David H. McKeand

David H. McKeand, 86, of Orange, Connecticut, passed away on July 17, 2024. Born on June 25, 1938, in New Rochelle, New York, he was a successful local businessman and devoted husband to Joanne Raffone, his wife of 56 years, a loving father and doting grandfather.

Dave launched into entrepreneurship at a young age. Using a printing press in the family garage, he published neighborhood newspapers The Weekly News Corner and The Royal Monthly while attending Mamaroneck High School (grad. 1956).

He attended New York University and graduated from its School of Commerce, Accounts and Finance in 1960. From his early days, Dave was influenced by his uncle, George McKeand, who introduced him to the business world. Ambitiously, Dave purchased Church Press in West Haven, CT in 1959, before graduating from NYU. He published Larchmont News between 1961 and 1966 while building the business at Church Press. Dave formed McKeand Publications in 1969, publishing World Coffee & Tea and Petroleum Marketer, two leading trade magazines. He had a distinct passion for his businesses, visibly evident for years in his building on the corner of First Avenue and Richards Street in West Haven. He retired in 1991.

Dave’s other passion was music. Specifically, he loved the organ. In high school, he learned to play a church organ in his family’s basement under the tutelage of William Bender, the organist at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Larchmont, New York. During his high school years, Dave played the organ for summer services at St. John’s. Dave also contributed his organ playing at Christ Church in West Haven during the 1980s and 1990s, while also enjoying performing on a church organ in his home for more than 40 years. But one of his favorite activities around the church was ‘playing the bells’ at Trinity Episcopal Church in New Haven, becoming the official bell ringer in 2012.

Dave is survived by his wife, Joanne McKeand, his daughter Deb McKeand and her husband Shannon Goldman of Peconic, New York; his son Dave McKeand and his wife Jeanine McKeand of Glen Allen, Virginia; his grandson, Baylor McKeand; and his sister Sandi Shepis of Yorktown Heights, New York. Dave was predeceased by his parents David Dewey McKeand and Marie Warnett McKeand, his sister Judith Badolato, and his brother James B. McKeand.

Visitation will be held on Wednesday July 24, 2024, from 11:30am–1pm at the West Haven Funeral Home at the Green.  His funeral procession will leave the funeral home at 1pm for a funeral service in Trinity on the Green Episcopal Church, New Haven at 1:30pm.  Interment will follow in Oak Grove Cemetery.  In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Breakthrough T1D, formerly JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation) at breakthrought1d.org.  

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