Outdoorsman was neighborhood leader

DURHAM -- In the gracious and historic Watts-Hillandale neighborhood in this city, Mike McKinney fancied himself its keeper. In the summer, he spearheaded the decorating for the Fourth of July. In the fall, he put up tents for the autumn festival. In the winter, he handled the luminarias.

When it was time to go before the City Council to fight a zoning issue, it was McKinney who organized a group. He stood at the microphone and presented the neighborhood's position, with passion but without anger.

He served twice as the neighborhood association's president. He puttered around in its garden club and sipped a glass of red or white in its wine-tasting group.

McKinney lived in what he formally referred to as the Watts Hospital-Hillandale neighborhood for 32 years before he died in May of peritoneal mesothelioma. He was 66 and had been diagnosed in 2003. At that time, he was told he had six months to a year to live.

Peritoneal mesothelioma, which affects the abdominal lining, is diagnosed in only 100 to 500 Americans each year.

"I told him I knew he was one in a million," said his wife, Sandra Nunn. "We both had a crazy sense of humor."

McKinney was born in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1942 and moved to New Jersey with his mother and stepfather when he was 6. After graduating from Rutgers University, he spent four years in the U.S. Army, serving in Germany, Italy and Vietnam, where he was a company commander.

When he returned stateside, McKinney got his master's and doctoral degrees in behavioral and social science at the University of Maryland and began teaching at Georgia Tech.

While teaching statistics and social science there, McKinney was contacted by a friend hoping to lure him to N.C. Central University in Durham, a young school that was getting on its feet. McKinney was making more money at Georgia Tech, but he couldn't resist the opportunity.

"It was a chance to do something of value," his wife said.

McKinney had been married before, and so had Sandra Nunn when they met in the 1990s in, of all places, McKinney's living room. They had heard about each other many times before they were introduced. McKinney was the business partner of Steve Levitt, who owned a donkey farm in Mebane that Nunn tended while Levitt, his wife and McKinney explored Mexico. On the trip, McKinney helped Levitt's wife select a beautiful serape for Nunn, though he didn't know who she was.

Several months later, the Levitts fixed Nunn up with another friend. The Levitts had been invited to McKinney's home for dinner that night. When the set-up didn't work out, the couple called McKinney to ask if Nunn could crash the dinner party.

"It was pretty much love at first sight," Nunn said.

McKinney had prepared roasted chicken with broccoli and tossed a salad made with lettuce he'd grown in his garden in the chill of February.

"I'm a gardener, so this totally impressed me," Nunn said.

The two couples danced until 4 in the morning to Talking Heads. That was on a Friday. On Sunday, McKinney and Nunn rendezvoused for a hike. Each showed up nearly half an hour early, picnic baskets in tow.

Hiking was a favorite pastime. She scanned the forests for wildflowers; he foraged for mushrooms.

McKinney was 21 years older than Nunn. She'd recently divorced an older man. A pattern was emerging, one that she tried to buck to no avail. They spent nine years together, after first meeting when he was 57 and she was 36.

After leaving NCCU, McKinney tapped his entrepreneurial side. Together with Levitt, he founded Pain Resource Center, a Durham company that develops medical and dental diagnostic tests and software. He led a large research project on the treatment of temporalmandibular joint disorders in conjunction with the American Academy of Craniofacial Pain.