Kelly Furner was born in Richland Washington in December of 1957, the fourth of five children. His family were strong members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, with pioneer roots going back to the earliest days of the church. He was also a stalwart believer all of his life, serving in callings as diverse as Boy Scout Leader, to High Priest Group Leader and Stake High Counsel. His favorite calling would be as bulletin editor, at which he excelled. His bulletins were a work of art, and often included original essays on gospel topics and local church history. As a boy, he enjoyed hiking, biking, playing with the family dogs, and watching favorite TV shows like Star Trek. He did well in school, excelling in math and science. He also excelled at music. Since both his father and mother had played the trumpet, he took up the instrument during his High School days, participating in his Hight School Jazz Band. He excelled to such a degree that he was awarded the prestigious Louis Armstrong Jazz Award. In High School, he took a class in German, but hated it. Upon graduation, his German teacher wrote in his Yearbook, "To a student who would have done well, if he had only applied himself." His science teachers, on the other hand allowed him to participate in honors studies in which he and his classmates created their own electron microscope. He graduated from Richland High School with honors in 1976. His science teacher recommended him to MIT, and he was invited to attend. However, he didn't want to live that far away from home, and chose to decline—a decision he sometimes regretted, but not deeply since he was content with the direction his life took. After High School, he was indecisive about what to do with himself. His mother took the bull by the horns and enrolled him in Ricks College (now BYU-Idaho). He attended Ricks for the school year 1976-77. His great love of animals made him decide to major in pre-Veterinary Medicine. During his time there, he was talked into participating in the school dance team. He became a pivotal member of the team. Just weeks before one of their major performances, a chipped bone in his leg caused his leg to seize up. He was sent to the hospital for an operation to remove the bone chip. Afterward, the doctor recommended rehabilitation, but warned that he would never have full use of the leg. Kelly diligently exercised and stretched on his own, and was able to recover full mobility. He returned to the dance team in time for the performance. They won the day. Late in 1977, he was called by the church to a mission in the Dusseldorf, Germany mission. He served an honorable mission for two years, learning to speak fluent German. He touched a lot of lives with his teaching, and this resulted in several baptisms, However, he deferred performing the baptism, in preference to allowing his "greenie", or younger missionary, to have the honor. As a result, he only actually baptized one person, right at the end of his mission. He returned home with wet baptismal clothing. After returning from his mission, he met his High School German teacher at a grocery store. He approached her, and spoke to her in fluent German. She was amazed. They had a brief conversation about his mission, then he said his goodbyes. Afterwards, he realized that her German was not very good, and her accent very bad. During his mission, Kelly had corresponded with family and friends from home. Among them was a young lady that he had met at Ricks, and who had been his dance partner there. She invited him to visit her in Southern California. Thinking she might be "the one", he made his way down to meet her. Upon arrival, he realized that he had no feelings for her. This was greatly disappointing, since he arrived with a one way ticket and no money to go home. He got a job at a local shop that made precision tools for McDonnell Douglas the airplane manufacturing company, and resolved to stay until he could afford to leave. One day, while attending a young adult Sunday school class at church, a young woman approached him and asked if he needed a ride home. She had been impressed with comments he had made during the class, and wanted to get to know him better. He was immediately smitten. When he asked around about her, he was disappointed to discover that she was engaged to be married. For a man with a determination, this was little hinderance. When he next saw her at church, he asked her boldly, "Are you engaged?" She admitted that she had been, but her fiancé was planning to go on a mission, so they had temporarily agreed to remain single. Kelly asked her out on a date. Four months later, they were married. After the wedding, Kelly and Paula returned to Kelly's home in Richland. They stayed for a month in a twenty foot trailer next to his parents house, before finding a one bedroom home to rent. Kelly and Paula found work with the 1980 U.S. Census. When that was finished, Kelly went to work as a security guard. In October of 1980, they welcomed their first-born son into the world. They named him Joshua James Furner. A mere fourteen months after that, he was joined by a brother, Jonathan George Furner. Kelly enjoyed playing with his boys, and watching movies after work. In 1982, Kelly left his security job to work in the property management group at Kaiser Engineers at Hanford. Kelly loved technology. One of his earliest tech toys was a programmable calculator. He spent hours programming it for budget, shopping, and exercise applications. His boss at kaiser learned about his skill and asked if he could help the team by programming their computer to interact with a barcode reader. Kelly soon mastered the code for this machine, enabling them to keep track of supplies with much greater efficiency. Nineteen months after their second son was born, Katherine Joy Furner joined the family. Three years later, Stephanie Dawn Furner was born. And last, but not least, Nikki Elise Furner joined the family two years after that. While his family was growing, so were Kelly's computer skills. He acquired one of the newest tech tools, a Vic 20 computer. In order to use the computer for any purpose, whether to play games, or write a letter, it required a program to be painstakingly entered into memory. Since the computer had no hard drive, in order to keep the program afterward, it needed to be saved to a tape player. Kelly created several programs for the device, staying up long hours in the process. A couple of years later, the Commodore 64 came to market. Kelly jumped at the chance to have a computer with greater capacity. This computer did have a hard-drive, as well as a port for introducing game, and production software. Kelly's computer skills soon came to the attention of the manager of Kaiser's Information Technology group. He asked Kelly to transfer to his department. Kaiser was in the process of transitioning their engineers from paper blueprints to computer graphic design. Kelly was responsible for helping to bring Kaiser up to the computer age. In 1993, Paula also got a job at Hanford as an Administrative Assistant. During this time, Kaiser had to put in a bid to continue as a contractor with Hanford. Kelly was one of the leads involved in the contract creation. Paula joined him at the commercial office where they enjoyed working together. It was long hours, but the bid was successful, largely due to Kelly's amazing graphic arts skills. The presentation was very impressive. The president of Kaiser Engineers said of Kelly, "it was through the dedication and sometimes heroic efforts of Mr. Furner that our company was able to win a $500 million dollar contract." In 1995, Hanford instituted a voluntary reduction of force. They offered generous severance pay to those who would take it. Paula, as an admin, didn't qualify for severance pay, but they offered a scholarship for those who returned to college to get a degree. She applied at University of Washington, and was accepted. Kelly supported her decision to return to school, and moved the family to western Washington. There he got a job at the King County Sheriff's office as a computer programmer. He eventually worked his way up to being the IT Manager there. His boss wrote of him, "I selected Mr. Furner to promote into the IT Manager position to address many internal employee problems and rescue IT projects that were not on track. Mr. Furner has been an excellent manager of the Sheriff's Office IT staff. He proved he could create a highly respected team of professionals while improving the team's working conditions and morale. He is a true professional and great leader." During his tenure, he was responsible for helping to create the program that was instrumental in catching the Green River Killer. This software was so innovative that, when Bill Gates went before congress to talk about the importance of computers in industry, he quoted from a newsletter article that Kelly had written for the Sheriff's Office about this new software. Kelly was also responsible for creating a program that allowed interagency cooperation, so that the justice system, the FBI, police agencies and Sheriff's office could share criminal activity information. This was a major breakthrough in criminal justice. In is personal life, Kelly enjoyed sharing movies with family and friends, He loved to sing with his family at home, and in Ward and Stake choirs. He loved photography, and often took his family on nature hikes to take pictures. In his later life, he took an interest in food. He collected vegan recipes which he would make for his family, including luscious muffins, cakes and cookies. He was quick to make friends, being open and generous to all. He was also known to be a regular at Thian Thai. He will be sorely missed by all who knew him.