Jack Rose

Memorial services for Jack Rose, 78, Lawrence, KS will be at 2 p.m. Thursday, September 23, 2010 at First Presbyterian Church in Lawrence, KS.  Private burial will precede the services at Memorial Park Cemetery in Lawrence.

He died on Monday, September 20, 2010 at Lawrence Memorial Hospital.

He was born on December 28, 1931 in Lawrence, KS, the son of Leslie Howard & Dorothy Christy Rose.

Mr. Rose was a graduate of Kansas University with a B.S. in Business Administration.  He attended KU on an ROTC scholarship and later served in the U.S. Navy for three years during the Korean War.

He formerly worked as the business manager for the Chemistry Department at the University of Kansas.  He retired in 1993 after working there for thirty years.

Mr. Rose was a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Lawrence.  He served two terms on the Lawrence City Commission, as well as Mayor for one term.  He served as a board member of the Lawrence Memorial Hospital, Hearthstone and DCCCA in Lawrence. He was a former member of the Lawrence Breakfast Cosmopolitan Club.

He became a very dedicated jogger in his middle years and ran daily with the Alvamar Jogging Group.  He enjoyed auto mechanics and converted a Volkswagen to run on batteries in the 1970s and later restored a 1931 Ford truck (with an iconic broom in the back). While restoring the 1931 Ford, he started experimenting with lost wax casting.  He assembled a complete in-home ironworks shop and created a foundry in a friend’s corn crib, where he poured assorted Jayhawk and other regional memorabilia. His proudest work was preparing the mold for and finishing the six foot bronze cross which stands outside the Topeka Salvation Army building.

He was married to Martha Lawrence on September 1, 1954 in Lawrence, KS.  She survives of the home.

Other survivors include two daughters, Virginia Rose Blum and husband, Daniel, of Silver Spring, Maryland,  Leslie Rose, of San Bruno, CA. a sister Virginia Lee Rose, of San Francisco, CA, a brother, Jim Rose, of Lawrence, and two grandsons, Jack & Scott Blum.

The family will greet friends from 6-7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Warren-McElwain Mortuary in Lawrence.

The family suggests memorials in his name to the Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders Association or to the First Presbyterian Church in Lawrence and may be sent in care of the mortuary.