Kenneth "Ken" B. Boom

Ken Boom left this world from his home in Tucson on March 24, 2019. Parkinson’s disease ended a life that started on a small farm and threaded its way around the world. He was born in 1930 in Litchville, North Dakota, where he was christened Kenneth Burdette Boom by his parents, Thomas and Alice (Van Bruggen) Boom. He grew up helping on the farm and in his father’s grain elevator business. He graduated from high school in Edgeley, North Dakota in 1948, then went to nearby Jamestown College to pursue pre-med studies. He met and married Diana Doling there and in 1952 decamped for Chicago and Northwestern University to study dentistry. Chicago introduced Ken to city life, pizza, museums (to become a big factor in later life), and hard work at dental school while holding down multiple jobs. He was also introduced to fatherhood with the birth of son Michael in 1955. After graduating that same year, the Korean war and the U.S. Army took control. Ken served as a captain and dentist at Ft. Lewis Washington, where he polished his dental skills and had a daughter, Terri, in 1956. He was discharged in 1957, and moved with his family to Montana, a state he and Diana came to love after working summers as “savages” in Yellowstone Park during their college years. Ken worked first in Wolf Point, then Deer Lodge, finally settling with the family in Livingston in 1959, where he would spend the next 28 years. He set up practice as the dentist at the Livingston Clinic, had another daughter, Sandra, in 1960, and developed passions that he would follow for the rest of his life. Ken was an avid musician, inoculated via banjo by his brother Darryl into the world of bluegrass and old-time fiddle music. He spent much of his time playing with members of the Montana Fiddlers in small towns around the state, and jammed every summer at the National Oldtime Fiddle Contest in Weiser, Idaho. When he and Diana divorced in 1976, he claimed that Diana listed the banjo as a correspondent. In later years Ken shifted to string bass and expanded his repertory beyond the simple chords of fiddle music to the more intricate harmonies of swing and jazz. Ken was also a keen outdoorsman. He owned horses, took regular pack trips with the family into the surrounding mountains, hunted elk, and was a regular hiker and backpacker. He bought and maintained a much-loved family cabin on the West Boulder River where he and Diana often held parties filled with music and laughter. In 1963 he was a member of the first snowmobile expedition into Yellowstone Park. When it wasn’t snowing, Ken bicycled. A lot. He started keeping track of miles in 1985, and over the next 29 years put in over 134,000 miles. He bicycled in Montana, Arizona, California, France, England, Turkey, and New Zealand to name just a few destinations. He cycled almost to the end of his life, going out on a recumbent tricycle into his late eighties. Ken retired from dentistry in 1980 at the age of 50. In 1987 he left Livingston to spend time on the road with friends and family, and to travel the world. He traveled in South and Central America, visited Hong Kong, India, Egypt, and Thailand, and worked with a Catholic charity in Guatemala to provide dentistry to remote villagers. His peregrinations took him more and more often to Tucson, where he settled in the mid-90s with his partner Bev Woodford, with whom he lived to the end of his life. While in Tucson, Ken continued to play music, hike, bicycle, and spend time with friends. He became very involved with the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, continuing museum work he’d done previously at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana and the San Diego Natural History Museum. He applied his skill at casting, honed by years of making dentures, along with an artistic flair to build exhibit components that range from a full-sized hanging manta ray to a miniature watershed to a giant scorpion. He was proud to be named Volunteer of the Year there for three different years. Ken had a lively intellect, a dry wit, and a great joy in life around him. He loved good conversation, appreciated intellectual curiosity in others, and was quick to laugh. He reeled off jokes with aplomb. His family and friends badly miss the music, laughter, and joy he spun in the world around him. Ken is survived by his partner, Bev Woodford; a son, Michael Boom (Lynn Morton), of Oakland CA; a daughter, Terri Tew and three granddaughters, Erin (Wes) Stockwell, Emily (Cody) Gulick, and Hailey (Rhett) Young all of the Choteau/Augusta MT area; a daughter, Sandy Boom and two grandchildren, Carly and Carson Kotas of Carlsbad, CA; a sister, Marilyn (Bruce) Hanna; a brother, Darryl (Diana) Boom ; and three great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his parents. The family will hold a remembrance of Ken at the Western Way recreation center, 3100 S. Kinney Rd., Tucson, at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, May 11. Memorial donations should go to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum—please contact [email protected] to make them part of a group donation for a plaque at the museum.