BOOTHBAY HABOR – Wayne Hartung Keene died on Oct. 28, 2021 at Boothbay Harbor, surrounded by family.

The son of Murray Calhoun Keene and Evelyn Amelia Hartung Keene, he was born at Boothbay Harbor on April 29, 1937. He attended grades K-12 in Boothbay Harbor and won the Mathematics Cup when he graduated from high school in 1954.

During the early years he built and flew model airplanes, played the trumpet in the school band and orchestra, worked as deckhand on the party boat Linekin, worked as a carpenter’s helper at Samples shipyard, worked at the Fishermen’s Coop, and delivered milk for Oakhurst Dairy.

In 1954 Wayne entered the University of Maine in the Engineering Physics Department and graduated with a B.S. in 1958. Summers, he delivered milk again and worked as a pipe coverer on mine sweepers at Hodgdon Brothers shipyard in East Boothbay. On June 2, 1957 he married his high school sweetheart, Suzanne Amanda Lewis, of East Boothbay and took her to Rochester, N.Y. where they both worked for Eastman Kodak for the summer. After the senior year at University of Maine, they moved to Niantic, Conn. where Wayne worked for a year at Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics on sound and vibration in submarines.

Then it was back to University of Maine for a M.S. degree in physics in 1961 where Wayne taught freshman physics labs and did an M.S. thesis in X-Ray diffraction crystallography. On March 2, 1960, their first daughter, Sonya, was born. Then they went to Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts for three years where Wayne taught physics and graduated with a Doctorate in Physics in 1964 with a dissertation on time-resolved laser spectroscopy published in the journal “Applied Optics.” Their second child, Nancy, was born on July 10, 1962.

In 1964, after a year at Westinghouse in Maryland, Wayne and Sue moved to Massachusetts for their careers: Wayne at Raytheon in Sudbury; and Sue at Massachusetts Hospital School in Canton. Wayne was awarded 18 U.S. patents on various aspects of coherent detection infrared laser radar systems that he and his group designed, developed and tested. He was on the leading edge of this new technology for many years. He retired in 1992.

While at Raytheon, Wayne’s hobbies were racing in the showroom stock division of the Sports Car Club of America, where he won the 1973 mid-Atlantic championship in a Porsche 914. He also built and flew radio-controlled model airplanes and attained level four in the League of Silent Flight, and began researching family history and genealogy.

After retirement, Wayne and Sue lived in New Hampshire and wintered in Green Valley, Ariz.; and Naples, Fla., before moving back to Maine where they lived in East Boothbay and wintered in Tavares, Fla. Wayne learned to play the fiddle and played in jam groups and open mikes, and was regularly invited to play with Kay Brown at her Tugboat Inn Piano Bar. Sue joined quilt clubs and made many quilts.

Wayne is survived by his wife of 64 years, Sue; daughters Sonya Keene of Nantucket, Mass. and Nancy Donahue of Natick, Mass., and their husbands John Moy and Timothy Donahue; five grandchildren, Maria Moy of San Francisco, Kyle Donahue of Boulder, Colo., Paul Moy and his wife Kelsey Sheridan of Superior, Colo., Julia Moy of Charlottesville, Va. and Lauren Donahue of Natick, Mass.; brothers-in-law Alan Lewis of East Boothbay and Richard Lewis of Cape Elizabeth.

A private ceremony will be followed by burial at Evergreen Cemetery in Boothbay.

Hall’s of Boothbay has care of the arrangements. To extend online condolences, please visit hallfuneralhomes.com

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