Kenny Bowen - Bowen's Obituary and Legacy

Bowen's Obituary and Legacy

Bowen did not run for the mayor-presidency in the elections held in the fall of 1995, which corresponded with the statewide officers, but the new post went to his fellow Democrat, Walter Comeaux (pronounced CO MO).

Before his death, Bowen fought liver cancer. A longtime friend Stanley Brosky told the Lafayette Daily Advertiser that the illness made Bowen more spiritual . . . and ready for the end. . . . People would be surprised in the end how spiritual he had become and what an inspiration he was."

At the time of his death, Bowen was married to the former Ann Humphries. He had fifteen children with his first wife Ruth Butcher Bowen. Thirteen of those survived their father. He was preceded in death by his parents, a brother, and the namesake son, Kenneth F. "Kip" Bowen, Jr., and daughter Kamille. Bowen had forty grandchildren, two of whom have autism, and one great-grandchild at the time of his death.

Services were held on May 4, 2002, at the Episcopal Church of the Ascension Columbarium on Johnston Street in Lafayette, with the Reverend Russell J. Levenson, Jr., the church rector, officiating.

Four months prior to his death, Bowen was inducted into the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame in Winnfield.

In the funeral, his son Kris Bowen recalled his father as "an agent of change" for the city that he loved. "The proof of his efforts -- like the Camellia Boulevard bridge project, the Cajundome (completed in 1985 under Lastrapes), and the Convention Center -- are visible throughout Lafayette. History will treat him well, not for the bricks and mortar he laid, but the lives he changed along the way."