Elmer Joe Hanks, 99, died Tuesday August 24, 2021, at the Lane County
Hospital in Dighton, Kansas. He was born June 14, 1922, at his family
farmhouse six miles south of Pendennis in Lane County, Kansas. He was
the son of Albert Ross and Vera Susan (Overholt) Hanks.
Joe was the youngest of five children and spent his early childhood at
the family farm on Scout Road. During the Great Depression, when farming
became difficult, Joe’s family moved to Garden City. His father trucked
produce from Colorado to Western Kansas and Joe attended Garden City
Public Schools by day and worked an evening paper route delivering the
Hutchinson Herald, The Dodge City Globe, and The Garden City Telegram,
even during dust storms. Once the rain returned, the farming and economy
improved, and the family moved back to Lane County.
After graduation from Utica High School in 1940, Joe attended Sacramento
Junior College, in California where his brothers were then farming.
After a year, he returned to Kansas and began majoring in botany at Fort
Hays State College. He was there less than a year when the U.S. entered
World War II. As part of the “Greatest Generation,” he enlisted in the
Navy and was sent to Midshipman’s School in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. He
attended officer training at Columbia University, New York City and was
later commissioned to the USS Alpine APA 92. This ship transported
troops to Guam, Guadalcanal and Leyte, in the Philippines for invasions
against the Japanese. Joe was injured in service when a kamikaze plane
hit the ship. For this, he was awarded a Purple Heart.
On May 17, 1946, Joe was honorably discharged from duty and went on to
enroll at Kansas State University on the GI-Bill. At K-State he met his
first wife Roylynn LaRosh. The two were married in rural Osbourne County
on June 17, 1947.
Joe and Roylynn took over operations at the Hanks family farm and
together developed a shorthorn milking herd. Joe was an active member of
the Dairy Herd Improvement Association and the Southwest Milk Producers
Association of which he became director. The two soon found themselves
raising a family of four. Along with their farm work, their lives
centered around their children’s 4-H activities and church. They were
named Kansas Master Farmer and Farm Homemaker in 1975.
For several years Joe taught the latest conservation practices to young
farmers in Lane County through Kansas State Extension. He served on the
board of the Lane County Extension Council, the Agricultural
Stabilization and Conservation Service, as well as the Wet Walnut
Watershed Board. He also taught Sunday School for more than 20 years at
Dighton United Methodist Church.
In 1982, he and Roylynn moved to Dighton but Joe continued to manage the
farm. Joe and Roylynn were married for 48 years before she passed in
1995.
In 1996, Joe met his second wife, Helen Prose Metzker. The two were
married in Montanna and together they designed and built a new home east
of Dighton. It was there that they started a two acre orchard where
they grew a variety of fruit and nut trees and began the community
tradition of Punkin Patch Day. Each fall Joe and Helen would invite
local school children to their home to pick pumpkins and enjoy cider
made from apple trees grown in their orchard. Helen and Joe were married
for 25 years, she survives.
Other survivors include his children: Constance Hanks (Gregory Foxx),
Van Hanks (Stacy Shorer), Gloria (Stan) Bray, and Son-In-Law, John
Koehn. Five grandchildren, Andrew (Leah) Koehn, Sarah (Eric) Koehn Frey,
Kirk Bray, Emily Hanks (Les Lynch), Adam (Megan) Hanks, and seven great
grandchildren.
With his marriage to Helen, they added to the family, Helen’s two
children Rebecca (Brian) Hansen, and Rob (Donna) Metzker. Six
grandchildren, Derek Hembree, Jennifer (Nathan) Howard, Ryan (Andrea)
Hembree, Erica (Alex) Hansen, Frank (Erin) Hansen, Gunnar Hansen, and
four great grandchildren.
Joe was preceded in death by his parents, brother’s Leon, Lawrence,
Gerald, and a sister Ruth, his first wife Roylynn and daughter Jill
Hanks Koehn.
A Memorial Service will be held at 1:30pm Saturday, August 28, 2021, at
the United Methodist Church in Dighton, Kansas with Pastor Darrin
Hammond officiating. Services will also be streamed Facebook Live via
the Garnand Funeral Homes Facebook page.
Memorial contributions are
suggested to the Lane County Hospital or United Methodist Women both in
care of Boomhower Funeral Home. Condolences may be posted by visiting
www.garnandfuneralhomes.com
Boomhower Funeral Home P.O. Box 891, Dighton, Kansas 657839