Kristan was 6 years older and definately the BIG BROTHER!   He teased me, tickeled me, played pranks on me,  harrassed me, encouraged me, protected me and loved me.  He was always the BOSS!    

My father and mother were very supportive of any academic hobbies or interests in which Kristan and I were involved.    The family had to purchase a suburban to be able to transport all his percussion instruments - jazz band drum set,  tympani and many other percussion instruments.   My father would help him load up the instruments whenever there was a performance and go with him, actually we usually all went and when I was too small I ended up taking naps during a gig or concert.  One time in the car while rushing to his performance exasperated my dad said to Kristan  "Why the "H" didn't you choose to play the piccolo!!!"

Kristan arranged an audtion for me to take piano from Professor Gossard at Carnegie Mellon University when I was in the 8th grade,  I also took Oboe lessons from a professor there that played in the Pittburgh Symphony Orchestra.   I took lessons until I was in the 12th grade.   It was much fun!

Kristan loved camping with the boyscouts and he talked my parents into camping.   We started out with a floorless tent and slowly graduated through the years to a travel trailer - which my parents took to Jackson Wy to stay and visit with Kristan when he played in the Grand Teton Music Festival.

Kristan had great wisdom and ideas and loved to come to the church that my husband Glen McLure and I pastored.   He was very supportive and helped Jackie Pullinger in Hong Kong with her missionary work.

To sum it up Kristan was a great influence in my upbringing.  He did get in trouble with mother when he harrassed me but don't most big brothers?   

I am happy that he is with mother and father now without pain and a perfect body,  Finally.

Peggy and I first met Kristan at the Jackson Hole Christian Center in Jackson, WY in 1991, where we quickly became friends.  Although we never knew Kris prior to his devastating poisoning in Hong Kong, we could tell immediately that he was extremely intelligent and friendly.  We learned later just how gifted and talented he had been.

We shared a common love of music, Christian faith, and humor.  All through these past 23 years, through good times and bad, we could always make one another laugh, and ribbed each other mercilessly even when Kris was hospitalized or confined to a nursing home or therapy facility.  He gave as good as he got.  We miss that.

Though Kris struggled with his disabilities, he was a fighter in the best sense of the word.  He never gave up.  He fought legal battles as well as his illness with a tenacity that never ceased to amaze us.  He wasn't afraid to go against giants, and always dreamed the impossible dream and fought the unbeatable foe.

He was a good listener, generous to a fault, kind, compassionate, considerate and, yes, somewhat eccentric.  But gifted musicians generally are, as they march to the beat of a different drummer.  Or, more precisely in Kristan's case, a different timpani.

His earthly struggles are over now and he is enjoying the music of Heaven and the company of loved ones gone before.  We will miss him greatly but we could not wish him back to this life, for "while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord" according to 2 Cr 5:6.   Since we know he was a born-again believer in Jesus the only Messiah we can mourn his passing but we do not need to sorrow like those who have no hope, for we know we will see him again.

Kristan, our unique friend, was also our brother whom we loved dearly.  There is a void in our hearts because of his absence, but not in our memories.  So goodbye for now, Rangoon Ranger.  We were blessed to have been in your life.