Canfield teacher remembered at service
By Kalea hall
austintown
Smith Corners United Methodist Church transformed into a eighth-grade history class to remember a valuable member of the congregation and community.
Packed pews of Ken Reel’s friends and family listened Monday, quietly cried and chuckled as they reflected on the life of a Canfield Village Middle School teacher, girls basketball coach, Sunday school teacher, farmer and mentor who died last Wednesday after a battle with T-cell lymphoma.
“Uncle Ken had a gift of building people up and making them understand their value,” said Beth Clark, Reel’s niece.
The hundreds who gathered inside the same sanctuary where Reel married his wife, Mary-Ann, heard a variety of anecdotes Reel created in the 67 years he lived.
Reel was born on a military base in Oklahoma, but moved to Austintown with his mother, Vada, who also was among the crowd in the pews. His father, Jack, joined the family after his return from World War II. The family settled in a house Jack built on Kirk Road in Austintown, where Reel developed his love for farming.
“Plowing and planting were a part of his prayer time,” said the Rev. Joan Purnell, Reel’s sister-in-law. “When he was not planting seeds of corn, he was planting seeds of faith.”
Reel planted his seeds of faith as a teacher and coach. But it was not just the stories or quotes Reel could easily shell out that made him who he was, according to Clark. His gift was showing his students and players the respect they deserved and, in doing so, showed all of them who they had the potential to be.
“Whenever you spoke to Uncle Ken, you had his full attention like there was nowhere else he would rather be,” Clark said.
Reel was taught during his studies at Youngstown State University to respect students and teach them that man makes history. In the classroom, on the basketball court, at Sunday school and at home with his children, Reel made everyone participate.
“Some Sundays, he never got to the Sunday school lessons. He would ask all of the students if they needed prayer,” said the Rev. Suzanne Hill, who officiated the service.
Both of Reel’s children, Matthew and Amy, became teachers. Amy always knew she wanted to be a teacher, and Reel encouraged her by letting her play classroom with his old attendance sheets. Reel was one of her students.
“She named him Homer and he was her prize pupil,” said the Rev. Ms. Hill, retired pastor from Smith Corners Methodist Church. “He loved going to school.”
Although Reel will not teach his pupils again in the same classroom he taught in for 44.7 years, as he called it, many believe Reel’s favorite saying from the American Revolution, “Disperse, ye rebels,” can still be heard echoing through the halls.
“I have never known such a patriot,” Ms. Hill said. “He taught [his students] to love our country.”
Clark, a seminary student, imagined as a child the afterlife being a place that is an example of how a person lived on earth. Reel, being who he was, is now living in “unending joy and love,” because that is what he gave here on earth, she said.
“He is lifted up now, just as he lifted us up,” Clark said.