Co-Founder Of Tim's Potato Chips Dies

TACOMA - Robi Kennedy, who founded Tim's Cascade Style Potato Chips with her husband in 1986, has died after a two-year bout with cancer. She was 49.

Mrs. Kennedy, who died Friday (Jan. 16), and her husband, Tim, established Groff's Texas Style Potato Chips in 1983 in Houston, where she handled the accounts and the payroll.

Three years later, they founded Tim's Cascade Style Potato Chips in Auburn. The chips, in their distinctive red-and-white-striped bags, since have found their way even to China.

In 1989 the Kennedys' company became a division of Curtice Burns Foods, the same company that owns Tacoma's Nalley's Fine Foods. The Kennedys sold the company for $3 million but remained largely in charge.

The company now posts more than $9 million in annual revenue.

The Kennedys have lived the past 12 years in Tacoma. Mrs. Kennedy was a native of Hermiston, Ore.

Her survivors include two daughters, Cari Kennedy of Federal Way and Heidi Kennedy Wilson of Seattle; three brothers, David, Dallas and Glenn Dugger of Oregon; and a sister, Kathleen Leichleiter of Puyallup.

A memorial Mass is scheduled for 10 a.m Friday at St. Ann's Catholic Church in Tacoma.