The NAMMMR Loses Its Founder... The World Loses a Modern Renaissance Man!
We are saddened to report that Jerry Keuper lost his ultimate battle on
March 25 in Melbourne, Florida. Jerry founded our Triple M Register in the
late 1980s knowing that these marvelous machines which were developed in
the Kimber era deserved more than a footnote in the greater picture that
surrounds and encompasses the cataloguing and recognition of all the later
MG cars. Early on, Jerry wanted it known that these MMM cars were THE MGs...
the models that set the stage for the enjoyment of, and love for all the MGs
that were subsequently produced. And, he put his money and restorative
energies where his mind and mouth were, completing a P type, J2, and his
beloved L1 Police car, all award winners. Meeting the genial Jerry at a
Gathering of MG folks, one would get the impression that MGs were his life.
With little prodding he would talk of little else... the MMM spectrum seemed
to be his passion! But wait... scratch the surface a bit and you discover a
man of so many talents, interests, and accomplishments that the tiny
fraction of his life's works that were MG oriented seems less than a mere
drop in the bucket. Besides being the youngest college president in the
United States when he founded the Florida Institute of Technology in the
late 1950s, Jerry... the Ph.D. in nuclear physics had a wide range of
interests in and outside of academia, and I expect that this visionary with
unparalleled optimism poured the same amount of enthusiasm into his many
varied endeavors as we were so fortunate to have seen in his love for the
MMM cars. His scholastic credentials were remarkable and he was widely
lauded and acclaimed in academic circles. His WWII experiences as an
intelligence officer in China fostered a lifelong love of China and its
people, and led to his publishing a dictionary of colloquial and idiomatic
Chinese expressions. The International Palm Society (as in PALMS - Princes
of The Plant Kingdom) boasted of Jerry as a past President. Milt Salamon, a
Melbourne newspaper columnist, when writing about the recent designation of
Jerome Keuper Week in Indialantic, FL. stated: "All those rousing WHEREASES,
and not a word about Jerry's MGs! Nothing said to indicate that (the prewar
MG) was to Jerry, civilization's ultimate artistry!... He LOVES them!" It
might well be said that it wouldn9t take a Rocket Scientist to come up with
an appreciation of the MMM MG as a cherished work of art, and the ultimate
escape from the tedium of daily life, but we know better! Jerry is among
those few who have paved the way for us to enjoy our own escapes into this
Kimber inspired world. We thank you Dr. Jerry... you will be sorely missed!
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