BARRY COUNTY, MI – He rode a Harley-Davidson, covered Bob Seger on acoustic guitar, liked a beer with his buddies and loved fishing with the kids.
And when his mom started getting older, he bought the family homestead and built a house next door.
“I told him I loved him all the time,” a son, Jeremy Ballard, told MLive/The Grand Rapids Press.
“I wish I could one more time.”
Kevin Ballard, 63, of Middleville, a retired tool-and- die worker, died Sunday, Nov. 15, when a tree fell on him. He and two nephews had been deer hunting on the firearms season opener when they started back. The wind was blowing so hard in the woods near his home.
Brandon Rinnels and Karl Dykstra were walking ahead when they heard a loud crack. A tree landed on Ballard, who was on an all-terrain vehicle. Rinnels, trained in CPR, tried to revive him. His uncle’s pulse slowed and there was nothing he could do.
The son said it has been hard on his cousins but he is grateful they were there. His dad didn’t die alone. They were maybe 70 yards from his grandmother’s home.
Kevin Ballard, also the father of Ashley VanBelkum and Mathieu Bodary - was kind, generous and “sometimes awkwardly funny” with his own version of cliches, Jeremy Ballard said.
He said his dad never missed a football game when he played at Wayland High School and Grand Valley State University.
His dad was an outdoorsman. He loved to hunt and fish. Early on, he shared his passion with his kids. They’d go out to rivers, Lake Michigan, Lake Erie or nearby Chief Noonday Lake. He and Jeremy had a trip planned for next month to perch fish on North Dakota’s Devils Lake.
“We were always together, fishing and stuff – still to this day,” Jeremy Ballard said.
The father, who was born in Middleville, was known to many, locally and far away. He liked poker runs, and would ride his Harley to motorcycle rallies in Sturgis, South Dakota, and Daytona and to visit his dad, Ralph Ballard, in Texas.
His family hopes to have a poker run in his honor next year.
Along with the outdoors, he liked music. He played in several bands over the years. He used to sing before suffering chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD. He still played the guitar around the campfire. He had saddlebags on his Harley to carry his guitar.
He left a six-string and a 12-string against the wall in his home. The guitars are now treasures, his son said.
He remembers his dad playing in bands growing up. His favorites were the Bob Seger covers.
“And he’d knock your socks off. And Eddie and the Cruisers, ‘On the dark side, oh yeah,’” he said.
His dad loved his dog, Buddy. Mostly, he loved his mom, Fern Harper.
“He built his house on the homestead to take care of his mom. And now that’s my job,” his son said.
To read the obituary, go here.
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