The funeral for Kenton K. Kirby, the Vincentian-born Editor Emeritus of Caribbean Life, will take place on Saturday, Sept. 24, 2022 at Frank J. Barone Hall, 4516 Ave. D, Brooklyn.
In making the announcement, the family said Kirby’s body will be viewed from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., with the service starting at 5:00 p.m. and ending at 7:00 p.m.
Kirby died on Tuesday, Sept. 6 at NYC Health + Hospitals/McKinney, a nursing rehabilitation center on Albany Avenue in Brooklyn, where Kirby was a resident for some time, his daughter Kamla Millwood said. He was 76.
She told Caribbean Life that her dad was “suffering for a long time” after sustaining injury during a “headstand” about 10 years ago.
“So, he had a sports injury and, later on, he began to decline,” said Millwood, a Brooklyn-based author, speech writer, business consultant and life coach. “They found him unresponsive.”
Kirby was born on Sept. 15, 1945 in the Central Leeward town of Barrouallie in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
He was a police officer in the local constabulary, where he excelled in playing the trumpet in the police band and other prominent musical bands in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, such as Latinaires and Clymax.
On leaving the Royal St. Vincent and the Grenadines Police Force, he became a reporter for the local Vincentian newspaper, elevating himself to becoming chief reporter.
He also corresponded for the Barbados-based Caribbean News Agency (CANA), renamed Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC); the United Press International (UPI); Radio Barbados; and Radio Antilles, the defunct, Montserrat-based radio station that was considered the most powerful in the Eastern Caribbean.
In the United States, he became the editor, then editor emeritus of Caribbean Life, the Brooklyn-based largest Caribbean-themed newspaper in the US, working at the paper for more than 20 years.
Millwood said the family will honor her dad’s wishes for his body to be cremated, and the ashes flown back to St. Vincent and the Grenadines and spread in Morgan’s Bay, Barrouallie, where he swam frequently as a boy.
She said another service will take place in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
For more information about the funeral in Brooklyn: https://www.frankjbaronefuneralhome.com/obituary/KentonK-Kirby.
