Stephen Veenker (83), renowned for being chronically late, surprised his family last week by dying too soon. He had invited his daughters to visit him in Holden Beach, but halfway through the week decided he had had quite enough of that, thank you, and left us on April 17^th, 2025.  Within hours of his death, pictures of beach sunsets on Facebook fell to an all-time low, and request calls to WFMT radio station dropped by 80%. He requested a humorous obituary, but unfortunately for the reader, I inherited his sense of humor. He also asked that his obituary be “loving and realistic,” so here’s what I have to say about my dad:

Many goats loved him. He owned nineteen portable telephones, eleven indoor/outdoor thermometers, and countless avocado plants. Except for his face, body, hair, skin and teeth, he was an incredibly handsome man. As his brother Ron often said, he had the perfect face for radio. If you needed something, he would send it to you right away- provided that you fly to North Carolina, find it in his house, and bring it to the post office to mail yourself. He called me Clyde, though neither of us could remember why. He was forever singing four syllable phrases to the tune of “stormy weather”, adding “doodah, doodah” to statements with the proper cadence, and responding to interesting word combinations with “That was my radio name!” He will not be forgotten by his parakeet until at least the end of this sentence.

My dad accepted everyone for exactly who they are and had a unique gift for turning strangers into friends. Once someone called his number by mistake, and after he told them they had the wrong number, they chatted for an hour and then kept in touch for years. In our youth, he seemed to consider it an ongoing personal challenge to see how often he could make his teenage daughters say, “Mommm! Dad’s talking to random people again!” However, his habit of befriending grocery store employees paid off in the end, when one of them recently talked him out of an eBay deal with someone who swore they would ship a car to him as soon as they received thousands of dollars’ worth of Best Buy gift cards. On a related note, we assume his identity has been stolen many times by this point, but frankly they are welcome to it.

Dad raised his kids on “Grandpa Bert jokes” and left them with a plethora of “Grandpa Steve jokes” to tell their own kids. He was a wonderfully involved father when we were young, attending campouts as a Teton, swim meets as a Titan, and cookie booths as an honorary Girl Scout.  So devoted was he to his children that he waited until they had all moved out to transition from “whew, that’s one messy basement!” to “full-on scary hoarder’s nest.”

In addition to countless cardboard boxes and take out containers that just might come in handy someday, he leaves behind a gaggle of people who love him fiercely. He still spent long hours laughing on the phone with one woman who divorced him (Kathy) and is now reunited with another (Sharon, assuming they ended up in the same place). He is also survived by a brother whom he entertained and exasperated in equal measure (Ron), an adopted sister who for some reason seemed to like him (Sylvia), five children with whom he largely communicated via bizarre email forwards (Matt, James, Beth, Erin and Clyde-I mean Kate), eight grandchildren that were forced to watch live streams of various birds sitting on nests and generally being birds (Colin, Ian, Milo, Beatrix, Charlotte, Eloise, Ben and Scarlett), and several bonus children who spent their childhood making forts out of his empty Franzia boxes in our home daycare (especially Laura and Karen).

Stephen grew up in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where I’m told he demonstrated his love of travel from an early age by frequently diaper-streaking out of the house towards city limits. Stephen graduated from Washington High School in 1959, where he was voted “Wittiest” (seriously!) Northwestern University let him in for some reason, and he graduated in 1963 with a degree in something or other. When he was drafted in 1964, army officials wisely sent him to entirely different continent, using the competence-to-fighting-proximity ratio. “How far away from the front can we put this guy?” one of them is reported to have said, to which his colleague replied, “The fighting is in Vietnam? Send him to Panama!” After the army, dad worked as circulation director for Chicago Magazine, and was a guest host for his beloved WFMT radio station. He and Kathy did child development research and published Your Gifted Child in 1989, though we have no idea where they got the inspiration.

Dad moved to Holden Beach, North Carolina almost 20 years ago, where he spent what we will generously call his “retirement” happily listening to WFMT and collecting friends, shrimp, sunset photos, and even more cardboard boxes. His friends and family are welcome to join us there for a visitation at Brunswick Funeral Home (5229 Ocean Highway W, Shallotte NC 28470) on Saturday May 3^rd from 3:00-5:00 pm. You can bring tissues, but we hope they are for tears of laughter. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made in his honor to the Wildlife Center of Virginia, which was near to his heart. To share remembrances, photos of Stevie, or to be notified about a future Celebration of Life, you can email us at RememberingStephenVeenker@gmail.com.