Kenneth Lane Dyke

The memorial service was well attended. So far as I could tell there were approximately 6 LUG members (2 from Billings, 3 from Bozeman, and 1 from Helena). Of course Ken's family was there as was Judy's... and all of Ken's co-workers from Key Computer Consulting and many people from the motorcycle club Ken was a member of.

We started by signing the guestbook upon entry into the building. That was followed by heading up to the front table that had three posters full of pictures of Ken for a trip down memory lane.

The full story contains several pictures. See also the photogallery.

Memorial Service Poster Spread

Bob from KCC got everyone's attention and suggested we all get started eating and drinking the impressive spread of food that was available. The crowed ate and drank and talked amongst themselves for quite a while.

After about 30 minutes or so, once again Bob got our attention and started off by talking about his memories of Ken. He had a book Ken had given him entitled, "Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life", and provided a very interesting quote... which I wish I could remember. It was about authority being wrong.

Then Carol from KCC got up to speak. She was prepared and had a few printouts... from which she read some of the more interesting signature lines Ken had put in the emails he had sent to her... along with a fairly long comparison of carpentry and computer system administration.

I don't really remember who came after that... but there were several people including a fellow who worked on Ken's motorcycles. Eventually Warren stood up to speak and talked about how Ken had created two Montana LUGs. I wanted to stand up and speak but I found myself much too emotional during the vast majority of the talking part that I just wasn't up for.

One point that seemed to be made over and over was how individual of a person Ken was... how honest he was... how he would dig deep into such things as RFCs to understand how things worked... and how even though no one totally agreed with him on everything, he was a good debater and never made it personal.

Ken's Mom

The final speaker was Lynn, Ken's mother. She mentioned the obituary that had appeared in the Helena Independent Record and then gave us a pretty good rundown of Ken's life starting out with him as a 2 year old on the farm. She mentioned some of the rough times Ken had in his life that but that the balance was definitely positive and how he had lead a full, although rather short life. It was mentioned several times throughout the evening just how fond Ken was of three things: 1) Judy, 2) Linux, and 3) His motorcycle which he had put approximately 20,000 miles on in year and a half he had had it... although he had too much back pain to ride it the last month or two of his life. I was amazed by Lynn's composure and the energy and animation she put into her presentation.

After it was over, several of us hung around. Warren brought his camera in from the car and we took quite a few pictures. I got to talk to Lynn and I mentioned how much I had respected Ken and appreciated him as a member of the Montana Linux community.

Bodhi and Warren