Louis Elwyn Kuntz

Louis E. Kuntz, 90, of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, graduated to Glory Sunday, February 24, 2019, in Bartlesville. Louis was born May 31, 1928, to Herbert and Huldah Swanson Kuntz who lived in Claremont, South Dakota. He had an older sister and a younger brother who was born shortly after the family moved to Nehawka, Nebraska, in 1930. Herb was the blacksmith in this small farming community and Huldah was a homemaker, pianist for the church and a piano teacher. The children all graduated from Nehawka Consolidated School. Louis became a vocal soloist at an early age and shared that gift throughout his lifetime. While attending high school, Louis was active in Future Farmers of America, in choral groups, basketball and track teams, and the Boy Scouts. His Dad kept him and his brother, Wally, busy in the shop and garden and, when he was 11 years old, got them started raising purebred Hampshire hogs. They soon rented 10 acres with a barn and water well and raised 200 hogs each year. They had prize winning hogs in the State and County fairs for several years. After the war started, he also worked for local farmers during the summer helping with haying and cultivating. Louis graduated from high school in 1945 and at age 17 entered the Army Specialized Training Program where he received military training and 12 months of college courses in pre-engineering. He took Field Artillery Basic at Ft. Knox, Kentucky, was then stationed at Camp Stoneman, California, and received his army discharge in February 1947. Back in Nebraska, he farmed and worked in his Dad’s shop for a year, then entered Nebraska Wesleyan University majoring in math and physics. His most significant experience there was meeting, courting and marrying Guyla Jean Steele from Minatare, Nebraska. They were wed September 3, 1949. She went to work full time in Lincoln, and he entered the University of Nebraska to study Electrical Engineering. He became a member of two engineering honor societies and the IEEE. He graduated in the spring of 1951, and they moved to the Texas Panhandle to work for Phillips Chemical Company at the Cactus Plant. She worked in Personnel, and he did electrical design and drafting and helped with supervision of electrical maintenance. In November 1954, they transferred to Bartlesville, Oklahoma, where Guyla became a full time homemaker, and Louis represented the I&A Branch doing automation of oil field and pipeline functions until 1963 when he was charged with establishing manufacturing facilities for commercial production of gas and liquid chromatographs designed for in-plant control of chemical and refining processes. In 1968, the I&A Branch became Applied Automation, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Phillips Petroleum Company, and Louis continued to manage the design, development and installation of chromatographs until his retirement in July 1985 and his one additional year as a consultant. During his tenure, there were three award winning products developed and commercialized. He was inventor or co-inventor on 18 patented items and authored many technical papers. Outside the workplace, Louis helped Guyla raise three children – David, Lou Anne, and James. He was active in Toastmasters Club and helped manage a Boy Scout Troop. He loved fishing, golfing and working in the carpentry shop he built in his back yard. He built cabinets for Habitat for Humanity and did a variety of projects for friends, family and church. When mentoring boys for confirmation in the church, he had them do their lesson for an hour, then do a project for experience in wood working. Louis grew up in the Methodist Church and did his part in choir, singing solos, serving on committees, and helping wherever he could. Like his mother, his wife Guyla was the church pianist and they had the family always involved in worship, music and other activities. It was after what happened in 1970 that Louis realized he had been a good churchman all those years, but he had not been a Christian! It was on the weekend of November 7, 1970, that a large group of Christians came to East Cross United Methodist Church in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, and presented a Lay Witness Mission. He attended their first meeting Friday evening and saw how “different” they were – and wondered what had made them “that way.” He ate dinner with them that evening and heard some of their personal testimonies, then met in a small group with some of them. By Saturday evening, Louis had been “BORN AGAIN!” which he says “was an amazing miracle!” At age 42, he was starting over as a new man, a babe in Christ! He has always considered that the most important experience of his life. Within a few weeks, he started teaching Sunday School, started a prayer group at his workplace that met each morning before work and started a Tuesday Morning Breakfast at his church after which they sang and prayed. Within six months, he went as a Lay Witness Missioner to a church in Missouri along with others from his church and during the next ten years went to more than 30 churches sharing his personal testimony, singing solos, being song leader and ministering to persons seeking a closer walk with Jesus. He was leader of several Lay Witness Missions. He was continually teaching to small groups, inside and outside his church, the basics of Christianity and how to become useable by the Holy Spirit to help seekers believe in and receive Jesus as Lord and Savior. He never frightened people with the typical evangelistic admonition that they must make a total commitment to Christ in order to be saved. He encouraged them to GIVE AS MUCH OF YOURSELF, TODAY, TO AS MUCH OF JESUS AS YOU UNDERSTAND, TODAY, AND WITH THE FAITH YOU NOW HAVE, BELIEVE THAT HE DIED FOR YOUR SINS AND ASK HIM TO BE YOUR LORD AND SAVIOR! Louis is now in Heaven with fellow Christians who will gladly remind him of the times they talked about Jesus when down there on earth. Louis was dedicated to his wife, Guyla, and their three children and to his second wife, Emily Wilson Kuntz, and her three children. Emily had been his friend for many years in their church. They were married after Guyla passed away in 2005. His strength, dedication, and conviction will carry on through his children, eight grandchildren, and nine great grandchildren and others in his extended family. He was predeceased by his brother Wallace, his parents, and his mother-in-law and father-in-law. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Beyond Relief Ministries.

Louis Elwyn Kuntz

May 31, 1928 - February 24, 2019