Connor James McGinnis ’15 died Sunday surrounded by family and friends, four months after his graduation from Cornell. He was 22.
McGinnis performs with Cayuga’s Waiters. Photo courtesy of the Connor McGinnis Memorial Fund Crowdfunding page.
McGinnis was born on March 8, 1993 in Newton, Massachusetts, according to his obituary. After attending high school at Andrew’s School in Boca Raton, Florida, he came to the Hill, where he majored in information science and minored in music and computing in the arts.
At Cornell, McGinnis was a Phi Gamma Delta brother, a member of CUJazz and a singer in a capella group Cayuga’s Waiters. Cayuga’s Waiters took to Facebook Wednesday to express their grief.
“Connor was truly one of a kind and he will never be forgotten,” the group wrote. “Sending all our love and prayers to the McGinnis family during this tragic time.”
(McGinnis performs with Cayuga’s Waiters. Photo courtesy of the Connor McGinnis Memorial Fund Crowdfunding page.)
After graduating from Cornell, McGinnis took a job as a software engineer for IBM in Dublin, Ohio,.
Following his death, friends of McGinnis’s family created a GoFundMe campaign to help his family cover the costs of their loss. The campaign has a goal of $8,000, and had raised $6,525 as of Wednesday night.
The page called McGinnis’s passing “sudden, unexpected and surreal,” urging community members to give back to the family as they struggle to cope with their “unimaginable loss.”
“He was an exceptionally bright and talented young man who had recently graduated from Cornell and had just begun the next chapter in his life,” the page reads. “As a community, we have all been impacted by the love, support and dedication from the McGinnis family and I hope these contributions will help begin the painful healing process for all of them.”
McGinnis “is survived by his parents James and Tia McGinnis, siblings, beloved brother Kevin, Marjorie, James, Lori and Catherine, and his special friend Allison Webster,” according to his obituary. His funeral service will be held on Oct. 3 in Boca Raton, and he will be laid to rest on Oct. 6 in Brewster, Massachusetts.