Daniel Regis Knighton

Dr. Daniel Regis Knighton, 80, passed away in Wilmington, North Carolina on October 1, 2019. Born in Sewickley, Pennsylvania, on New Year’s Day of 1939, he was orphaned by the untimely deaths of his parents. After stints in the foster care system and the U.S. Army, he earned a B.A. at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and a doctorate at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he completed a dissertation in the field of labor economics. His teaching career at Moorhead State University (now Minnesota State University – Moorhead) spanned three decades, during which he developed a reputation for rigor in the classroom, founded a successful forensic economics consulting firm, and served prominently as the president of the faculty union.

Dan will be remembered by many for his formidable and independent intellect, fearlessness as a debater, and reliably sharp wit, as well as for his lifelong political commitments to labor and civil rights. These traits were complemented by the passion he felt for his hobbies. He was a champion at racquet sports and an avid cross-country skier, but it was long-distance cycling that was paramount. He completed a coast-to-coast ride from Washington to Maine in 2003, as well as many other challenging itineraries in the United States and Europe (including many shared with his wife, Karen, with the two of them on a state-of-the-art tandem touring bike). Even as his vision worsened due to macular degeneration, he continued to take pleasure in books, playing and listening to bluegrass, and the sometimes tortured fandom that came from following Tarheel basketball and the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Chief among his survivors is his wife, Karen, with whom he recently celebrated fifty years of marriage; they retired to Southport, North Carolina in 1999 after more than thirty years in the Red River Valley region of the northern plains. He is also survived by the following: a daughter, Jennifer Lynn DeVito, of Hermosa Beach, California; a son, Andrew Lyndon Knighton, of Los Angeles; two grandsons, Jordan Jeffrey DeVito and Judson Robert Knighton Brill; and his mother-in-law, Evelyn “Peppermint” Perryman. Other extended family is concentrated in the Southport area and in central and eastern Pennsylvania. He is preceded in death by his oldest son, Daniel Judson Knighton; his brother, William Knighton; and his parents, Margaret R. Hagula Knighton and Regis Edward “Rege” Knighton.

The family will miss Dan profoundly and will memorialize him privately, with wishes for boundless horizons and eternal tailwinds. Memorial donations may be made to either the American Macular Degeneration Foundation or the American Civil Liberties Union.

Online condolences may be made at www.peacocknewnamwhite.com.

Peacock - Newnam & White Funeral and Cremation Service, Southport, NC.