Kendall Jr., Kevin Keith
Kevin Keith ( KJ ) Kendall Jr., 18, of Blacksburg, died Wednesday, November 13, 2013. He was born in Bluefield, W.Va. on December 11, 1994. He is preceded in death by his grandfather, Van Redden Sr.
He is survived by his parents, Kevin and Wendy Kendall, of Blacksburg; sister, Ashley Kendall; brother, Corey Kendall; maternal grandparent, Darlene Redden; paternal grandparents, Joyce and Randall Kendall; uncle, Van Redden Jr., and his wife, Christina and their children, Jack and Tess; aunt, Kimberly Hurd and her daughter, Kendall Hurd; and great-grandmother, Neva Kendall.
Funeral services will be conducted at 4:30 p.m. Sunday, November 17, 2013, in the Blacksburg Baptist church with the Mr. Dave Sloop and Dr. Tommy McDearis officiating. The family will receive friends immediately following the service at the church.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Camp-Smile-A-Mile 1510 5th Avenue South, Birmingham, AL 35233, or to the Kj Kendall Memorial Scholarship, c/o Kevin Kendall, 1416 Honeysuckle Drive, Blacksburg, VA 24060.
Arrangements by McCoy Funeral Home.
https://www.roanoke.com/news/local/yet-shall-he-live/article_1ce5b6e0-cc79-5ae9-b675-a45ff3a44cf5.html
‘ … Yet shall he live’
Beth Macy|beth.macy@roanoke.com| 981-3435 Nov 17, 2013
BLACKSBURG — They came from near and far to salute the humanity of K.J. Kendall; from Young Life camps in rural Virginia to an Alabama program for children with cancer.
Among the 400-plus mourners filling the pews of Blacksburg Baptist Church were scores of students from K.J.’s 2013 Blacksburg High School class. Friends talked about the diminutive boy’s giant heart, above everything, and about the things he never left home without.
They were stuffed animals when he was a little boy. As he got older, he carried screwdrivers, Reese’s cups, and his signature: a 24-ounce bottle of Mountain Dew. He pulled candy out of his pockets when friends were hungry, produced a stash of pencils when a classmate left hers at home. When a cousin scratched herself on a tree-climbing expedition, K.J. magically brandished a Band-Aid from the pocket of his jeans.
“Even as a toddler,” his father, Kevin Kendall, said, “before he’d even heard the Boy Scout motto, he wanted to be prepared. His pockets were always full of whatever he thought he or someone else might need.”
When Kevin and Wendy Kendall got the news that every parent fears on Wednesday — about their eldest son, who had already overcome so much in his 18 years — they drove to his apartment in Mooresville, N.C., to pick up his cherished puppy, Simba.
On the floor of his bedroom lay a rumpled pair of blue jeans, Kevin Kendall recalled.
The pockets, he was not surprised to find, were full.
Scripture verses and sticky notes
The family doesn’t know exactly where K.J. was heading in his Ford Ranger pickup on Wednesday when he died in a four-car pileup in Mooresville, N.C. He was not far from the NASCAR Institute of Technology, where he’d recently moved to study auto mechanics with plans to become a Ford technician.
Known for his frugality — he used a funnel to refill the same Mountain Dew bottle from a larger 2-liter — his father figures he was price-shopping, driving from one auto parts store to another, trying to find the best deal on a part he needed for class.
He’d just visited the family farm in central West Virginia the weekend before. A few days before that trip, he posted this verse from John 11:25 to his Facebook wall: “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.”
“He was not the typical 18-year-old that leaves home for college and goes wild,” his grandfather, Randall Kendall, said before the service. “He was on his own, and still studying the Scriptures.” Not far from the blue jeans, on the floor, his father also found the young man’s Bible — full of sticky notes.
‘Gotta go’
Throughout his school career, K.J. viewed all fundraisers as “nonoptional,” his father said, selling $3,500 worth of Boy Scout popcorn one year and raising money to buy 800 stuffed animals for the cancer ward of a children’s hospital — while he was undergoing treatment himself.
He volunteered for every event he could get to, joining Future Farmers of America and Young Life and playing paintball for hours with his friends. His first words were, literally, “gotta go.”
At 5 feet and 1 inch and 102 pounds, K.J. was recalled by Blacksburg residents as a cheerful bagger at the University Mall Kroger. His movements and speech were slightly halted, a holdover from the brain tumor he’d endured at the age of 8 and the multiple surgeries that followed.
His father recalled him praying for three things before he underwent his first surgery to remove the tumor: that he’d be OK, that it wouldn’t hurt and “that he wouldn’t fuss too much.”
Living in Birmingham, Ala., at the time, K.J. was among the counselors’ favorites at Camp Smile-A-Mile, a therapeutic getaway for kids battling and recovering from cancer. This past summer was his last as a camper. He planned to take time off from his year-round school program next summer to return to Camp Smile-A-Mile as a counselor.
Big lessons
When news of his death filtered through the halls of Blacksburg High last week, the students organized Camo For K.J. Day. He wore camouflage often, calling it his favorite color. Students at Christiansburg High, where he’d taken high school auto tech classes, were equally moved.
Elizabeth Holzman, a classmate who has epilepsy and memory issues, recalled K.J. reminding her how to change oil in a car. They fished together at Pandapas Pond and listened to country music. He untangled her fishing lines when they got snarled, and when she was feeling blue, he cheered her with, “Everything’s going to be OK. Let’s go work in the shop.”
His longtime Camp Smile-A-Mile counselor Susan Larkin recalled driving him to movies, with his brother and sister, before the family moved to Blacksburg in 2008. Once when she picked him up in a brand-new Thunderbird two-seater, he loved the car but later gently asked, “Next time can we take the bigger car so Corey and Ashley can come too?”
Larkin said she’ll never forget sitting on the dock of the lake with K.J., not long after he was diagnosed.
“Doesn’t it just feel good?” the boy said, beaming.
“Does what feel good?” she asked.
“ It ,” he replied.
“K.J. had big lessons to teach all of us,” Larkin told the crowd.
As they filed out of the church and into the balmy, drizzly night, guests were invited to take a memento. On the entranceway tables of the church sat rows upon rows of Mountain Dew.
A family friend had contacted every grocery store in the region, asking for donations of the boy’s favorite soda. Every manager the friend spoke to had known K.J. or knew of him, and gladly supplied the drinks.
Staff writer Melissa Powell contributed to this report.