Fifty-eight year old Kenneth Blaine Smith of Paducah, KY, died Tuesday, the third of October 2017, in Bardwell, KY. He died in an auto accident having a medical emergency while driving.

Ken was the son of Donald Eugene Smith, Sr (dec.) and Maureen Babin Smith. He was born in Houma, LA on the twenty-third of January, 1959, and the family moved to Springfield, MO when he was eight months old.  He was born with wanderlust and dyslexia, but overcame his early struggles in school and became a very avid reader of science fiction and fantasy.  In Cherokee Junior High, Ken was on the city champion football team, and in high school, he performed in many musicals with his excellent singing voice, graduating from Kickapoo in 1977.

Ken attended college at Southwest Missouri State, Drury, and Northeast Missouri State. Afterwards, he became a Missouri State Water Patrol Officer, served two years in the US Army, and was an Arkansas prison guard before returning to college. He earned a degree in Nursing at the University of Kentucky Elizabethtown Community College, and was inducted into the Phi Theta Kappa Society for academic achievement in 1993.  Ken worked for 20 years as a Registered Nurse in dialysis.  Later, Ken was the charge nurse at Lourds Hospital in Paducah. Ken was married and divorced twice with no children.

Survivors are: his mother, and siblings Donald Eugene, Jr, Mary Dunham (William, children Elise, Sarah, Billy, Katie and Lewis), Charles Emile (Debbie, child Alex), and Theodore Brian (Krista, children Calvin, Henry, Oliver and Vivian)

Graveside services will be held in Springfield at Hazelwood Cemetery on Wednesday, October 11 at 10:00 am, under the care of Gorman-Scharpf Funeral Home.