Obituary: KENNETH RAY SAWYERS
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Kenneth Ray Sawyers, 77, entered into the gates of heaven on September 8, 2024.
Kenny was born to Roy A. Sawyers, Jr. and Helen Virginia Shropshire on July 27, 1947. He attended Morehead High School until he enlisted in the United States Marine Corp at age 17 (with his father’s permission). He served our Country proudly while stationed in Da Nang, Vietnam. Near the end of his deployment, he returned home on leave for his mother’s funeral. He re-enlisted and on his final furlough before being shipped out, he was on his way to see his parents and siblings when he was run over by a drunk driver on Highway 29. Being Kenny and the kind of person he was, he had stopped to help a man change a tire. Instead of his plans to continue serving our Country and returning to Vietnam, Kenny began his journey as a traumatic brain injured disabled veteran, hospitalized for 14 months. Learning to walk, talk, and think all over, Kenny beat the odds, with the Grace of God, and tried to have as normal a life as was humanly possible with some paralysis on his right side.
He became a father to two beautiful girls and one handsome boy; Michele, Mary Ruth, and Christopher. Although, with his brain injury and the willingness to try to be normal, he had setbacks that affected his efforts to raise his children, but it never affected his love for them. Throughout Kenny’s life, the damage to his whole body, that he had endured at age 20, would be his downfall. He suffered from his body giving out due to paralysis and lack of muscle strength and confusion (Alzheimer’s). As his body strength failed him, he constantly said he was ready to go home and wanted God to call him home. Kenny was a good man, not only attending church, but living the life of someone who was a born-again Christian. He witnessed to people, sang at his church, and lived his life as God would want him to but as a human, sometimes failing but never forsaking his Lord and Savior. He always had his Bible with him and read it constantly. Kenny waited for the day that he could enter the gates of heaven and have a new body and no more pain. He finally got his wish on September 8th, when God quietly called him home.
Kenny was preceded in death by his parents; one brother, William Michael Sawyers; and one sister, Deborah Sawyers Hylton Jones.
Left to cherish his memory are his many friends and family members, including daughter, Michele Sawyers Rumbley (Brandon) with grandsons, Tatum and Keegan Rumbley; daughter, Mary Sawyers Houston (Ron) with grandchildren, April Smith and Erica Smith, and great-grandchildren, Sincere Mitchell and Nevaeh Carr; son, Christopher M. Tudor and grandson Sawyer Tudor; and sisters, Karen Sawyers Ward (special friend, Preston Price) of Eden, Myra Sawyers Tudor (Bob) of Reidsville, and Linda Eisner of Pennsylvania; brother, Roy A. Sawyers, III (Robin) of Eden; nieces and nephews, R. Troy Tudor, Wendy Tudor McCollum, Michael Hylton, Heather Hylton, and Samantha Jo Self.
Until we meet again……
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