Obituaries / LJWorld.com

Obituaries

Services for Jay Wiedenkeller, 56, Prairie Village, will be at 11 a.m. Saturday at Community Christian Church in Kansas City, Mo. A lunch and celebration of life will follow at St. Joseph Health Center's Child Development Center in Kansas City, Mo.Mr. Wiedenkeller died Sunday, July 3, 2005, at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston as a result of advanced kidney cancer.He was born July 17, 1948, in Philadelphia, the son of Gordon and Gloria Wiedenkeller. He grew up on Long Island, N.Y., and attended Franklin & Marshall College in York, Pa., and Long Island University. He moved to Lawrence, Kan., in 1976 and worked at Hilltop Child Development Center while completing his master's degree in early childhood education at Kansas University. He also received a master's degree in counseling psychology from Avila University in Kansas City. Mo. He later moved to Prairie Village. He lived in Houston for a year during his treatment.Mr. Wiedenkeller was founding director of the Child Development Center at St. Joseph Health Center, where he worked for 20 years before working at Responsive Centers for Psychology & Learning in Overland Park, Kan. He was a former president of the Mid-America Association for the Education of Young Children and received the MAAEYC Lifetime Achievement Award. He was a member of the Association for Play Therapy and North American Association of Masters in Psychology. He was a third degree black-belt in tae kwon do and participated in Lance Armstrong's Ride for the Roses in Austin, Texas.He married Andrea "Andie" Warren in 1981. She survives, of the home.Other survivors include his mother, Gloria Wiedenkeller Marchant; a son, Derek, Locust Valley, N.Y.; two daughters, Alison Warren Doerr, Roeland Park, Kan., and Kymberly Wiedenkeller Williams, Redondo Beach, Calif.; a brother, Todd, New Paltz, N.Y.; a sister, Dayna Grant, Anaheim, Calif.; and five grandsons.A stepson, Brendon "Ben" Doerr, died earlier. The family suggests memorials to the Brendon R. Doerr Scholarship Fund at Hastings College, 800 Turner St., Hastings, NE 68901 or to the research fund at the Kidney Cancer Assn., 1234 Sherman Avenue, Suite 203, Evanston, IL 60202.