Kenneth Frank Lane (1931-2018)

LANE, FANTER, BOLLMAN, WEBER, SCHARDEIN

Posted By: Mark Christian
Date: 5/17/2021 at 16:53:12

Obituary from Bellingham Herald, Bellingham, Washington.

Kenneth Frank Lane died peacefully on January 8, 2018, in Bellingham, Washington, after a long illness. The previous day, his entire family celebrated his 87th birthday with him.

Ken was born in 1931 to Frank and Emily Fanter Lane in Jersey City, New Jersey. He earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in Landscape Architecture from the University of Michigan and Harvard University. He worked at design firms in Colorado Springs, Chicago, Honolulu, and Watertown, Mass., before joining the Landscape Architecture faculty at Iowa State University, Ames, in 1963.

He married Carol Bollman in 1959. Prior to 1963 and during summers throughout his career, he worked on National Park Service projects in California, Oregon, Georgia, Texas, Alaska, Hawaii, and Washington.

While at ISU, he received a grant to conduct an inventory of facilities along the entire Lewis and Clark Trail. Ken also served ten summers as a seasonal naturalist at Olympic National Park, engendering in his children a love of the Pacific Northwest.

From 1954-56, Ken was on active duty as a battery officer in Chicago and Fort Bliss, TX, where he had served in the ROTC in 1952. In 1986 Ken married Elizabeth Weber. They retired from ISU in 1998. In 2006 he and Liz moved from Ames to Bellingham, Washington, to be near his four children and grandchildren in the Puget Sound area. Ken was a cherished mentor to many students. He nurtured a lifelong passion for the natural world--animals, plants and birds. He became an Eagle Scout as a boy, and as an adult he enjoyed hiking, backpacking, running, wilderness canoeing, botanizing, birding, photography, and fishing, woodworking and landscaping. He also became an accomplished oil painter in retirement.

In his last decade, he devoted himself to the practice of Mindfulness in the Buddhist tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh. Ken founded several meditation groups, and in 2010 he was inducted into the Order of Interbeing.

Ken was preceded in death by his parents. He is survived by his wife, Elizabeth Weber of Bellingham; his four children, James Lane (Kit Gianas) of Williams, AZ; Kenneth W. Lane (Caroline) and Michael Lane (Erin Suda) of Acme, WA; and Susan (Bradley) Schardein, of Bainbridge Island, WA; their mother and Ken's first wife of 26 years, Carol Lane Ellis of Vashon Island, WA; Ken and Carol's eight beloved grandchildren; and Ken's brother Robert Lane (wife Sue) of Cameron, NC.

Per Ken's request there will be no public memorial. Memorial gifts in his name may be sent to the Audubon Society, the Nature Conservancy, or Deer Park Monastery in Escondido, Calif.

Published in Bellingham Herald on Jan. 22, 2018