Claudia Karen Tynes, 1947-2025

Karen Tynes passed away in Shoreline, Washington, on October 9, 2025, after a long illness and amid much love and care. She grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, the daughter of Willie and Hazel Blackwell, and graduated with a degree in fine art from Millsaps College, where she met her husband, Guy Allan Tynes, when they were members of the Millsaps Players theater company. They married and moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where they raised their son, John.

Karen was a brilliant, driven, and compassionate woman who studied to become first an analytical chemist and later a computer programmer across her long career in Memphis. She loved to sing in her church choirs, to laugh and tell stories, and to spend time with family, friends, and a laudable dynasty of cats. She

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