Kenneth G. Walters, Jr.

With family seeing him off from home on Sunday evening, January 15, 2017, Ken Walters pedaled off on his next cycling adventure. Born the son of Margaret (Witman) and Kenneth Gordon Walters, Sr. on March 20, 1938, Ken grew up in Trafford, Pennsylvania with his two younger sisters and large, warm extended family. He attended Carnegie Mellon and Geneva College, and graduated from the University of New Mexico. As an undergraduate he began working with computers in the Defense field and later worked as a systems analyst for the USDA Forest Service after attending graduate school at CSU. In 1972 Ken married Polly Moore at Waioli Church in Hanalei, HI, and enjoyed a life together full of adventure and love for their sons, Jeff and Josh. Ken was an enthusiastic hiker, mountain climber, runner, cross-country skier, sailor, cyclist and reader – passions he shared with his wife and passed on to his sons. He and his family spent two years cruising the Eastern seaboard in their 36’ ketch “Dandelion Wine”, many summers biking and tenting in Europe, and many, many winter holidays in Hawaii with extended family. Ken twice biked across America and once down the West Coast, and every year was sure to bike his age in miles on his birthday. After “the boys” had moved out, Ken and Polly spent each summer cruising and working the locks of the British Waterways’ canal system on a 48’ narrowboat where the Llangollen Canal was his favorite place to be. With an urge to travel unencumbered and to live with simple creature comforts, he borrowed, and mildly tweaked, his mantra from Jerome K. Jerome: “Let your boat (or bike) of life be light, filled only with what you need.” Ken is survived by his wife, Polly; sons, Jeffrey and Joshua; daughter-in-law, Stacey; grandson, Caden, three step-grandchildren, and two step-great-grandsons. He is also survived by his sisters, Sara Swanson and Peggy Cruze, three brothers-in-law, three sisters-in-law, and several nieces and nephews. He was predeceased by his parents and a brother-in-law. Per his request there will be no memorial service, and at a later date, his ashes will be scattered at sea in front of the Moore family’s former beach house on the north shore of Kauai, whose beaches he loved to walk.

Tributes

Kenneth G. Walters, Jr.

March 20, 1938 - January 15, 2017