Monday, November 29, 2010

Kenneth William Howell, BHS 1943

Kenneth William Howell, BHS 1943

From Yavapai County, Arizona, 6 February 2008

Kenneth William Howell, 73, died Monday, May 31, 1999, at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center nursing facility, following a long illness. He was born Aug. 16, 1925, in Denver, Colo., to Kenneth Wood Howell and Helen Louise (Hinman) Howell. He had lived in Prescott since 1983.


Mr. Howell was educated in southern California, attending Burbank High School, Occidental College and the University of Southern California in the V12 program during World War II. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps, and was stationed in both Parris Island, S.C., and Quantico, Va., where he was commissioned in 1946.


He was called back to the Marine Corps to serve in Korea, and remained in the Marine Corps Reserve until 1962, when he left as the captain of an artillery unit. He received his degree in civil engineering and land surveying from the University of Wyoming, in 1949. After operating his own engineering office in Cody, Wyo., he joined the engineering firm of Stearns-Rogers and headed projects in Colorado, Georgia and Arizona.


He was employed by Martin-Marietta in Littleton, Colo., where he was most proud of his work in developing the lunar drill used on the moon landing. He entered a graduate program for a master's degree in anthropology at the University of Denver, after which he taught the summer field school for several years for Southern Methodist University at the Archaeological Research Center at Fort Burgwin in Taos, N.M.


Mr. Howell was a Mason and a member of the National Honorary Engineering Society, Sigma Tau. He was an Eagle Scout, and remained active in scouting most of his life, earning a Silver Beaver, in 1966, in the Denver Area Council. He was a member of the Yavapai Chapter of the Arizona Archaeological Society and taught several archaeology classes for the state society.


He was a founding member of the Prescott Airport Users Association, and a member of the Copper State Detachment of the U.S. Marine Corps. He was very active in the Smoki Museum, where he was elected to the Board of Trustees in 1992, and subsequently served as board chairman and director of the museum for several years.


Mr. Howell married Helena McIver Bradley in 1969, and they lived in Littleton, Colo. He retired in 1983, and the couple moved to Prescott. Survivors include his wife, Helena; sister, Myra Ford of Glendale; son, Kenneth of Goffstown, N.H.; daughters, Dee Warner of Broomfield, Colo., and Amy Hoover of Thornton, Colo.; stepdaughter, Katie Jones of Prescott; stepson, Craig Bradley of Eagle River, Alaska; five grandchildren and three step-grandchildren.


A memorial service will be held at 3 p.m. Wednesday, June 9, at Hampton Funeral Home, 240 S. Cortez St. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests memorial donations be made in Mr. Howell's name to the Smoki Museum, P.O. Box 10224, Prescott, AZ 86304. Hampton Funeral Home helped the family with arrangements.

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