Walter Penney was active at the University of Maryland in the early 1970’s.

Walt also worked on the Washington Area Spark, an underground newspaper of the time. A brilliant mathematician, he went on to a successful career in information technology. He was killed in 2002 when a car collided with his bike on Sligo Creek Parkway in Silver Spring, Md.

You may read more about Walter Penney at North Takoma.Org

Original Comments

• I knew Walter Penney when he was 12 years old. He was a camper at YMCA Camp Letts when I was a junior staff member there. He had only a minimal respect for authority even then, but in a charming mischievious kinda way. Still, he nearly drove my friend Phil (a junior counselor) crazy.
  
  When I met Walt again years later during the UM anti-war movement, I wasn’t surprised that he had become a political radical.
  
  He was a hardworking courageous activist. He and Judi Bari once tacked up a strike manifesto on our commune door, protesting the lack of democratic decision-making at the Spark underground paper. How many people have you known to go on strike against an underground paper? Walt had his principles and he stuck to them.
  
  I knew Walt was a brilliant guy, but it wasn’t until I read his obit that I began to comprehend how much he had accomplished since he left UM.
  
  It was a terrible shock when I tried to look him up a while back and found that he had been killed in traffic crash.
  
  Walt and Judi---both gone. What a goddamned shame.
  
  
  
• Thanks, Bob S, for the comments about Walt. Our 14 year-old son, Walter, will be leaving for Camp Letts this Sunday. Our 17 year-old daughter, Vanessa, also went to summer camp there, and the whole family Penney family has been to many Family Camps.
  
  I hope to meet you at the reunion.
  
  Cheryl