Wayne Marion Kufus, 90, passed away May 20, 2017, at the Frank M. Tejeda Texas State Veterans Home in Floresville, Texas.
The retired farmer and ex-soldier had resided in the veterans' home since 2014.
He is survived by son Martin ("Marty") Kufus, grandsons Josiah Kufus and Nathaniel Kufus, and one great-grandson.
Wayne was born Oct. 1, 1926, in Trinidad, Colorado, to Frank and Besse Kufus (both of whom preceded him in death decades ago). He spent most of his life in the South Haven, Kansas, area operating a family farm in both southern Kansas and, across the line, in Kay County, Oklahoma. The small farm produced dairy milk, beef cattle, wheat, barley, and alfalfa.
Wayne was a 1944 graduate of the South Haven High School. In February 1951, he was drafted by the US Army–Kansas National Guard and trained as an infantryman with likely deployment to the Korean War. His ability use a typewriter and play a clarinet (he actually was a much better pianist), however, led to Army assignments in occupied, post-WWII Europe as a logistics clerk–typist and bandsman.
His first Army posting was in Trieste, Italy, in an area of southern Europe that had seen vicious conflict between pro-Fascist Italians and Yugoslav Marshall Tito's communist partisans. One night outside an Army post in Trieste a partisan shot at the soldier on guard duty. Bullets struck the wall behind Private Kufus. He returned fire with his M1 carbine, striking and dropping the guerrilla rifleman. The Army "whisked me away" overnight to a new assignment Landstuhl, West Germany, Wayne recalled years later.
It was in Europe that PFC Kufus married Alberta Leela Ramsey, of Wellington, Kansas. (The couple divorced in 1973.)
The young couple lived in San Antonio, Texas, during Wayne's last duty assignment, at Fort Sam Houston. He was honorably discharged in July 1952 and returned to farming in partnership with his father Frank. Although he said he "hated every minute" of his Army time, Wayne nonetheless belonged to the American Legion and served as commander of the Rex E. Wise Post 5688 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in South Haven.
Wayne gave up the clarinet—but he enjoyed playing piano in Protestant churches that he, Alberta, and young son Martin attended. Wayne also loved baseball; for a number of years he coached Little League teams in South Haven and later in Braman, Oklahoma. After his divorce, Wayne eventually sold the farm and moved to town, serving as an elected councilman and then mayor in South Haven. He particularly enjoyed his service, 1987–2002, on the board of directors of the KanOkla rural telephone association headquartered in Caldwell, Kansas.
At one point the general manager proposed to the board that KanOkla spend a lot of money and move into an emerging field of communication. Wayne later recalled he did not fully understand this new phenomenon—he was computer illiterate—but he enthusiastically supported KanOkla's successful entry into something called "the World Wide Web."
Wayne Kufus will be buried in a family plot in the Rose Hill Cemetery outside South Haven. Son Martin (an ex-member of 2 volunteer fire departments in Wilson County, Texas) requests that any memorial donations in his dad's name be made to the South Haven Fire Department, P.O. Box 130, South Haven, KS 67140.