Kenneth Elmer MUYSKENS

MUYSKENS, DEJAGER, JUNE, AUSBORN, SMIDT, HOP, VANDER SCHAAF

Posted By: Sarah Thorson Little (email)
Date: 1/5/2013 at 11:51:40

December 20, 1933 --- January 3, 2013

Kenneth Elmer Muyskens, 79, formerly of Kanawha, passed away Thursday, January 3, 2013 at Good Shepherd Health Center in Mason City. Funeral services for Kenneth Muyskens will be held on Monday, January 7, 2013 at 10:00 AM at the Kanawha Christian Reformed Church, 129 East 3rd Street, in Kanawha with Pastor Steve Schulz officiating. Burial will be at West Lawn Cemetery in Orange City at 4:00 PM on Monday. Visitation will be held on Sunday, January 6, 2013 from 4:00-6:00 PM at Ewing Funeral Home, 118 East 2nd Street, in Kanawha and continue one hour prior to services at the church in Kanawha on Monday. There will also be a brief visitation and prayer service on Monday, January 7, 2013 at 3:00 PM at First Reformed Church in Orange City.

Kenneth Elmer Muyskens, born December 20, 1933, was the second child of John C. Muyskens and Grace nee DeJager Muyskens. He grew up on the family farm, a mile west of Newkirk, Iowa, milking cows before attending Newkirk Public School. Ken graduated from Newkirk after being the center on the state championship basketball team of 1951. He then attended Northwestern Junior College for two years and finished his bachelor’s degree at Westmar College in Le Mars, Iowa, where he not only played basketball, but was student body president and published in Who’s Who of College Students 1954. He graduated in 1955 with a degree in economics and social studies. At Westmar, Ken met the love of his life, Doris June. They were married August 19, 1955, by all accounts, “the hottest day of the year.” Ken taught and coached basketball and other sports at Melvin, Hubbard, and New Providence, Iowa, taking a 10-year hiatus to go into full-time sales work. Ken returned to teaching at Twin Rivers Community Schools, Bode, Iowa, once his daughters reached high school age, in order to spend more time with his children. Eventually, he taught and coached all his children, completing his teaching career in Kanawha, Iowa, where all 5 of his children graduated from high school.

Ken was always very active in the churches of which he was a member, teaching high school, college-age, or adult Sunday School classes, serving as deacon and elder, leading a county-wide evangelism effort, filling pulpits as a lay preacher and serving on the state Child Evangelism Board. Ken impacted many lives with his dynamic and firmly grounded faith in God, leading his family in devotions at every meal. Every decision was bathed in prayer and Christ was very evidently the center of his marriage and his family. He shared that faith most strongly with the five children he leaves behind: Deborah (Ron) Ausborn of Lytton, Iowa; Karla (Dean) Smidt of Kanawha, Iowa; Kent (Kristi) Muyskens of Yale, Iowa; Dennis (Susan) Muyskens of Mason City, Iowa, Kevin (Sandy) Muyskens of Sheldon, Iowa; as well as his 22 grandchildren and 8 great-grandchildren. He is also survived by his wife of 57 years, Doris, two sisters, Joyce (Howard) Hop and Sharon (Wayne) Vander Schaaf, both of Orange City, Iowa; many cousins, nieces and nephews, as well as hundreds of students whose lives he impacted. “Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one’s youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate.” Ps. 127:3-5. “Children’s children are a crown to the aged and parents are the pride of their children.” Pr. 17:6 “Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land that the LORD swore to give your forefathers, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth.” Dt. 11: 18-21.

Ken spent the last years of his life in Sheldon, Iowa, to be closer to his sisters and youngest son and family, and the last few months at Good Shepherd Home in Mason City near to son Dennis.

Ewing Funeral Home
http://www.ewingfh.com/obituaries.php?id=457