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Dean Allen Chinn, 80, passed away on October 14,
2007, after a long fight with cancer.
Dean was born on February 18, 1927, in Copan,
Oklahoma. He was the ninth of nine children. He grew up in
Bartlesville, Oklahoma, graduating from College High School in 1945.
He joined the Navy as a volunteer in March of 1945 and was stationed
in the Philippines in 1945 and 1946.
After returning from the Navy, Dean graduated from
Oklahoma State University in 1950. He worked as a geophysicist with
several oil companies until 1960, when he worked for the U.S.
Coast-Geodetic Survey in Washington, DC.
Dean returned to school to earn a master’s degree
in mathematics education at the University of Colorado in 1963. He
began his teaching career as a mathematics teacher at a junior high
in Los Alamos, New Mexico.
He moved to Billings in 1965, where he taught
mathematics and computer mathematics at the high school until his
retirement in 1990. Dean helped start the school's first computer
mathematics courses in the early 1970s. Along the way, he earned a
master’s degree in mathematics at Tulane University in 1970. Dean
was also a lifetime member of the National Education Association.
His work as a geophysicist took him to Worland,
Wyoming, in 1956, where he married Glenyce Nell Goodbary in 1959.
They raised two children, Clark and Sheila, in Billings. Dean and
Glenyce are members of Grace United Methodist Church of Billings.
Dean is preceded in death by his parents, Clint
and Bertha Chinn, his aunt Julia Burton, his brothers Carl, Howard,
Roland, and John, and his sisters Blanche Tate, Lucille Lowry, and
Marjorie Evans.
He is survived by his wife Glenyce of Billings;
his son Clark (Yoko) of East Brunswick, New Jersey; his daughter
Sheila (Doug) Graves of San Diego, California; his granddaughter
Lisa Chinn of Princeton, New Jersey; his sister Lois Headley of
Baytown, Texas, and many nieces and nephews.
A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m., on
Thursday, October 18 at Grace United Methodist Church, 1935 Avenue
B, Billings. In lieu of flowers, donations can be sent to the
Billings Clinic Cancer Center's Clinical Research Endowment (P.O.
Box 31031, Billings, MT, 59103), in honor of Dean’s lifelong
commitment to research and education. |
