Kenneth Bunch's Obituary
Kenneth Bunch was born on March 24, 1942, and exited the world on October 28, 2025 to the waiting arms of Jesus. He was the youngest child of Kenneth Floyd Bunch and Rachael Beryl Mason Bunch of Collinsville, Oklahoma. Ken would tell anyone who would listen that he grew up in poverty and worked his way through college, although it did take him five years. During college, he worked at both the Broken Arrow Ledger and Okmulgee Bee newspapers. He liked to relate how he started his newspaper career the day JFK was assassinated; that day was spent delivering a special edition of the Okmulgee Bee to surrounding communities.
Ken graduated from the University of Tulsa in 1965 with a major in political science and a minor in economics. He joined the US Air Force soon after graduation and spent years of service as a manual radar operator at a NORAD station in Oklahoma City,
Upon discharge from the Air Force, Ken was hired at the Tulsa World as a sports writer. He was the bowling columnist for the paper and covered high school and college sports and especially liked being the basketball writer covering Oral Roberts University basketball.
It was his connection to bowling that led him to apply for a position at the Milwaukee Sentinel in 1970 when the bowling columnist retired from that paper. Anxious to work at a paper that covered professional sports, he and his wife Bettye Horton Bunch moved to Milwaukee. There Ken was the bowling and golf columnist. Two of his regular beats were covering the UW-Milwaukee football, basketball, and soccer along UW-Madison basketball. Over the 32 years that he worked at the paper, he covered almost every sport, but he grew to like soccer the best. He covered the local indoor team, and Milwaukee Wave, in addition to high school and college soccer. In 1984, he covered the World Cup in Los Angeles. Ken’s summers were spent covering golf tournaments, and he always enjoyed the US Open. While being a sports writer, he was often called upon to attended country music concerts for the entertainment section. His last seven years at the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel were spent as a copy editor on the news side especially editing the business section. Ken said he never felt more appreciated in his career that spanned almost 40 years than when he worked as a copy editor.
Ken is preceded in death by his parents, his brothers William Earl, John Thomas, Orville Paul, and Donald Lee, and his sister Lavonia Bernice Bunch Brannon; He is survived by is wife of 57 years Bettye Horton Bunch and his son Zachary Paul Bunch. He has many loving nieces and nephews who will miss him.
Graveside services will be held on Friday, October 31, 2025 beginning at 12:00 noon at the St. Bonaventure Cemetery in Bridgeport, AL
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