Laurel Hunsinger

Graveside service for Laurel G. Hunsinger, will be Thursday, January 10, at 11 a.m. at Little River Bean Cemetery. Mr. Hunsinger died Sunday, January 6, 2018, in Lawrence. He was born July 9, 1933, in rural Windom, Kansas, the oldest son of George and Alta Marie Hunsinger.

Laurel was a graduate of Littler River High School 1951 and Kansas State University 1959. He lived on a farm, at Marquette and Little River, growing up with six sisters and three brothers. After high school, he joined the Air Force, serving in Korea for over a year with the 90th Bomb Squadron of the 3rd Bomb Wing at Kunsan Airfield Base. On April 1, 1953, he survived a plane crash and was rescued in North Korea where he was a Purple Heart recipient. He married Claris Faye Buchanan, his high school sweetheart, upon returning from Korea on October 17, 1953. His lifetime career was with Texaco, for which he worked in Wichita, Kansas; Quito, Ecuador; Bogota, Colombia; Luanda, Angola; and Miami, Florida; besides traveling worldwide for Texaco. Laurel’s passions were family, friends, history, reading, travel, and airplanes.

Laurel and Claris were married 58 years. He was preceded in death by her and his siblings, Clare Hunsinger, Meredith Voth, JoAnne Peckham, Kay Piper, Karyl Hunsinger, and Dallis Hunsinger. Other survivors include sons, Terry of Olathe, Kansas; Keith and Shane of Lawrence; daughters, Lorri Jo Hoelscher, of Baldwin, Kansas; Cyndi Kempke of Lewisville, Texas; daughter-in-law Elizabeth, sons-in-law, Joe Hoelscher and Larry Kempke, eleven grandchildren, four great-grandchildren, sisters, Georgene Glen of Tonganoxie, Kansas; Sharon Glen of Pahrump, Nevada; and Linda Fesler of Hutchinsion, Kansas.

Interment will be at Bean Cemetery at Little River, KS, with military honors by McConnell Air Force Base of Wichita, with a light lunch afterwards at Congregational Church of Little River.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be sent to Rumsey-Yost Funeral Home, 601 Indiana, Lawrence, KS 66044-8260 made out to Salvation Army or Bethpage Mosaic in Ellsworth, Kansas.