Jan Powell

Pleasant Hill Times co-publisher Jan H. Powell died Wednesday, July 29, 2015 at the University of Kansas Hospital in Kansas City Kansas. She was 71 years old.

Jan was diagnosed with IgG4, a rare auto immune disease, at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, Arizona in the spring of 2014. She died last week of complications following heart valve surgery at the University of Kansas Hospital earlier this year.

Jan had co-published the Times for over 26 years alongside her husband, F. Kirk Powell.

She was born in Maryville, Missouri on August 4, 1943, the daughter of Clarence and Ruth Heusi and graduated from the Warrenton High School in Warrenton, Missouri, in 1961. Jan earned a Bachelor of Science degree in home economics with a major in interior design from the University of Missouri at Columbia in 1965.

She and her husband, Kirk, were married in Columbia, Missouri, on January 21, 1965, and they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary this January.

The couple lived in Rochester,New York, for two years and returned to Missouri in 1968. They lived in Harrisonville before purchasing The Holden Progress in 1975. They managed the Pleasant Hill Times under a lease agreement for a year in 1989 and purchased the weekly newspaper in 1990.

Jan served as secretary of the Missouri Press Association in 1983 and was first lady of MPA when her husband served as president in 1994.

She had served on the Pleasant Hill Community Betterment Board and was a past secretary of the Pleasant Hill Downtown Association. Kirk and Jan were grand marshals of the Cass County Fair in Pleasant Hill in 2013. She was a member of St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Harrisonville.

She was preceded in death by her parents, Clarence and Ruth Heusi.

Jan is survived by her husband, Kirk, of the Pleasant Hill home; two daughters, Stacey (and Jon) Soble, San Luis Obispo, California, and Vicky (and Pete) Powell-Johnson, Santa Rita, Guam; four grandchildren, Rachel and Charlie Soble, and Ryan and Matthew Johnson; and cousins Les and Judy Crouch of Las Vegas, Nevada, and Herb and Ginger Carter of Pleasant Hill.

Cremation has been accorded.

Funeral services were held Tuesday, August 4, 2015, at St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Harrisonville. Inurnment followed in the church columbarium.

The family suggests memorial contributions to the Missouri Press Foundation Scholarship Fund and may be sent in care of the funeral home.

Online condolences may be sent to the family at www.stanley-dickeyfuneralhome.com

Arrangements: Stanley-Dickey Funeral Home, 203 N. Armstrong, Pleasant Hill, Missouri 64080 (816) 540-5550