Quentin 'Ken' Carr did not want to leave this life. He loved his family, his home, and the simple pleasures of life like a coffee date with his wife or getting the mail. We wish he could have had more simple pleasures after a lifetime of work, though he loved that too. After multiple health issues and prolonged hospital stays, Ken chose to receive no more treatments, to get on with getting on. Thankfully we had him home for ten days before he left.

Ken was the eleventh child born after ten girls, his younger brother following, to Elmer Carr and Alma Ellingson in Turtle Lake, North Dakota. He lost his dad at a young age, but his mom, all those girls, and North Dakota made him the man he was. He grew up playing in the coulees, working in the fields, playing sports, and graduating high school in Washburn ND. He graduated from Dickinson State College, taught high school science and coached for five years in Hettinger ND before heading North in 1974. It was the pipeline days in Fairbanks, and he took the first teaching job he could find - elementary PE in North Pole, Alaska where he met his lifetime love Jennifer teaching first grade. After 16 years there and three children they moved to Seward AK in 1990. Ken taught middle school math and science and coached girls volleyball and basketball, including his two daughters. He retired in 1998 after 32 years teaching, volunteered for a year to build the Lutheran Church, then drove truck for METCO sand and gravel. Nine years later he got his own skid-steer and started a snowplow business.

Ken loved his first year in Alaska with snow machining, following a trapline, dipnetting in Chitna, and building a log house with friends. For a guy who had barely held a hammer, he went on to build his own log cabin on Chena Hot Springs Road. Four more log cabins, three log houses, and two log garages followed, some in Fairbanks and some in Seward. His father-in-law was a great friend who taught him about heating, plumbing and electricity. While other families did camping trips in the summer, we always seemed to be working on a log house.

Ken served on site-based school council, church council, and the Providence board. He coached his son's Special Olympics teams for many years. He'd lend tools and labor whenever he could. He loved good food, a cold glass of milk, chocolate, and smoking salmon. He loved the old country music and would play a song he liked five times in a row. He loved having a beer in the garage with his friends for Summit Meetings, and reading the newspaper and western detective novels. He had a great sense of humor and made us laugh every day. But mostly he loved his family and was so proud of his kids. He would have gone into combat to protect them, and he offered many times to start up the Apache helicopter to help his girls. He adored his grandsons, loved his sisters dearly, and so missed his brother.

One of Ken's best traits was the ability to face someone and speak the truth. He said there was might in right. Two of his favorite sayings were: "Life is 10 percent what happens to me, and 90 percent how I react to it." And "Everyone needs something to do, someone to love, and something to hope for."

Ken leaves his wife Jennifer of 45 years, daughter Ann and Tony Sieminski, grandsons Simon and Solomon, son Joe Carr - all of Seward, and daughter Erin of Fairbanks/Nome. He has seven surviving sisters, two brother-in-laws, one sister-in-law, many nieces and nephews mostly in North Dakota and Minnesota, and childhood lifetime friends Don and Dwayne. Ken was adamant about having no funeral. We will be having a final Summit Meeting to toast this good man sometime in January. His ashes will be spread at his favorite moose hunting grounds in Fairbanks and in North Dakota.