What's In a Name?

I heard from Don Kennedy yesterday. He commented on the last post to point out that he of the burger and buffet blogs is not the same British Columbian Don Kennedy of the real estate and movie review blog. He does mention that he and the other DK both have been involved in radio.

There were a couple of Don Kennedys that I didn't mention in the last post, mostly because - although they were the subjects of lots of blogs - they didn't seem to be blogging themselves.

Probably the most famous Don Kennedy is the former president of Stanford University, the former head of the US Food and Drug Administration and the former editor of Science magazine. Just your typical overachiever, I thought. But then I realized that there's actually a bit of similarity with my life.

I am the former president of the student government at LeMoyne College, a regular consumer of food and drugs and the former editor of Computerworld Australia. And yet despite all that, my namesake has a Wikipedia page, and I don't show up in Google searches. Life's not fair for some of us Don Kennedys.

Don Kennedy is also the CFO of the Seattle school district. He features in a lot of blogs, especially when he was instrumental in a proposal for closing down quite a few schools. And although it's not on topic, I have to mention that there is a fantastically named blog about Seattle politics that covered some of this. It's called HorsesAss.org and should win awards for its name if nothing else.

My favorite Don Kennedy discovery, though, was the Atlanta TV performer who played Officer Don on The Popeye Club from 1956 to 1970. That's a picture of his 45 at the top of this post, and you can read all about him and what ooey gooey is at the AtlantaTimeMachine web site.

Don, however, was much more than just the host of the Popeye Club. He was a founding partner and president of an Atlanta radio station, the founder and presenter of the syndicated radio program Big Band Jump, and has been inducted into the Georgia Radio Hall of Fame.

Which brings us back to young Don Kennedy in Victoria who wrote that he and real estate Don Kennedy have radio in common. Come to think of it, I worked at the campus radio station when I was at university. Could it be that Officer Don is the clue that finally finds the common thread among all of us Don Kennedys?

Nahhh. Not for a second. Now go and vote for your favorite Don Kennedy. And Mom, I know you haven't voted yet because not one single vote has been cast for ME as the favorite DK. So hop to it, please.