Louis Kill Obituary

Durango resident Louis Henry Kill died Wednesday, May 7, 2014, in Durango. He was 82.

Mr. Kill was born to Louis and Loretta Welch Kill on June 1, 1931, in Arlington, Minnesota. The sixth of nine children, he graduated from high school there.

After graduation, he spent four years in the Air Force, including a tour of duty in Japan during the Korean War. Upon his honorable discharge, Mr. Kill attended the Graphic Arts Institute in Minneapolis.

On Aug. 9, 1958, he married Beverly Ann Benson in Minneapolis.

The couple's first home was in Arlington, where Mr. Kill worked at the Kill family weekly newspaper, the Arlington Enterprise. He later became a partner as well as editor and co-publisher with his brother, Val Kill.

The Kill family then moved to Glencoe, where they were in the printing and office supply business. Seven years later, they ventured back into the weekly newspaper business when they purchased the Kittson County Enterprise in Hallock, Minnesota.

The Kills moved to Durango in 1978, and Mr. Kill worked at The Durango Herald for about a year before going into business for himself. Since 1981, the entire Kill family, at one time or another, has been engaged in the management or maintenance of the family-owned business, Island Cove Park, which includes mobile homes, RVs and apartments.

Throughout his life, Mr. Kill enjoyed a number of hobbies, including bowling, hunting and fishing. But he said the one that stayed with him to the end was golf.

He spent several years crafting his own obituary.

"This is my 'hello' and my 'farewell,'" he wrote. "It is my farewell to all of my relatives and my friends, and I hope they will miss me as much as I have enjoyed having them alongside of me on my learning experience on this earth. ... this will be the last of many hundreds of obituaries these now gnarling fingers have had the privilege of composing."

Mr. Kill was preceded in death by his wife of 45 years, Beverly Ann Kill, on Feb. 10, 2004.

He is survived by his children Bradley John Kill of Durango, Barbara Ellen Kaylor of Olathe and Cormac Louis Kill of La Mesa, California; sisters Betty Groetsch of Huntington Beach, California, Ann Leaf of Waconia, Minnesota, Mary Nyberg of Minnetonka, Minnesota and Lori Hasbrouck of St. Cloud, Minnesota; and three grandchildren.

Burial will take place at 11 a.m. today, May 10, 2014, at Greenmount Cemetery in Durango.