Bueford T. Roper

Services for Bueford T. Roper, 89, Topeka, will be at 2 p.m. Monday at First United Methodist Church in Larned. Burial will be in Larned Cemetery.Mr. Roper died Monday, July 11, 2005, at Aldersgate Village in Topeka.He was born April 20, 1916, in Hutchinson, the son of Charles W. and Nellie Nevada Coker Roper. He grew up in Atchison and graduated from Kansas State College with a Bachelor of Science in instrumental music. He also graduated from Kansas University with a master’s degree in music education. He lived in Langdon, Hoxie, Neodesha and Garden City before he moved to Larned in 1965.Mr. Roper served in the U.S. Army as a bugler and bugle instructor in the Philippines during World War II. He taught instrumental music at the elementary, secondary and junior college level. He owned and operated Roper Music Co. in Larned. He was director of the Neodesha City Band and played trumpet in the city band of Garden City and Great Bend. He also played in the Barton County Kix Band and Jay Bennett Dance Band. He adjudicated high school music festivals at the league and state level in Kansas and Oklahoma. He was a member of First United Methodist Church and church choir. He was a member of the Larned Kiwanis Club from 1965 to 2003 and served as president in 1972. He was lieutenant governor of Division Eight of Kansas Kiwanis in 1987 and 1988. He was a lifetime member of the Music Educators Conference and Kansas Music Educators Assn. He was honored by the Kansas Bandmasters’ Assn., as an outstanding contributor to music education in 1986.Mr. Roper married Norma E. Cook on Aug. 25, 1940, in Oakley. She survives, of the home.Other survivors include two sons, Arthur E. Vancouver, Wash., and John C., Lawrence; a brother, Richard S., Annapolis, Md.; two sisters, Alice N. Cotton, Topeka, and Patricia L. Carpenter, Ogden, Utah; five grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.Friends may call from noon to 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at Morell Funeral Home, and from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday at the church before the services.The family suggests memorials to the Terry C. Johnson Center for Basic Cancer Research or the Matt Betton Scholarship Fund, International Assn. of Jazz Educators, sent in care of the funeral home, P.O. Box 124, Larned 67550.