In November I went to funeral that surprised me.
It was for Bill Bequette, whose life was tragically cut short due to pancreatic cancer. The funeral was held on Nov. 10, which would have been Bill's 64th birthday.
I met Bill in 2012, I believe. My husband, David Franklin, was part of a group of about a dozen of North High alumni who planned a fundraiser each summer and gave the proceeds to help current students with special projects.
Bill was the president of the group, naturally. Bill seemed to not only know everyone, but be friends with everyone, and he was the kind of guy who could get things done. He knew who to talk to for this task or that, and had the charisma to make the person say "Yes" and "What else do you need?" The fundraiser started out at Twin River Club, then after a while moved to Indian Hills Swim Club. Each year thousands of dollars were raised for projects that benefitted students.
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| Bill Bequette at one of the first North High Alumni Association fundraisers held at Twin River Club |
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| Members of the North High Alumni association at a later fundraiser held at Indian Hills Swim Club. Cathy Rankin is first row on the left. |
He worked for a bank, but his job was more on the social side, making sure investors were having a good time golfing, hunting, or whatever.
While Bill had considerable people skills, he lacked in the "fix-it" skills department, as my husband likes to illustrate with this story: One summer Bill, my husband, and another guy went bass fishing. They were way out in the Flint Hills with no cellular service going from pond to pond, and Bill's old Durango wouldn't start. Of course, Bill had no mechanic's tools along. Luckily, Dave was able to use a fishing pliers to fix the Durango and get them back to the main road and civilization.
The year 2020 and the Covid pandemic disrupted the fundraiser, and in time the alumni association decided to step back and let others take charge.
So, after that we didn't see as much of Bill, although I remember we went to two of his Christmas parties.
Then, this past summer, we heard he had cancer. Pancreatic, stage 4. His prognosis wasn't good.
Bill's many friends all wanted to come see him. We heard he'd entertained a bunch of them on a very busy weekend, then he said "enough." No more visitors, just family as he dealt with the increasing pain.
And he passed Sept. 13.
At a gathering the evening before Bill's Celebration of Life, I heard a few things that piqued my interest. Both came from Cathy Rankin, who had been a part of the North High Alumni Association.
Cathy was helping Bill's sister, Debbie, with the service the next day. Cathy was checking her phone and said she was waiting for a video from an African pastor to upload and was hoping they would be able to show it. The pastor, who was a friend of Bill's, was unable to attend the service but was sending his regards. I didn't know Bill was friends with an African pastor, so I was interested to hear what he would say.
Cathy said Bill was such a great guy, she wanted to help make sure that came out during the service. Like the time Bill met someone who needed shoes. Bill asked him what size, and it happened to be his size, so he gave the guy his shoes and walked off barefoot.
I agreed with Cathy that Bill was a great guy, but I had never known him to give the shoes off his feet, so I was curious.
We arrived at Pathway Church early, but a large crowd had already assembled. The slideshow had the typical pictures of childhood, and he'd been a really cute kid. Also in the slideshow were recent pictures of Bill with guys in orange jumpsuits. In one, Bill himself was even wearing prison orange and being dunked in a tank.
Todd Carter, the Pathway pastor, referred to Bill and his involvement with the prison ministry for the past five years. Apparently, they'd had a day when a couple dozen men in the Sedgwick County jail had been baptized, Bill included, and more than 40 had been baptized in the past few years. So that's what he'd been doing since Covid!
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| Bill Bequette baptizing a man in the jail. |
The African pastor's video was able to be shown to the congregation without a hitch (I was sure Cathy was breathing a sigh of relief). In it, he said that Bill had personally requested that he share the gospel at his memorial service, so that's what the pastor proceeded to do, with fervor.
Gospel singer Earnest Alexander wasn't feeling well enough to sing, but he did urge the crowd to consider who would continue the prison ministry that Bill had devoted himself to in his last few years. I know Earnest personally, but I didn't know he knew Bill well enough to feel compelled to make an appearance at his memorial service. Earnest Alexander founded Youth Horizons, a mentoring organization for at-risk youth, and in the last handful of years he's devoted his time to Life on Life, an organization that helps young people when they've aged out of the foster care system. I had a feeling Bill's interests in the last few years had crossed paths with Earnest's.
After the service, while enjoying coffee and Bill's birthday cake, I noticed Ivery Kaufman from our church, West Ridge Community Church. On a recent Sunday morning, Ivery had been on a panel of church members who shared how they are living out kingdom values in their everyday lives. Ivery is the executive director of Ivery Homes Foundation, which has four homes in nice neighborhoods where recovering addicts can live while rebuilding their lives.
I asked Ivery how she knew Bill, and she said Bill found her a year or two ago. He'd heard about her houses, and he was looking to help men find places to live after getting out of prison. She'd appreciated having a colleague in a field where colleagues were few.
In fact, recently she had a 25-year-old resident who was out of jail but had no family or prospects for the next stage of his life. "I wish I had Bill because I could just hand him off to Bill and Bill would become his 'dad.' It's what Bill did with each of his guys." Ivery said.
At home, I looked up the billybucketfoundation.org website (after Bill's childhood nickname) and found a video that shed even more light on Bill's last few years. Pathway Church had done an interview with him about a year ago, and in it, he told pieces of his story.
"The Bible to me was a book of rules," Bill said on the video. "You've got to follow all these rules, okay? You know, I haven't always been a rule follower."
"I have always believed in Christ and been kind of a believer, but I was your typical person trying to make the Bible work around my life. About four years ago, I made the big change and said, 'Okay, I'm not putting a toe in the water. I'm jumping into the pool.'"
For Bill, jumping into the pool meant getting involved in Pathway Church's prison ministry.
"For me personally, it's been an incredible experience. I can't envision not doing it now," he said.
Ivery had even let me in on a little secret. After Bill's diagnosis, when he'd requested no visitors, he was still keeping up with his prison ministry as much as he was able. He hadn't wanted his friends to distract him from his purpose.
"Bill did tell me that everything else he had done in his life up until he began his prison ministry was meaningless," Ivery said. "It wasn't until he decided to jump in that his life began."
In the video, Bill seems to be pointing out the difference between trying to keep a set of rules and serving from a heart filled with Christ's love.
"I found when you're living the life Christ wants you to live, those aren't rules because you're never even close to breaking them anymore," he said.
As I enter 2026, I am contemplating what it means for me to jump into the pool. How about you?
