By KEN CARPENTER
Great Bend Post
At their weekly coffee hour on Thursday morning, the Great Bend Chamber of Commerce celebrated the completion of a memorial to community leader and philanthropist Bill McKown. A gazebo was constructed at the Great Bend Brit Spaugh Zoo to honor McKown who died in 2014 at the age of 58. Construction was finished this spring.
Bill suffered spinal damage in a car crash in 1975 that left him as a quadriplegic when he was 19 years old. He was active in a number of civic organizations, Barton Community College, the Barton County Arts Council, the Chamber of Commerce and the United Way. He was also the scoutmaster of Troop 155 even though he was confined to a wheelchair.
His brother, David McKown, spoke at the Chamber coffee. He remembered how Bill's volunteer work helped him deal with being a quadriplegic or a quad.
"When he got involved with these community activities, his motto was 'it takes a village to raise a quad,'" David said. "And so he'd thank everybody in Great Bend that opened a door for him or stuck a donut in his mouth or drove him to Camp Kanza."
Bill was also an active member of the Great Bend Zoological Society. According to David, building the gazebo at the Great Bend zoo was a good idea.
"He loved zoos," David recalled. "He's been to every zoo in the United States, major zoos. I don't know what his fascination was, but he loved zoos. So this a very, very fitting memorial for Bill."
The gazebo was constructed with funds raised by a private organization.