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Clifford Eugene (Tip) Dinkle passed away Thanksgiving morning, Thursday, November 24, 2005 at the age of 96. Born March 1, 1909 in Greenville, TX. Son of Clifford Eugene Dinkle, Senior and Helen Lockhart Dinkle. Tip Dinkle left Texas in 1927 as the trumpet player in a small jazz band to play in Amarillo and Albuquerque. During the next two years he played with that band and another in New Mexico. After spending one year with a fourteen piece band called The Little Roamers in Los Angeles (playing at what became the Palomar Ballroom) he left the band and returned to Albuquerque to continue an interrupted college education at UNM. A Pi Kappa Alpha member, manager of the fraternity house, and a member of the Khatali Society, he finished his degree in 1932 in the midst of the Depression. Finding no other work upon graduation, he returned briefly to music. In April of 1933, the national crisis in banking resulted in FDR closing all banks temporarily. In April it was known that the First National Bank in Albuquerque would not be able to open on April 17. The officers of the Albuquerque National Bank chartered a plane to fly to Denver to bring a supply of currency from the Federal Reserve and also decided to hire one more employee. This would bring the number of employees at ANB to 18. On Sunday, April 16, Vice President of ANB, Robert Elder, came to the dance hall where Mr. Dinkle was playing and offered him a job starting the following morning. The President of the Bank, Fred Luthy, made it clear that the job was only temporary and so, 25 years later, there was a story in the Albuquerque Journal saying that the Board of Directors at ANB had made their Vice President, Mr. Dinkle's job permanent. He retired from the bank in 1974. During the time he was temporarily employed at ANB he worked with The Albuquerque Little Theater in amateur productions. At the KiMo Theater, in the mid-'30s, he was introduced to Virginia Wright Nye whom he married in 1937. Ginny Dinkle died in 1997 following a long struggle with Alzheimer's disease. Mr. Dinkle was an officer and board member of the Albuquerque Symphony Orchestra, of the Sandia Foundation, the Treasurer of the June Music Festival, and the establishing founder of the New Mexico Kidney Foundation. The latter association was a response to the death of his son, Stephen Wright Dinkle, of kidney disease in 1968. In the last 13 years Mr. Dinkle has shared his life with Natalie (Tasha) Steinbach White whose role as caregiver has been treasured by Tip and by the family. Daughter, Susan Lindley of Claremont, CA; niece, Jean Barnett Parrish; three grand-nieces, Pam Dean, Julie Fry, and Nancy Brooks; and numerous great-nieces and -nephews all of Texas; David Barnett and family of Idaho; survive Clifford Eugene Dinkle. Memorial Service pending at St. John's Episcopal Cathedral.
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