Bruce J. Kennedy, 71, Voorhees police officer
Bruce J. Kennedy, 71, a member of the Voorhees Township Police Department from 1979 to 1995, died of congestive heart failure Friday, May 18, at his home in Voorhees. From 1986 to his retirement, Mr. Kennedy ran the Voorhees D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program. His wife, Grace, said Tuesday that he was the first officer to run the program in Voorhees.
Bruce J. Kennedy, 71, a member of the Voorhees Township Police Department from 1979 to 1995, died of congestive heart failure Friday, May 18, at his home in Voorhees.
From 1986 to his retirement, Mr. Kennedy ran the Voorhees D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program. His wife, Grace, said Tuesday that he was the first officer to run the program in Voorhees.
"From the time he was a teenager," his wife said, "he always wanted to be ... the one to save the underdog."
As the first Voorhees officer to run the program, she said, he not only helped educate the youngsters, but trained other officers in the techniques of the program.
Voorhees Police Chief Keith Hummel said that the D.A.R.E. program runs in Voorhees Middle School four days a week, with a fall session and a spring session each lasting six to eight weeks.
Mr. Kennedy grew up in the Fishtown neighborhood of Philadelphia, graduated from West Catholic High School in 1959, and until 1961 was an Air Force teletype operator based, for part of that time, in Okinawa.
He began his career in law enforcement as a guard at what is now the Garden State Youth Correctional Facility in the Yardville section of Hamilton Township, Mercer County, from 1962 to 1972.
Mr. Kennedy became a police officer in 1972, in Riverside, and moved to the force in Voorhees in 1979.
Hummel said that from 1979 until his retirement in 1995, Mr. Kennedy was a member of the force's crime-prevention unit.
Mr. Kennedy returned to work part-time from 1996 to 2001, his wife said, as a member of the parking enforcement section of the Voorhees Police Department.
Besides his wife of 39 years, Mr. Kennedy is survived by sons Robert, Eric, and William; daughter Barbara Yoder; stepsons Keith and Brian Wolfram; stepdaughters Ann McGlinn and Carol Kandell; and five grandchildren. He is also survived by his former wife, Suzanne Hogan.
A viewing will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. Wednesday, May 23, at Platt Memorial Chapels, 2001 Berlin Rd., Cherry Hill, with a Funeral Mass set for 10 a.m. Thursday, May 24, at St. Andrew the Apostle Church, 27 Kresson-Gibbsboro Rd., Gibbsboro. Burial will be in Locustwood Memorial Park, Cherry Hill.
Contact Walter F. Naedele at 215-854-5607 or wnaedele@phillynews.com.