William Rodney West

It is said if we are lucky in life, we have one person for whom we can call friend. We are extremely lucky in life we have someone to whom we truly look up and admire, and for many of us in this room today, for most of our lives that person is someone we have called friend, uncle, brother, Grandpa, and most importantly, Dad. Regardless of whether he was Rodney, Uncle Rod, Grandpa, or Dad, he was someone who touched us all. Born during the waning days of the Great Depression, William Rodney West was the first child of Benjamin Homer and Kietha Maye West. There would be four more children born of that West union, Charles Roger, Thomas Richard, Kietha Faye, and Leatha Maye. Father, Ben left his family to enlist in the army at the onset of the United States’ entrance to World War II, and shortly after D-day, he arrived back home and continued his career as a Warrent Officer, taking his young family from army post to army post around the country, including a tour in Japan. Rodney, as the leader of the West Pack kids, would engage them in all sorts of childhood mischief in each new location, including finding a counterfeit money-making operation in the Ozarks to swiping watermelons from farmers’ fields in Georgia. The boys and their sisters, Kietha Faye and the baby Leatha Maye always had their beloved cocker-spaniels, Butch and Tony in-tow.            

It was in Junction City, Kansas next to Fort Riley where an extremely handsome young Rodney would meet and marry his four sons’ beautiful mother, Elaine. Rod and Elaine soon moved to Topeka where they would raise their boys. Rod liked getting his fingers into several pots, and tried his hand at selling new cars, joined the National Guard, and even opened a steakhouse. Uncle Rod loved a great steak, and family lore has it that he was once asked to never return to the old Cattle Rustlers restaurant which was famous for its all-you-could- eat steak dinner – it seems Rod had a bottomless pit of a stomach and the restaurant couldn’t meet the demand.            

Rod loved adventure, and one time brought home to Elaine a beautiful Chris Craft wooden speed boat. The anticipation built as that weekend promised to be full of grand fun on Lake Shawnee as he excitedly took Elaine, the boys: David, Mike, Greg, and Doug together with his mother, Kietha Maye and his sister, Kietha Faye with her two daughters for what was sure to be the first of many, many water weekends to come. Leaving Elaine, Kietha Maye, and Kietha Faye with baby Tammy on the shoreline, he took the boys and me for the first and – only spin around the lake on that boat. It seems the boat had a leak and were sinking quickly! Poor Aunt Elaine was frantic as she watched the boat get lower and lower. Taking matters into her on hands, she told Rodney the boat was history! We never let him forget that one! But that was certainly not the last of his adventures. He relished his time taking the boys camping in Colorado several times – real camping with packhorses, tents, and campfires. When Rodney found his forte in the insurance business, he always seemed to be winning trips all over the world, including Rome and more than one trip to Hawaii. But his proudest award was when he won a trip to Ireland, and he and Avis were able to take his mother, Kietha Maye.   In his later years, he would spend most of his weekends with his beloved Brenda on their houseboat on Lake Eufula.            

The insurance business was truly his calling. Rodney was a people person, and he loved helping them. He worked for Prudential Insurance for years, and at one time all three of the brothers, Rodney, Chuck, and Tom worked for the Rock. Upon leaving Prudential, Rodney worked for American Bankers and opened his own agency and worked his way into annuities with Independent Financial Services.            

Rodney loved his dogs and had many throughout his life from Butch and Tony to Duch when the boys were young to one little dog after another, finally with his little Precious. He claimed he wasn’t much on cats, but invariably, he would end up with one on his lap whenever he was at Kietha Maye’s or Kietha Faye’s house. In reality, Rodney’s heart was open to all of God’s little creatures.            

He married Brenda later in life, and if there was one person the rock of this family leaned on, it was her. She was his light. He had found his partner and wife who knew him like a book, and together they were indeed glove in hand.            

It is difficult to find someone to compare Rodney to, but I think we could all agree that he was a strong fierce lion with the gentleness of a kitten for those for whom he loved. Rodney was truly the rock of the family and was easily the one others turned to for advice and for a shoulder to lean on. He loved his boys with a fierceness that is not often seen these days. He was at his happiest when he was surrounded by family: from his boys, to his grandchildren, to his sister for whom he was most protective, to his brothers, and to his many nieces and nephews, and great nieces and nephews.