Obituary of Kenneth B. Boom

Ken Boom left this world from his home in Tucson on March 24, 2019. 
Parkinson’s disease ended a life that started on a small farm and 
threaded its way around the world. He was born in 1930 in Litchville, 
North Dakota, where he was christened Kenneth Burdette Boom by his 
parents, Thomas and Alice (Van Bruggen) Boom. He grew up helping on the 
farm and in his father’s grain elevator business. He graduated from high 
school in Edgeley, North Dakota in 1948, then went to nearby Jamestown 
College to pursue pre-med studies. He met and married Diana Doling there 
and in 1952 decamped for Chicago and Northwestern University to study 
dentistry. 

Chicago introduced Ken to city life, pizza, museums (to become a big 
factor in later life), and hard work at dental school while holding down 
multiple jobs. He was also introduced to fatherhood with the birth of 
son Michael in 1955. After graduating that same year, the Korean war and 
the U.S. Army took control. Ken served as a captain and dentist at Ft. 
Lewis Washington, where he polished his dental skills and had a 
daughter, Terri, in 1956. He was discharged in 1957, and moved with his 
family to Montana, a state he and Diana came to love after working 
summers as “savages” in Yellowstone Park during their college years. 

Ken worked first in Wolf Point, then Deer Lodge, finally settling with 
the family in Livingston in 1959, where he would spend the next 28 
years. He set up practice as the dentist at the Livingston Clinic, had 
another daughter, Sandra, in 1960, and developed passions that he would 
follow for the rest of his life. 

Ken was an avid musician, inoculated via banjo by his brother Darryl 
into the world of bluegrass and old-time fiddle music. He spent much of 
his time playing with members of the Montana Fiddlers in small towns 
around the state, and jammed every summer at the National Oldtime Fiddle 
Contest in Weiser, Idaho. When he and Diana divorced in 1976, he claimed 
that Diana listed the banjo as a correspondent. In later years Ken 
shifted to string bass and expanded his repertory beyond the simple 
chords of fiddle music to the more intricate harmonies of swing and jazz. 

Ken was also a keen outdoorsman. He owned horses, took regular pack 
trips with the family into the surrounding mountains, hunted elk, and 
was a regular hiker and backpacker. He bought and maintained a 
much-loved family cabin on the West Boulder River where he and Diana 
often held parties filled with music and laughter. In 1963 he was a 
member of the first snowmobile expedition into Yellowstone Park. 

When it wasn’t snowing, Ken bicycled. A lot. He started keeping track of 
miles in 1985, and over the next 29 years put in over 134,000 miles. He 
bicycled in Montana, Arizona, California, France, England, Turkey, and 
New Zealand to name just a few destinations. He cycled almost to the end 
of his life, going out on a recumbent tricycle into his late eighties. 

Ken retired from dentistry in 1980 at the age of 50. In 1987 he left 
Livingston to spend time on the road with friends and family, and to 
travel the world. He traveled in South and Central America, visited Hong 
Kong, India, Egypt, and Thailand, and worked with a Catholic charity in 
Guatemala to provide dentistry to remote villagers. His peregrinations 
took him more and more often to Tucson, where he settled in the mid-90s 
with his partner Bev Woodford, with whom he lived to the end of his life. 

While in Tucson, Ken continued to play music, hike, bicycle, and spend 
time with friends. He became very involved with the Arizona-Sonora 
Desert Museum, continuing museum work he’d done previously at the Museum 
of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana and the San Diego Natural History 
Museum. He applied his skill at casting, honed by years of making 
dentures, along with an artistic flair to build exhibit components that 
range from a full-sized hanging manta ray to a miniature watershed to a 
giant scorpion. He was proud to be named Volunteer of the Year there for 
three different years. 

Ken had a lively intellect, a dry wit, and a great joy in life around 
him. He loved good conversation, appreciated intellectual curiosity in 
others, and was quick to laugh. He reeled off jokes with aplomb. His 
family and friends badly miss the music, laughter, and joy he spun in 
the world around him. 

Ken is survived by his partner, Bev Woodford; a son, Michael Boom (Lynn 
Morton), of Oakland CA; a daughter, Terri Tew and three granddaughters, 
Erin (Wes) Stockwell, Emily (Cody) Gulick, and Hailey (Rhett) Young all 
of the Choteau/Augusta MT area; a daughter, Sandy Boom and two 
grandchildren, Carly and Carson Kotas of Carlsbad, CA; a sister, Marilyn 
(Bruce) Hanna; a brother, Darryl (Diana) Boom ; and three 
great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his parents. 

The family will hold a remembrance of Ken at the Western Way recreation 
center, 3100 S. Kinney Rd., Tucson, at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, May 11. 
Memorial donations should go to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum—please 
contact sandy@kotasclan.com to make them part of a group donation for a 
plaque at the museum.