Kenneth James Willard

Kenneth James Willard (Ken), son of Roy and Antoine Willard, was born in a cabin near Solway MN on June 22, 1942. He passed from this life into eternity with his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, on June 19, 2026.

Funeral Service 10 AM, Saturday, June 27, 2026 at Hart Funeral Home, burial to follow at Tahlequah City Cemetery. The family will receive friends from 9 AM Saturday until service time at the funeral home.

Ken was raised with 9 siblings on a dairy farm north of Solway, MN, raised in Christian faith by the faith of his parents and in the church family of Solway Log Chapel. When he was 15 years old, he was baptized with 3 of his oldest siblings at Oak Hills Fellowship campus. Ken graduated from Bemidji High School and then attended Oak Hills Christian Training School where he met the lovely Miss Judy Maureen Niemoth from Chicago Illinois. They married on July 25, 1962, and settled in Chicago where he began a career as a machinist at Illinois Tool Works where other members of the Niemoth family worked.

Ken and Judy started their family in Chicago and after the tragic loss of Judy's parents helped raise Judy's youngest siblings, then in 1972 they moved the family, of now 7 children under age 12, from Chicago back to the Solway area to raise them on a family farm. As they reached their empty nest phase, Ken re-entered the machinist trade with an old friend Thor in 1986, then sold the farm in 1990.

Their next life-phase began with a move to Wray Colorado in 1991 where Ken continued in the machinist trade. There they enjoyed the more temperate climate of Northeastern Colorado, the fellowship of Beecher Island Sunday School, hosting traveling preachers and missionaries, gardening, and hosting many family reunions with kids and grandkids, horses, playing card games, cooking, and climbing the bluffs behind their home.

Ken was always interested in classic cars, old farm tractors and machinery, but his most passionate hobbies were horses, shooting sports, and hunting. He had riding and draft horses for much of his adult life with horse drawn sleighs, wagons, participation in parades and the 279 mile Itasca State Park Centennial Wagon Train from St Paul to Itasca State Park in 1991. He was also an avid reader, enjoying American History, politics, frontier novels by Louis L'Amour and others.

Ken's life was influenced heavily by his faith in Jesus and union with his wife Judy. Together they loved, lived, and gave like Jesus by supporting each other, their family, children, grand-children, and always serving in their community by sharing their home, countless home-cooked meals and desserts, gun-smithing, reloading, shooting skills, horse husbandry, wood-working, handy-man repair, and a few thousand prairie dog slayings by finely tuned and highly accurate small caliber high-power rifles.

Their final phase of life began in retirement when they moved in 2013 to their final home at Go Ye Village in Tahlequah OK. Ken especially enjoyed the community garden and wood shop where he and his friend Sam repaired and built projects for fellow residents. His final official community service was serving as Mayor of Baconville where a strict code of bacon and bananas was honored with the support of his friends Austin and Bryon.

Ken is preceded in death by his wife Judy Willard (2022). Parents Roy and Antoine Willard. Brothers Roy Willard and Lloyd Willard. Sister Betty Peterson. Great grandchildren, Natalie Hodgson and Selah, Noah, and Kenna Lewis.

Ken is survived by: His children: John (Donna) of Wray, CO; Jennifer (James) Hodgson of Bemidji, MN; Brian (Peggy) Willard of Clive, IA; Cindy (Randy) Malterud of Lead, SD.

Brothers Rodney Willard and Bruce (Wanda) Willard. Sisters Becky (Larry) Sloma, Sharon (Larry) Niemoth, Rachel (Richard) Drake, Celia (Charly) Chappell and 12 grandchildren and 20 great-grandchildren.

Ken and Judy's greatest wish is that the love and grace of their Savior Jesus always shine through their life and the lives of their family. Not by impossible examples of perfection, but by the evidence of the love and grace of Jesus. God is good, all the time.