Alumni In Memoriam: Kay Winger Blair

Kay was born in Minneapolis, and raised by Arne and Ella Seuss Winger. Kay graduated from St. Olaf College (1945) with a BA in Chemistry and went on to earn a M.S. in Physics (1948) at the University of Minnesota where she met her husband John Morris Blair.  Morris Blair was an experimental nuclear physicist at the U of M who had worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II. They married in 1947 and raised two sons, John and Carl. Morris preceded her in death in 1996. Kay raised her sons while earning her PhD in mathematics (U of M, 1966). She also taught mathematics at Macalester College and the University of Minnesota. She retired in the early 1990s and worked as a volunteer at the Science Museum of Minnesota paleontology lab where she specialized in fossils for nearly thirty years until the pandemic shut down the museum in 2020.. Kay was active with the St. Anthony Park United Church of Christ, St. Olaf College, University of Minnesota's Women's Faculty Club and AAUW Minneapolis Branch. She had a deep respect for, and love of, reading, hand-crafts, higher education, traveling, women's rights, and local history, particularly of her family and Northfield. She is survived by her son, John (Kim); and grandchildren, Ed (Kesi), and Ellie Blair; son, Carl (Julia) Blair; and grandchildren, Alexandra Blair, and Kieran Bailey. The School has a scholarship named in honor of Kay’s husband Morris.