A tidy collection of newspaper clippings, preserved in clear sleeves from time’s harsh glare, tells of Rodney Tenney’s decades of public service.

Former Gov. Walter Peterson, in one snippet, denied a request for his administration to hire a trained economist to estimate revenues. No, Peterson had Tenney, whose estimates were “right on the button.” Other headlines showed Peterson tapping Tenney to manage his reelection campaign, then promoting him to budget director in 1970.

During the 50 years that followed, Tenney championed healthcare access for low-income children and left his indelible fingerprint on numerous local institutions. He recruited investors to help establish New Hampshire Public Radio. In Concord, he served as a city councilor-at-large and played an instrumental role in renovating Concord High School while serving on the school board.

On Jan. 6, Tenney, died at his home in Concord at the age of 83 after enduring a years-long battle with Parkinson’s disease. His legacy can be seen in the enduring impact of the projects he spearheaded, namely the New Hampshire Healthy Kids initiative, a program now nested within the state’s Department of Health and Human Services.

Launched in the early 2000s, Healthy Kids ensured that children with and without health insurance would have equal access to hearing and eyesight screenings that are now considered standard care. Tenney, then the chair of the Healthy Kids Corporation, is credited with coming up with the initiative’s integrated, decentralized approach, requiring schools to screen students without charge.

“In the early years, there wasn’t much attention paid to children without health insurance,” recalled former state Sen. Sylvia Larsen, a close friend to Tenney. With Healthy Kids, New Hampshire became the second state in the nation, after Florida, to subsidize health care screenings for children.

“He was a dying breed,” Larsen mused. “He was a very moderate Republican open to all people of all walks of life.”

The source of Tenney’s magnanimity was no mystery to those who knew him. Born in 1941 in Claremont, Tenney was the eldest son of poor parents. Times were lean and, on numerous occasions, he alone was responsible for the care of younger siblings.

“He was not privileged from where he came from,” said his wife, Roberta Tenney, “but he was privileged by the opportunities life offered him, and he knew how to use those opportunities for the greater good.”

In 1963, after graduating from Harvard University, Tenney was drafted into the United States Army. Two years later, he was deployed to Vietnam, spending two weeks on a transport ship where he was charged with teaching fellow officers the history of local conflicts.

While deployed, Tenney suffered a temporarily paralyzing fall on a mountain, incurring a life-long back injury his wife said complicated the “long slog” progression of his Parkinson’s disease.

Mulling over the substance of his father’s eulogy, Tavis Tenney recalled attending a decades-overdue welcome home ceremony for Vietnam veterans with Tenney.

“He would want me to encourage people to take his death as a call to action,” Tavis said. “Hug and thank a veteran, challenge this country to treat its veterans better.” 

Tenney worked as an aide to Rep. James Cleveland after returning home and served in Gov. Peterson’s administration. He was appointed the Granite State’s first budget director and later became the first administrator of Merrimack County.

Tenney served three years on the Concord City Council and six on the Concord School Board, during which time he helped pull off what former school board chair David Ruedig remembers as an “economic home run” in renovating Concord High School in the mid-‘90s just as the country was exiting a recession and interest rates were low.

“We had a crumbling high school, the boiler didn’t work very well, for example,” Ruedig recalled, saying the school was “decrepit” despite its strong bones. The renovation stripped down, rebuilt and expanded Concord High School, a heavy lift accomplished with help from local contractors and Tenney’s “professional do-gooder attitude.”

“He understood and believed that government could do good for people,” said Ruedig.

Outside of public service, he helped found the New Hampshire Public Risk Management Exchange, pioneering a strategy for pooling risk between towns and local governments, retiring from the company in 2006. He also worked as fundraising campaign chair for the United Way at the county and state levels and as treasurer and finance committee chair of Canterbury Shaker Village.

He was a “mission-oriented numbers guy,” in his wife’s estimation, “the glue” of the community. In his retirement, Tenney worked as a substitute teacher, remaining steadfast in his commitment to public education.

U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, worked closely with Tenney on health care solutions when she was governor. She called him “a pillar of the Concord community.”

“He was committed to doing what was right for the people of New Hampshire,” Shaheen said in a statement. “I am forever grateful for his contributions to passing state legislation that expanded access to children’s health insurance.”