Lionn Dean Kirk, Ph.D.1 min read

By
Christopher Fox Graham
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Lionn Dean Kirk, Ph.D.

Nov. 27, 2021

L. Dean Kirk, 91, died Nov. 27.

He was a minister, school psychologist, and marriage and family therapist. After moving to the Verde Valley, he was active in several area churches as a minister and elder.

He is survived by his wife, Eleanor; children Karen Burton, Johnny Kirk, Elizabeth Kaiser, Sandra Flener and Susan Adams; stepchildren Richard Kimitsuka, Kenneth Kimitsuka, and Deborah Kimitsuka; numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

A celebration of life will be held Saturday, Dec. 18 at 2 p.m. at the Verde Community Church Chapel in Cottonwood.

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Christopher Fox Graham

Christopher Fox Graham is the managing editor of the Sedona Rock Rock News, The Camp Verde Journal and the Cottonwood Journal Extra. Hired by Larson Newspapers as a copy editor in 2004, he became assistant manager editor in October 2009 and managing editor in August 2013. Graham has won awards for editorials, investigative news reporting, headline writing, page design and community service from the Arizona Newspapers Association. Graham has also been a guest contributor in Editor & Publisher magazine and featured in the LA Times, New York Post and San Francisco Chronicle. He lectures on journalism, media law and the First Amendment and is a nationally recognized performance aka slam poet. In January 2025, the International Astronomical Union formally named asteroid 29722 Chrisgraham (1999 AQ23) in his honor at the behest of Lowell Observatory, citing him as "an American journalist and longtime managing editor of Sedona Red Rock News. He is a nationally-recognized slam poet who has written and performed multiple poems about Pluto and other space themes."

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