Lois and Ken McGooden. [Click to enlarge]

One of the most popular members of McCook's Rotary Club during the last half of the 20th Century was Ken McGooden. Ken's infectious good humor, and his dedication to McCook and the Rotary ideals made Ken an ideal member of the club.

Ken's natural gregarious nature led to an inexhaustible supply of stories. He must have kept a notebook somewhere in which he recorded every new story he heard, for it was a rare day, whether attending a Rotary meeting, or just having a friendly cup of coffee that he did not regale his companions with "Did you hear the one about … " and he'd be off with another of his many stories.

Ken was a life insurance salesman, and a good one. On a personal note, he never failed to ask me, right after he'd said hello, "Would you like to buy a little more insurance today?" As soon as I would say no, his reply was, "I just thought I'd ask," and we could get down to a normal conversation. In the later years, after I'd suffered a heart attack and could no longer qualify to buy life insurance, Ken would still ask me anyway. I think he did not want to hurt my feelings by excluding me from his list of prospects.

After attending school at the University of Nebraska, Ken tried his hand at selling Ford cars in his hometown of Wauneta. He apparently had only mixed success in selling cars and gravitated to selling Life Insurance in McCook in the late '30s. He was still driving a Ford car when he came to McCook, but one of his first Life Insurance customers was Ben Hormel, the Chevrolet dealer. It didn't take long for Ken to change his choice of automobiles from Ford to Chevrolet. Over their lifetimes Ben and Ken developed a very strong friendship, overcoming a great difference in their backgrounds -- Ben from a background of wealth and privilege, Ken from a modest ranch in Southwest Nebraska.

Ken McGooden spent his entire life in McCook, other than the years he served in the Army during World War II. Over the years he became one of McCook's best ambassadors, extolling the virtues of McCook and Southwest Nebraska throughout the state, and even nationwide as he attended business meetings in various locations throughout the country.

Ken loved horses. On the ranch where he had grown up, horses were an important element in the operation of a cow/calf operation. He had lost his mother at an early age, so he and his father were very close -- best friends as well as father/son, so he probably helped his father more on the ranch at an early age than he might have under different circumstances.

Even after moving to McCook Ken kept horses in a corral just north of town and rode regularly into his 60s. He didn't just enjoy riding horses himself. He also loved to see others ride -- namely jockeys, on racehorses. During the racing season Ken frequently managed to be at Grand Island's Fonner Park, or Omaha's Ak-Sar-Ben, attending the races. He studied the horses, the jockeys, the track, the weather, and made detailed calculations as to which horse was most likely to win under which circumstances. He claimed that his "system" was foolproof.

Ken often invited friends to accompany him to a day at the races. I was fortunate to make one of those trips to the track with Ken. It was a lot of fun. Ken knew the pedigree of all the horses and the idiosyncrasies of the jockeys, and kept up a running dialogue, sprinkled with a few more stories about horses, racing, and politics.

He even offered to share his "foolproof system" of picking winners with us, which of course we took. I'm sure that Ken's system of picking winners was very good, and I'm sure it served him well over time, but I can testify that it was not "foolproof." That particular day I don't believe we picked one winner. But the day was so much fun otherwise that we really didn't care.

Ken dearly loved Cornhusker football. He had season tickets to the games in Lincoln for many years, and made a little ritual out of attending the games. Ken and his wife, Lois, made a weekend vacation out of the games in Lincoln. They left on Friday, and stayed at the Cornhusker Hotel. I happened to be in Lincoln one week, and in the Cornhusker Hotel lobby when Ken arrived. It was as if he were coming home after an extended stay abroad.

Everyone knew him, the bellboys, the hotel clerk, and the other regulars, in town for the game. And he happily greeted everyone, obviously enjoying his celebrity status at the hotel. It was easy to see why he liked those weekends so much, regardless of whether or not the Cornhuskers won the game.

Ken was a long time member of the McCook Elk's Club. He and Lois enjoyed the golf course (Ken more than Lois). They both enjoyed meeting friends for drinks and dinner and dancing. The bartenders quickly learned how to make Ken's Martini "just so." He liked the Stag Nights at the Club. He was a good card player and got very excited when he was able to make his stack of chips grow a bit at the Blackjack table.

Ken was very civic minded. He was proud of McCook and did what he could to make things better.

Two projects come to mind. He worked hand in hand with Ben Hormel to get the Crimestoppers program installed for McCook, to make our town a safer place to live. And, as another safety measure, he was instrumental in getting street lights installed in all the alleys of McCook.

He was especially proud of this project and spoke glowingly about the nice white lights in the alleys and on the streets. He was particularly incensed when the city began replacing the white lights with the more economical, yellow lights. I think he wrote to the city manager, and to the newspaper deploring the way those lights made our city seem dingy.

Ken had a sentimental side. He wrote poems about subjects that affected him deeply. He often shared his poems with friends, and these poems revealed another side to the fellow we met each day -- the outwardly happy-go-lucky, gregarious fellow, always ready with a quip or a practical joke.

One of these poems described a lost puppy that Ken encountered wandering among the tombstones at the Wauneta Cemetery. He made at least two trips to Wauneta making sure that the seemingly lost little puppy had found a good home.

Ken was enthusiastic about the Rotary Club. He frequently worked the Objectives of Rotary, or The Four-Way Test into his conversations. He worked on its projects and he continually invited others to join him in Rotary. He was successful in bringing in new members, and once they were members of the Club he made sure they had a good time and that they were included in working on the Club projects, on the community level, or the International level.

Ken's service to his fellow man extended beyond the Rotary projects and his public service. He continually, quietly, and privately, helped a great number of individuals who were sick or shut in. Just one example: For many months he gave up two half days per week when he drove a fellow Rotarian to the Dialysis Center in North Platte for treatments.

Those acts of kindness went unreported for the most part, as he wished, but they served to form a special bond between Ken and those he helped.