Obituaries / LJWorld.com

Obituaries

A celebration of life for Gene J. Shnell, 81, Lawrence, will be at noon May 30 at Southside Church of Christ, Lawrence.
Mr. Shnell died Friday, May 15, 2009, at Windsor Place.
He was born July 31,1927, in Lone Wolf, Okla., the son of Boone J. and Edith Mawhirter Shnell. He graduated from Hobart High School in 1944.
During and after World War II, he served in the Merchant Marine and spent 15 months in Tokyo in the U.S. Army, being discharged in 1947. Following his service, he enrolled at Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State University), where he received a degree in electrical engineering in 1951. He also obtained a master’s degree in business administration from MIT in 1967.
He began his career with Southwestern Bell Telephone Company as wire chief and continued with them for 29 years. He held assignments in Muskogee, Okla.; Tulsa, Okla.; St. Louis; Wichita; and Topeka. The last two assignments were as division plant superintendent. He was transferred to American Bell International Inc. and served in Tehran, Iran, from 1977 to 1979. He finished his career in 1980 at AT&T Corporate offices in New Jersey.
Mr. Shnell was a member in the Church of Christ. After retiring in 1980, he moved to Columbia, Mo., and then to Broken Arrow, Okla., in 1987. He moved to Kansas in 2001.
He married Sarah Jane Brandon, Checotah, Okla., on Dec. 19, 1953. She died in June 1997.
Survivors include three daughters, Mary Beth Petr and husband David, Lawrence, Donna Goforth and husband Ed, Richmond, Texas, and Peggy Hope, St. Louis; a brother, Donald, Hobart, Okla.; a sister, Doris Edmonds, Spring, Texas; four grandsons, Michael, Brandon and Samuel Hope and Jesse Goforth; five granddaughters, Hannah Petr, Emily Felts, Martha Carlisle, Allie Goforth and Mollie Hope; and two great-grandchildren.
The family suggests memorials to Hope Harbor Children’s Home, P.O. Box 1047, Claremore, OK 74018, marked “Gene and Sarah Shnell Educational Endowment Fund.”