DAVID PAUL RINKER is gone. Although “The song is ended, but the melody lingers on” belongs to the Tigertones, and “Rinks” was a Nassoon, it applies to Dave. The full-page obituary after his death on Mar. 15, 1992, in a Columbia, S.C., paper begins, “Columbia’s skyline is dotted with examples of Dave Rinker’s contributions to U.S.C.’s growth during the 1980s, the Swearingen and Koger Centers and the upper deck to Williams Brice Stadium. The new music building is about to get started. But Rinker won’t see that dream realized. He died Sunday after a bout with lymphoma. He was 53.” The U.S.C. provost said, “He immersed himself in the university community.” Dave’s daughter-in-law Lynette said, “He was the kind of man who would stand in the background and let other people get credit for things he worked very hard on.” At the time of his death, Rinker was the director of facilities management at the Univ. of South Carolina and was university architect. Pres. John Palms said that Dave was “a man of principle and one of our most effective administrators. We will always remember his professionalism, dedication, the positive and constructive attitude he brought to his job.”
Dave was born Mar. 12, 1938, in Chicago. He went to New Trier, where he was on the swimming and golf teams. At Princeton, he majored in architecture, was a chapel deacon, an active Nassoon, and a member of Cap and Gown. He married Delitha the summer after junior year.