A woman named Liz Straughn shared this story with me.

"My son is in Troop 136 and we had the honor of meeting your dad a few times before his death.  I met him the first time at the Webeloree at Lake Olathe a couple of years ago.  It was raining, and had been storming, when I drove over to bring my son some clothes he had forgotten.  Kevin was just as friendly and happy as he could be when we visited...him in the rain in his poncho and me in my van.  We chatted for quite some time and he just didn't seem like the rain was bothering him at all.  I knew then that he had a great personality.  Most people would be complaining of the rain on a campout."

Sounds like Dad to me. 

Some of you may not know aobut my brother the athlete.  Yeah, Kevin and sports don't exactly conjur visions of participation as much as spectating.  I think Kevin realized from an early age that Band was way safer and so most of you know about his musical pursuits.  I happend to be there for his year as a football player.  

When Kevin went out for Y football as it was know in my day (5th or 6th grade) he wound up playing tight end.  He showed up to practice and played in the games and worked hard at it but never quite made the highlight reel.  Each week in Y football they picked a player of the game and that player would receive tickets to the Chiefs football game.  Kevin was getting frustrated with the same guys always getting the tickets and so he decided to speak up at one of the practices and told the team "Hey why don't we pick some different players once in a while so others get a chance."  Well the team voted him for getting the tickets that week becuase he spoke up.  I guess that was Kevin at an early age. He always had to speak up and try to make things good for everybody.  

He never excelled at football but he always made a good teammate! 

Later in the year they had a giveaway of a Cheifs team football signed by the entire Cheifs team (69 or 70) and Kevin won it that was with him for a long time. Even though many of the signatures faded, I still think he was pretty proud of that football.  

What an event this was.


It was an un-official item on Dad's Bucketlist...to see one of his children march in a college marching band.  Having Dad see him march was one of the only things Kirk ever asked for during Dad's ten-month battle during his senior year.  Because of Kirk's request, I knew we had to make it happen, but it was going to be a challenge.


It started way back in July after we found out that Dad's tumor was back.  I knew from stories I read about this awful tumor that time was of the essence once it comes back. I quickly contacted Dr. Tracz, the director of bands at K-State, to let him know the situation Kirk would have to face once school started and inquired about discounted tickets to the game, since I knew it was going to be impossible to get wheel-chair accessable seats to the first home football game of the season.  He used some of his allotted 'recruiting' tickets for us to get Dad to the game.


Another challenge in getting Dad to the game is by the time August came around, Dad was wheelchair bound.  How are we supposed to lift Dad in and out of a car, into a wheelchair and back again? Mom and I had done this many times already and with Dad getting weaker and weaker, it was getting harder and harder for Mom and me to help him. We could use a power chiar from the Lenexa VFW, but how to get it to Manhattan? I looked into the few wheelchiar van rental places their are and all were booked of that weekend because it was Labor Day weekend.  Mom and I were giving up hope on getting Dad to the game.

I talked with our hospice care who made a few calls and let me know that one of the places I contacted had a van return early, but was only available for that Friday. After I told the rental people our situation, they waved the mileage limit so we wouldn't be charged for the extra 120 miles back home.  I knew that divine providence had come through for us to get Dad to the game, so we had to get him there.

The journey was hard to get him there because even though Dad was a larger man, the chair was too big for him and with Dad not able to control half of his body, it was hard for him to stay in the chair, so Mom regularly adjusted Dad in the van while I drove.

We arrived at Bill Snyder Family Stadium and got to the parking spot that Dr. Tracz had parked in so that we would have close parking to the stadium.  It was hotter than heck that day, so I left Mom and Dad in the van with the A/C while I figured out where our seats were.

We got Dad settled in our seats and the band started performing the Pre-game show.  After the game started, Kirk came over to our seats and got to see Dad at the game. The smile on Kirk's face made all the challenges of getting Dad there worth it.                 

Many years ago, we were going to spend Christmas in Colorado.  Instead of taking all the presents with us in the car, Mom and Dad had us open everything the night before we left (Dec. 23).  We were driving there on Christmas Eve.  Kirk was still at an age when he might still believe in Santa and Dad didn't want that to go away, so Christmas Eve when we were in Colorado, he wrote a note as Santa explaining he found us in Colorado. 'Santa' also taped three $20 bills on the fireplace, one for each of us kids.  I think it might have worked on Kirk. ;)  

Kevin was my big brother.  I was really good at being the annoying little sister and was a bit of a princess when we were little. Even though I could be a big pest I knew that my big brother always had my back. If any of the neighbor kids teased me or picked on me he always stood up for me. I remember after Kevin went to college, when he came home we would have really great late night talks about all kinds of important stuff like growing up, dating and religion. I always wanted him to be proud of me. The first time I really knew he was proud of me was when I was a senior in high school and was on the SMNW cougarette drill team.  We performed with the marching band at football games.  That year our football team went to state and the game happened to be in Wichita.  Kevin was a junior at WSU that year.  I remember him bringing a big gang of his friends to the game to meet me and to see us perform. He got that silly sideways grin on his face that he always gets when he is really happy.  I knew he was proud and it meant the world to me!

Dad tells this story way better, but I will try to do it justice.

It was at camp, I believe Camp Naish, and Dad had just purchased a new digital camera. He was trying to get pictures of us scouts doing some sort of life saving or some activitiy in the pool. After a bit Dad looked at his arms and saw some weird red marks up and down his forearms. He went to the health lodge to see what it might be. The staff was perplexed as to what this might be. People thought it was poison ivy because of the red but it couldn't have been because it didn't itch and the red bumps were concave.  

They had him retell what he had been doing before he noticed the "rash." He mentioned he was trying to get pictures at the pool. "To avoid getting the metal fence in the picures, I put my arms on top of the fence and...oh that's how they got there." The metal on the top of the chainlink fence left marks on his arms.  So that is how Dad discovered Fence Disease.