Kathleen Carol Penner

Kathleen Carol (Schneider) Penner died Aug. 2, 2023, at Presbyterian Manor in Newton. She was 82. She was born Aug. 31, 1940, in Wichita to Earl Chase and Mildred Esther (Armour) Schneider. She grew up in the Bentley community in Kansas. She moved to Newton, Kansas, in 2023 after living in Halstead, Kansas, for years. After graduating from Bentley High School, she married Terry Penner, also of Bentley, in 1959. She was a homemaker and worked outside the home at several jobs she enjoyed that involved bookkeeping and accounting. Her employers included Price Auto in Wichita; Boyd's Service Station in Bentley, Stamback & Son Construction in Wichita, and the State Bank of Bentley. Kathleen took income tax preparation classes and worked as an independent tax preparer, helping hundreds of people, including family and friends, file their taxes. An accomplished pianist, she loved music and played organ and piano in the Bentley and Halstead United Methodist Churches and for special occasions. As a wife and mother, she made beautiful homes for her family in Kansas, Colorado, California and Alabama as they moved with her husband's engineering jobs with Boeing. After raising their four children, she and her sister Sally moved for a few years to Oneonta, Alabama, and opened a store called Kallie & Co., in which they sold "used books and elegant junk." Kathleen was an avid reader, traveler, gardener, puzzle solver, seamstress and friend. She also was a Girl Scout Leader and a longtime member of the Bentley Girls Club of Bentley. Kathleen was preceded in death by her husband of 32 years, Terry Penner; her parents; her brother, Philip Schneider; her sisters, Judith Ann Schneider and Sally Scarborough; and son-in-law, Robert Buzbee.