QUILCENE — Marion Kirk “Kirky” Lakenes Jr., who lived in Quilcene most of his life and worked as a tow truck driver for more than 30 years, died in a Tacoma hospital on Oct. 22.
The cause was kidney failure, said Chris Rice, the owner of Northwest Towing, where Lakenes worked.
Family and friends remember Lakenes as an ever-present, helpful hand in the community. He will be honored on Saturday.
His funeral will be preceded by a procession of tow trucks, Quilcene Fire Department and Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office vehicles, starting at 12:30 p.m. at Chimacum High School.
The procession will drive through Port Ludlow and south to Quilcene, where a funeral service is scheduled at 2 p.m. at Quilcene School.
“The procession is going to be amazing because Kirk always has brought up when a cop died or a firefighter would die and there was a procession here, we thought that was such an amazingly cool thing,” said Kimberly Ajax, Lakenes’ older sister.
Lakenes will be remembered by family, friends and co-workers as being steadfast in his service, unfailing in his sense of humor and loving in actions more than in words. A lover of old country music, classic rock and stand-up comedy, Lakenes often would call his siblings to relay a joke he had heard while driving.
Born to Marion Kirk Lakenes Sr. and Vivian Zamrzla, on July 12, 1973, in Quilcene, Lakenes spent his childhood on Dabob Bay. His father was the owner of Hood Canal Seafood, where Lakenes worked from a young age.
“We picked oysters with dad,” Ajax said. “We were always out on the water and on the beach.”
Josh Mahan met Lakenes on the first day of first grade.
“He had property down by the water,” Mahan said. “We went swimming there all the time.”
Mahan and his brother Paul Mahan would ride dirt bikes and four wheelers on the Lakenes property.
“That was a huge part of my growing up,” he said. “The worst sunburns that I’ve ever had in my life happened while playing at his house all day long out on the water.”
When logging slowed down, Kirk Sr. hired Tom Mahan to help oyster farming. Hiring Tom meant hiring his three boys as well, Mahan said.
After his parents split, Lakenes and Ajax went with their mother to live in Kansas for almost a decade.
“When we were in Kansas, we were in the wheat fields,” Ajax said. “He wrestled in school for a little bit and was in football.”
The kids would spend their summers in Quilcene.
Lakenes continued to play football after he moved back to Quilcene. He was known as one of the heavier hitters on the Olympic Peninsula, said his younger brother, Jeremy Lakenes.
In addition to being 280 to 300 pounds in high school, he was surprisingly fast, Jeremy said.
People referred to him as “The Lakenes Monster,” Mahan said.
“I think they said he averaged like seven or eight sacks a game,” Jeremy said.
Lakenes shared a birthday with Jeremy.
“I was born on his birthday when he was 12,” Jeremy said. “He would joke, ‘You’re the worst present ever.’ And I’d say, ‘I was the best thing that ever happened to you.’”
When he was young, Jeremy remembers Lakenes messing with him, normal sibling stuff, but as the two got older, Lakenes would take him fishing and hunting and to see the Seahawks and the Mariners play in Seattle.
He coached Jeremy’s little league football team, leading the Quilcene Falcons to their first victory in seven years.
Lakenes eventually became a foreman for Hood Canal Seafood, and while he worked there, he became a volunteer fire fighter and an EMT.
When Kirk Sr. purchased South County Towing, Lakenes found his calling in serving the community. He spent most of his life on call, day or night, sun or snow.
“He just took to it,” Jeremy said. “He became probably the best-known tow truck driver in Jefferson County.”
Lakenes was known by many in the local fire departments, by emergency responders, from the Sheriff’s Office to Washington State Patrol.
Quilcene Fire Department Captain Mark McCrehin said he would regularly see Lakenes on the site of accidents and noted that he always had a positive attitude, a readiness to get to work and a calming presence.
“There were quite a few times where he’d encounter somebody that really didn’t have the money to afford a tow, and he’d just do it for them, just because they were in a tight spot,” McCrehin said.
Ajax noted that, since his passing, she has continued to hear stories about times when he helped people out of difficult situations on the side of the road.
He loved extremely deeply, Jeremy said.
“We appreciate what everybody around the community has been doing to help us with this whole thing,” Ajax said.
Lakenes is survived by Ajax and her husband, Mark Ajax, his sister Tamara Lakenes, Jeremy and his wife Sarah Lakenes, sister Lathanya Lakenes, as well as his nieces and nephews, Derek Ajax, Jucynda and Jobe Hathaway and their children, Mia and Ava Hathaway, Shyann and Ruthann Patterson Lakenes, and Oliver, Penny and Brooklyn Lakenes.
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Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached by email at elijah.sussman@peninsuladailynews.com.
