In Memory

Alan Thomas Kroner - Class Of 1976 VIEW PROFILE

Alan Thomas Kroner

Mar 31, 1958 - Feb 15, 2008


Alan Kroner, a founding member of the Claremont Committee on Human Relations and community volunteer, has died. He was 49.

Kroner had a heart attack Feb. 15, 2008, at San Dimas Community Hospital, said his wife Jamie Class.

As a member of the Claremont committee, which formed in 1997 in response to an anti-Semitic hate crime, Kroner was noted for consistently leading by example, said founding committee chairman Jack Schuster.  

"For the years that I have known him, I think he walked the walk as much or more than any other member of the Committee on Human Relations," Schuster said. "He showed up, and he took those responsibilities very seriously."

Kroner was born March 31, 1958, in Long Beach. When he was a child, his family moved to Pennsylvania, but soon returned to California and settled in Claremont.  

Kroner attended Our Lady of the Assumption School and Claremont High School.

After school, Kroner audited courses at several universities and backpacked throughout the U.S. and South America before returning to Claremont and settling down, his family said.

His eventual foray into public service started in 1996 when he allowed his home to be used as a polling place. "Instead of putting the booths out in the garage, which he thought was cold and sterile, he set the booths up in his living room and cooked for everyone who came," Class said.

He became more active in city service in late 1996 and 1997, when he joined the Committee on Human Relations and ran for a position on the City Council. 

His council campaign and committee membership were short-lived. In January 1997, he was arrested on felony gun and marijuana cultivation charges, according to accounts in the Daily Bulletin. Despite the arrest and subsequent conviction, he received 340 votes in the March election. 

After a brief prison stay, he returned to Claremont and was welcomed back as a member of the Committee on Human Relations. "He said when he came back, with maybe one or two exceptions, all of the members didn't even blink an eye," Class said.  During his remaining time on the committee, Kroner served as the liaison to the local five-city "cluster" of the Human Relations Mutual Assistance Consortium.  

In 2001, he was named Volunteer of the Year by the Los Angeles Human Relations Commission.  It was through his work on the committee that Kroner met Class, who joined the committee in 2003.

"We were instant best friends, because we both had the same desire to do the same kind of work," Class said.  Kroner and Class married in June 2004. "This is so life interrupted," Class said. "We had just bought a condo in Palm Springs, and we had a seven-year plan for retirement. I'm just crushed."

In addition to Class, Kroner is survived by his stepdaughters Laila Dagher and Jackie Serrano; his mother Marlane Kroner; brothers Dan and Dave Kroner; sister Michelle Glover and brother-in-law Ray Glover; four nephews; and three nieces.

Instead of flowers, Kroner's family asks that donations be made to the Committee on Human Relations or a similar organization.

~ The Daily Bulletin





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