Kenneth R. Coonc
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Kenneth Robert Coonc "Kenny" passed away peacefully due to complications of lymphoma on October 29th, 2021. Kenny was born April 24th, 1938, in a mid-wife's home on Main Street in Concrete, Washington and raised in Sauk at the foot of Sauk Mountain.
Kenny graduated from Concrete High school in 1956 at the age of 18 having spent much of his youth working in the family business repairing cars and trucks at the service station his father owned. After graduation, Kenny was off to the Army with his best friend and future brother-in-law, Dean Hurn, then back to Concrete to marry his high school sweetheart, Lois K. Hurn.
Kenny and Lois packed up and moved to Vashon Island to the job Kenny had gotten working for Clinker Sand and Gravel. After about a year of running D-8 cat in the gravel pit, Kenny and Lois moved back to Concrete in 1960 and purchased the Shell Gas Station on Main Street from Kenny's father, Sonny Coonc.
Kenny was known to be an outstanding mechanic and the business grew when he added a radiator shop, wheel alignment machine, laundry mat, and 24 hr. towing service with a 1956 GMC Truck that he designed and converted into a tow truck.
In 1972, Kenny felt he had done all he could to grow the business at the service station and sold out. There was a year or so of trying to figure out what was next for his life, and he settled on the shake and shingle mill business.
In 1973 Kenny and his brother-in-law, Al Hurn, bought a small shake mill on the Swinomish Indian Reservation in LaConner. Kenny sought out to grow that business and after about a year he bought Al's half of the mill and began adding shingle machines and more shake bandsaws. At one point his business expanded too fast and Kenny nearly lost everything. But, with hard work he was able to bounce back with great success. The mill was sold to Howard Hammer in 1980 and Kenny considered himself done with business. Shortly after this, No longer partners in business, Kenny and Lois were divorced and went their separate ways. Lois played such a vital part in Kenny's business ventures that he always said, "When Lois and I worked together, we could never be beat".
Alaska was next for Kenny. The next 6 years were spent on fishing boats in Alaska as a deck hand and port engineer. This wore old for Kenny, so he bought a farm on Utopia Road in 1990 to raise cattle which fit nicely with his lifelong interest in horses and mules. Kenny loved the farm but there came another opportunity he excelled at: building mills, log debarkers, and chip handling facilities. Kenny built a high production shake and shingle mill for his brother-in-law, Short Hurn, that any mill owner would have been proud to own. Kenny took his millwright skills on the road and worked for Dunlap Towing where he constructed a debarker and chip re-load facility in Everett.
The Spotted Owl brought more change and soon Kenny was being paid by the Forest Service to take out logging roads to preserve habitat. With the woods closing for logging, Short called Kenny and offered him a job to move wood out of Russia into worldwide markets. There was a good attempt made but the infrastructure and government in Russia were not ready for western logging techniques and the project ceased. Another mill was built for block processing in Alaska. This ended up being the last of Kenny's millwright days in the year 2000.
Kenny refocused his later years on ranching and bought a harrow bed to pick up hay in the fields. He worked in the Peace River region of Alberta, Canada and spent over ten summers processing baled hay, repairing equipment, and making himself useful to whomever had work on their ranch.
One home and one circle of friends was never enough for Kenny except that he did always put his children first, regardless of the circle he was in. In the last years of Kenny's life, he divided his time between his place in Cheney, Alberta Canada, and a retirement home in the Arizona desert.
Kenny was preceded in death by his father, Frank Clark "Sonny" Coonc and mother, Beryl May (Kamm) Coonc. Kenny is survived by his 3 children: Allison Coonc, Melody Cole (Tim) and KC Coonc (Alina) in addition to five grandchildren and one great grandchild.