The last car of a legacy that has spanned more than seven decades was sold on Saturday afternoon. Phil Kennedy was there to hand over the keys to Kay Carpenter, the new owner of a 2013 Kia Soul. “Feels like buying from family,” Carpenter says.
Few families have had as lasting of an impact on the City of Sapulpa as the Horn and Kennedy family.
Current matriarch Diane Kennedy estimates that they have been in one kind of retail business or another here for about a century, as her grandfather, F.M. Horn, came to Sapulpa from Missouri in 1920, opening a grocery store in the building where Bios now stands, at 309 East Dewey.
His son, Diane’s father, Marcus, chose to go into the car business upon his return from serving in WWII in 1945, going into partnership with a Chrysler dealer on Dewey. A few years later, Horn bought out his partner and moved the dealership to the Updike Advertising building at 113 South Main Street.
Diane began working for her father “occasionally,” she told Sapulpa Times, after school and on Saturdays when she was in Junior High. “I just did it. There was no plan” to run the business for this many years or to learn as much about accounting and the car business as she did.
Upon graduating from Sapulpa High School in 1954, Diane felt she needed to broaden her horizons, so she packed her bags to attend Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia for a year. “I want to go to a different part of the country to see how different people live,” she told her father at the time.
That year was enough to satisfy her wandering soul, so she transferred to the University of Oklahoma in 1955 to major in Finance, where close high school friend and fellow Sapulpan T.J. Kennedy was also in attendance, majoring in History.
Kennedy, a former high school athlete, having played tight end, guard, and kicker for the SHS football team, graduated high school a year before Diane. At OU he joined the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity and the ROTC, eventually serving the country at Fort Knox in Louisville, Kentucky.
After a short time at the base, Kennedy asked Miss Diane Horn if her mother would chaperone her on a trip to visit him over Thanksgiving. Mrs. Horn agreed, and Diane returned from the trip an engaged woman.
T.J. began work with his father-in-law “straight after the service” in 1958, expanding the family business to encompass a Buick-GMC dealership, while Diane planned their spring wedding. The couple was married on April 19th, a “hot, hot, hot” day at Sacred Heart Church, then on Lincoln and Elm.
Eventually, Diane went to work with her husband and father, taking over bookkeeping and accounting duties in the office, a job she has held ever since. She says that Chrysler’s school in Oklahoma City, along with hands-on training at the dealerships, taught her more than she learned in her years studying at college. “I learned accounting through the car business,” she says.
The Kennedys’ eldest son Donald, now a retired petroleum engineer living in Edmond, arrived the day after Chrstimas a year later, and Philip in August of 1960. Both boys attended Sapulpa Public Schools like their grandfather and parents.
The young family stayed busy and close. When asked how her parents felt about T.J. and how they all got along working together, Diane says, “They thought he hung the moon and stars.” He was the son they never had.
When Phil left OU in 1979, he came to work for his father, mother, and grandfather, as the third generation in the family business.
In 1993, the Kennedys sold the Buick-GMC dealership and became Kennedy Used Cars.
T.J. was the face of the business until his death in 2005, when Phil took over. Since then, Phil has been the wheeler and dealer, buying, selling, gathering, trading, reconditioning, and refurbishing cars for Sapulpa-area customers with the utmost care and attention.
When people ask him if he runs the business, Phil replies with an emphatic, “Not even close! I was a run-of-the-mill sales manager for 42 years. I was blessed with sales.” It’s his mother whose “importance cannot be overstated. I put her on a 40-foot tall pedestal.”
“As I got older, I realized that cocky men that sell things don’t run anything. Most businesses are run by people behind the scenes. They run the business, you sell things. You don’t run the business, you sell stuff,” Phil says.
Diane has handled all internal operations, taxes, payroll, “all the things that actually run the business,” for over 50 years. “One of the most successful operating officers in this town is finally retiring,” he sums up.
In addition to their business dealings and contributions to the City’s economy over the years, many members of the Kennedy family have been dedicated and generous elected officials, volunteers, and general good Samaritans for a multitude of organizations.
Mrs. Kennedy’s grandfather and father both served as Sapulpa’s Mayor (F.M. was elected in 1934 and Marcus in 1964), and Marcus won the Chamber’s “Outstanding Sapulpan” award in 1988.
Her husband T.J. held numerous leadership roles throughout his life and contributed mightily to the City in a volunteer capacity.
Among Diane’s many notable contributions to Sapulpa society, she was a hospice volunteer for the St. Francis Hospice Program volunteer for over 13 years, she graciously opened her gorgeously decorated home for Christmas Tours, one year benefitting the as-yet-unbuilt Aquatic Center, she volunteered her cooking skills to Regional Aids Interfaith Network (RAIN) galas, donating homemade meals for 20 as silent auction items, she taught swimming lessons for years, and she even lent her considerable design expertise to help decorate the American National Bank Christmas tree with close friend Jackie Garrett.
Finally, anyone who encounters Phil is aware of his good heart, generous spirit, and networking and mentoring gifts. Often to be found at CTX Coffee, Phil helps host a Friday morning coffee gathering there each week and for a time has hosted weekly breakfasts at Cafe USA to help foster a sense of community among friends and acquaintances.
Recently, he has led the initiative to try something new—visiting a different business each week for breakfast and coffee. It allows those who attend to associate those they have breakfast with each week to the business they do in Sapulpa, thereby highlighting their impact on the community.
Mother and son had no plans to close shop or retire, and the business was not for sale, until an interested buyer came calling. “It was a hard decision to make,” says Diane. “I will miss seeing people. They’ve been wonderful. We’ve had ladies come in and cry and say ‘What will we do now,’” she laughs.
The attached building to the north of the dealership, formerly part of the Kennedys’ enterprise, was recently bought by the Kante Group, with the intention of revamping it into a state-of-the-art e-Sports facility. The building and parking lot of the current location will be a part of this project.
