941, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and was the only child of Byron Keith Huffman and Dorothy Kirkpatrick Huffman. His mother died shortly after his birth, and he was brought up by his father and stepmother, Mary Jane Johnson Huffman. He spent his childhood in Mobile, Alabama, before attending Woodberry Forest School in Virginia, Class of 1959. After graduating, he spent a year on an English-Speaking Union scholarship at Stowe School, Buckinghamshire, England. The experience sparked a lifelong love of the British Isles.
At Yale University, Class of 1964, he majored in history and was a member of Scroll and Key and the Whiffenpoofs. It was during this time that he met his future wife, Christine Fleming Renchard, a student at Connecticut College. The couple married on June 19, 1964, before Keith matriculated at Yale Law School, Class of 1967. After graduating, he began his law career at Webster and Sheffield in New York City.
In 1970, Keith left to become an Assistant Legal Adviser with the U.S. Department of State, one of the high points of his career, bringing him and his young family, including daughters Elizabeth and Heather, to Northern Virginia. During this time, he travelled widely through his work in the offices of European Affairs, African Affairs, and Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs.
In 1976, he returned to private law, opening an office in Washington D.C. for Webster and Sheffield, and later joining Cutler and Stanfield. During this time he regularly worked with Skanska, a multinational construction and development company based in Sweden, managing a number of acquisitions of other construction companies, which led to his joining the company at age 62 as counsel to its CEO, a dream job in a company culture he loved. Keith eventually became a self-employed consultant to Skanska, not retiring fully until his mid-70s.
Throughout his life, Keith loved reading, singing, hiking, birdwatching, fishing, spending time with his six grandchildren, each of whom he found a unique delight, and taking care of his garden, pets, and the wildlife and horses on his property in Great Falls. The high point of his year was the gathering of both his daughters and their families every summer in Eagles Mere, Pennsylvania, where the family has a house called Teddy Bears’ Picnic. The couple also shared a deep fascination for nature with him supporting her in the rehabilitation of countless injured and immature wild birds.
Keith traveled frequently to the north of England where his eldest daughter and her family live, even walking the iconic 190-mile Coast-to-Coast path solo from St. Bee’s to Robin Hood’s Bay. In the USA he embarked on numerous challenging canoe camping expeditions with family and friends in the Boundary Waters, Minnesota, and Quetico in Western Ontario.
Keith is survived by his wife, Christine; two children: Elizabeth and Heather; two sons-in-law: David and Chris; and six grandchildren: Will, Alec, Sam, Jane, Henry, and Liam. A celebration of life will be held on October 4 in Great Falls. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations in his honor be made to the Friends of Riverbend Park, P.O. Box 1481, Great Falls, VA 22066.
Essay, 60th Reunion Book
May, 2024
by Keith Huffman
I finally, fully retired in my mid-70’s from employment and consulting and, like many other classmates, became a full-time caregiver for Christie, my wife for nearly 60 years, who is now recovering from her third major spinal operation. Although she will likely never again drive or walk unassisted, she is progressing and has lost none of her mental acuity and is often bracketed by two enormous Maine Coon cat “nurses.” Main blessings in the circumstances are: two constantly supportive daughters, one resident in northern England and the other nearby; their six spirited and solicitous children in their 20’s; communications technology enabling regular contacts with them and friends and access to endless BBC, etc. mystery series and the world, without which her immobility would be a very lonely condition.
I am (so far) lucky to be able to continue much as before, attending wife, the cats, two boarding horses in our barn, several local foxes, and two small temperamental dogs (one a Cardigan Corgy) who demand their daily walk at 3:00pm (rain or shine) on a path along the Potomac below our residence. We live on the same five-acre place as we have for 40 years although it is showing signs of “re-wilding” as am I.
The photograph of my daughters and me was taken in October 2018 on a truly fabulous birding trip to the Hebridean Isle of Mull off the west coast of Scotland — long, bracing days beside the sea, fabulous birding and wildlife, expert guide with carefree logistics and a lovely finish to each day (following a restorative hot shower) enjoying the occasional Hebridean single malt in the bar of the Western Isles Hotel (self-served on an honor system no less!) Although my international travel days are over, I would love to steer any interested classmates to the right contacts to replicate this uniquely marvelous journey.
Essay, 50th Reunion Book
May, 2014
by Keith Huffman
Like some other classmates and spouses, Christie and I (with luck) will have been married over 50 years by the time of the reunion, an amazing phenomenon in light of the fact that 50 years ago, we were basically clueless about everything. The big reward to our early marriage is being around to see our six grandchildren grow up (ages ten to nineteen by the time of the reunion), each a unique delight (and an occasional exasperation). Four live in northernmost England a walk from Hadrian’s Wall. The eldest matriculates at a university in Washington, DC this fall and we look forward to seeing him more than he will want to see us. The residence of the other two grandchildren in our neighborhood has been a godsend.
The high points of my work were at the beginning and end. I spent six highly stimulating years in the early 1970’s in the State Department Office of the Legal Adviser. The next 25 years as a corporate lawyer in law firms were occasionally gratifying but their real benefit came from regular exposure to Skanska, the Swedish international construction company, for which I managed a number of acquisitions of other construction companies. This enabled me to join the company at age 62 as counsel to its CEO, a dream job in a company culture I loved, happily defying (none too soon) the rule that “we grow too soon old and too late smart.”
For the past 35 years, I have begun every day in the barn behind our house feeding a succession of nickering horses and, more recently, capturing a urine sample from our diabetic Corgi, a backyard pas de deux at which I have become quite adroit. Our high point of each year is the gathering of both daughters’ families in mid-summer at our Victorian pile in Eagles Mere, PA which is cavernous enough for everyone to get away from everyone else as needed. I treasure memories of walking solo the English Coast-to-Coast Walk and seven week-long canoe trips (one with Steve Clay) into the Quetico in Western Ontario. I now try for a more age-conscious risk profile for my adventures such as local walking, birding, probably compulsive gardening, and dwelling in the moments and “little things” about which Verlyn Klinkenborg writes so beautifully. Perhaps I won’t be so responsible but a willingness to pace ourselves seems ever more important as our years accumulate. With apologies to Dylan T,
Not for me,
To rage, rage
At its dying,
But to savor, savor
The still delicious
Remains of the light.
Essay, 25th Reunion Book
May, 1989
by Keith Huffman
Like most of my classmates by now, I have recently witnessed the final months, weeks, and days of my parents’ grim struggles with the end of their often brilliant, tempestuous, and perseverant lives of 76 and 73 years; and I am nearing the conclusion of my intrusion through their tangible accumulations. This experience, not surprisingly, has brought home to me a more immediate appreciation of the need to try to keep an eye on one’s priorities and to avoid life’s inertial ruts. I am working on this and anticipate some changes in my life’s orientation but am certain that there will be no change in my fundamental orientation around my daughters of 21 and 19 years and my spouse of 24 years.