Doug ’65 and Joanie Landquist Kirkpatrick ’66: Partners for 6 decades

He was a sophomore defensive end, on campus for preseason football practice. She was a new student attending freshman week. He saw her photograph in a directory, called to ask for a date, then rushed to Pfeiffer Hall to meet her. They’ve been together ever since.

Doug Kirkpatrick ’65 and Joanie Landquist Kirkpatrick ’66 were married just after her graduation. They have partnered in such varied activities as running a solo medical practice that delivered more than 5,000 babies, climbing Colorado’s highest mountains, and traveling the world as ambassadors for the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

They both majored in biology at Cornell, then went to the University of Iowa, where Doug earned his medical degree and had his first experience in delivering a baby. “It was magical,” he recalled. Joanie worked in a research lab, was certified as a physical therapist, and worked at the university hospital.

As Doug fulfilled his internship, military service, and residency requirements, Joanie worked in hospitals and clinics with disabled children. By 1975 they had three children and were ready to set up a solo OB-GYN practice in Denver. Doug accepted the late-night calls and pre-dawn rushes to the hospital because helping a new life into the world “touched my soul.”

But he had no taste for the business aspects of the practice. Joanie volunteered. “I felt I could do it,” she said. “I could learn what I didn’t know. Cornell prepared me for that.” Joanie served as office manager and financial advisor for 35 years.

“The partnership worked because we had separate roles,” Joanie said. “Doug made the medical decisions, I made the financial and business decisions.”

Doug’s long involvement with the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology focused on improving standards of practice, and this led to his being elected president of the 60,000-member organization in 2008. The three-year term involved international travel to strengthen global relationships and share best practices.

“Meeting and working with medical leaders throughout the world was the highlight of my career,” Doug said. Joanie joined him, paying her own way.

She would not, however, participate fully in Doug’s successful 16-year quest to climb all 54 of Colorado’s 14,000-foot peaks. She scaled about half of them, leaving the rest to Doug and his climbing partners. He later summited 48 of them again with daughter Brooke Kirkpatrick ’02 and climbed Tanzania’s 19,300-foot Mount Kilimanjaro in 2006 at age 63.

The Kirkpatricks have maintained close ties to Cornell. They have many friends from their undergraduate days, including fellow members of Doug’s football and swimming teams that won conference championships his senior year. Two of their children are graduates: Brooke and Scott Kirkpatrick ’93. Their middle child, Kristin, graduated from the University of Colorado-Denver in 1995. Doug and Joanie were honored by Cornell with a Leadership and Service Award in 2001 for their work in guiding prospective students from Colorado to the college. More recently, they made a gift that established the Kirkpatrick Anatomy Lab in the Russell Science Center.

“Small liberal arts colleges need to prosper,” Joanie said. “They’re important.”

Dan Kellams ’58 is a member of the Cornell College Alumni Association Board of Directors. His career spanned nearly 50 years in public relations in New York City, where he worked as a corporate and agency executive and, later, as a freelance writer and editor. He has written two books set in his hometown of Marion, Iowa.