- Name
- Howard Kinne
- Position
- Guard
- Hometown (Last School)
- Stearns, KY (Somerset High)
- Seasons
- 1914-15, 1916-17
- Birthday
- February 19, 1896
Howard Kinne was born Howard Irving Kinne on February 19, 1896 in Pleasant Plains Township, Michigan to William Alfred Kinne and Nola Estella Miller Kinne. His father was a Kentucky state senator.
When just a small child, Kinne was brought by his parents from Michigan to Stearns, Kentucky, where his father was connected with the Stearns Lumber and Coal Company. In 1906, the family moved to Somerset, and the children were placed in the public schools there. When the older children graduated from Somerset high school their parents brought them to Lexington, where Howard and a sister matriculated in the University of Kentucky.
Kinne entered the University of Kentucky in 1914.
Kinne won his fame in the University largely thru his splendid athletic record. He won the hotly-contested game of the Wildcats with the University of Louisville, almost without assistance and to him was given the credit for the defeat of Purdue University, when he recovered the ball on a fumble by one of his opponents and carried it across the line, making the only touchdown of the game.
Besides being a star of the football eleven, he was a member of the basketball and baseball teams of the University and distinguished himself in every athletic contest in which he participated.
Kinne was a good student and was popular among the students and faculty of the University. He was a member of the A.T.O. fraternity.
He was 21 years old and in the junior class when he left the University in 1917 for the training camp at Fort Benjamin Harrison. He was afterward sent to Norfolk, Virginia, where he was commissioned a first lieutenant in the Coast Artillery.
After reaching France, Lieutenant Kinne answered a call for volunteers in the air service, and was attached to the 99th Aero Squadron as an observer.
Tragically, Kinne was killed when his airplane was shot down while routing machine gun nests behind German lines in France on September 29, 1918. His death was confirmed in April 1919, and he was buried near the site of the crash in Ferme de Madelaine, near Ramagne.
Kentucky’s football field bore the name of Howard Kinne before it was named Stolls Field.
