Edmund Francis Karkut

The only child of Anna Mihalcik Karkut and Edmund Stanley Karkut, Edmund Francis Karkut was born in Shelton Connecticut on June 30th 1933. His family shared a row home with Anna's identical twin sister Helen, her husband John and their daughters Jean and Joan.

Edmund attended Villanova from 1951-1955 where he earned a Bachelor's degree in English Literature. Although he had registered for the draft, after graduating from Villanova he enlisted in the Army instead of going to Officer Candidate School. At that time the Army guaranteed soldiers their choice of assignment for voluntarily enlisting. Thus, Edmund was in the inaugural class of the Army Intelligence Corps where he was introduced to the intelligence community and spent the majority of his tour of duty in Germany (Stuttgart, Berlin and Oberammergau).

After leaving the Army and looking for a civillvilian job, he paid a visit to the civilian personnel office at Fort Holabird in Baltimore. There he met a nice young woman named Elda Mincsik. She helped him get his first civilian job, and they married on September 9th 1961.

Edmund went on to work for GE aerospace in Philadelphia. Elda and Edmund welcomed their first daughter Amy on May 21st 1963, and a second daughter Megan on May 17th 1970. Amy went on to have two children of her own, two grandsons Edmund was devoted to and enjoyed spending time with all through their growing up, graduating from College and moving on to jobs in Brooklyn New York where they currently reside.

In 1973 the family moved to Denver Colorado where Edmund took a job at Martin Marietta (now Martin Lockheed) where he worked until retirement in 2011. Martin Marietta is a government contractor so he worked under a Top Secret clearance and tangentially with the FBI, the CIA and the National Reconnaissance Office. His work was much influenced by the Cold War.

Edmund and Elda were able to travel all over the world including a wine tour of Italy, a cruise on the Danube and trips to Thailand and Turkey. They were also great patrons of the arts visiting the theatre, symphony and ballet in Denver and enjoying week-long theatre trips in Canada with Edmunds' cousins Jean and Joan several years in a row.

Edmund is survived by his wife Elda, their daughters Amy (Tom) and Megan (Steven) and grandsons Conner and Tyler.