On Sept. 17, 2015, John (Jack) William Kendall, Jr., 82, passed away at the Pioneers Medical Center. Jack was born in a rural farmhouse in Washington County, Colo., on April 6, 1933, and was the third of four children of John and Gertrude Kendall.
The Kendall family moved to the Meeker area in the late 1940s to a small ranch they owned located just a few miles south of Meeker. The family later moved to the Town of Meeker when in December of 1951 Jack joined the United States Navy during the Korean War and served on two different destroyers, the USS Edmonds and the USS Carpenter. In November of 1955 he was released from active duty and in 1959 separated from the Navy with an honorable discharge.
After a few years of working for an oil field drilling company in different parts of Colorado and Utah, he began a career as a barber and later opened Jack’s Barber Shop located on Main Street in Meeker, which was a favorite place, not to just get a haircut, but a favorite place to visit and catch up on local events and happenings in the Meeker area.
Both Jack and his longtime father and best friend, John Kendall, were avid hunters, trappers and fishermen and were called upon by many local ranchers as the ones to call when you had a varmint problem that needed solving. Jack’s favorite memory was one in which he and his father spent an entire summer opening trails for the U.S. Forest Service in the Flat Tops Wilderness Area.
After retiring from the barber profession, Jack also worked for the Town of Meeker in the capacity of animal control officer where he put to use those skills in the hunting and trapping profession. Jack will be sorely missed by all who knew him.