Mourning the Passing of Our Friend: Forthcoming Funeral Services

What we have once enjoyed we can never lose.

All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.” — Helen Keller

 KENT RANDAL NELSON

Kent Randal Nelson was born on October 7, 1951 to Rees and Fern Nelson. He grew up in Santaquin Utah, and lived there most of his life of 72 years. He grew up loving baseball, basketball, camping, fishing, hunting, and the great outdoors.

He helped with the family business of Pitt’s Drive In, where they sold hamburgers, fries, and strawberry malts. He served a LDS mission in the Montana, Wyoming Northwest Mission. He married Janet Beckstead on July 19, 1974 in the Provo Utah Temple. They had six children - Shelly, Matthew, Joshua, Andrew, Nathanial, and Jenifer. They made lots of fun memories playing baseball, gardening, driving around on the tractor and grandpa's motorcycle, going fishing, playing got you last with tinfoil balls or stinky sock balls, shooting skeet on Thanksgiving, sleeping in the dump truck, camping up Santaquin Canyon, swimming at warm springs, renting a VCR and Disney videos from Adventureland Video and the Video Hut, and going to Yellowstone National Park several times together. They later divorced.

Later in life he married Jennifer Avery. Together they went to a Chicago Cubs baseball game which was a lifelong dream. He also played baseball in the Senior Olympics where he blew everyone away with his home runs.

He had a stroke and spent his last few years at Parkway Care Center in Payson where he was quite a character playing jokes on people, giving lots of raspberries, and running away in a wheelchair with one hand uphill to Peteetneet. Thank you to all those at Parkway who took part in his care and made his last years comfortable and enjoyable.

He is preceded in death by Rees and Fern Nelson (mom and dad), Dave and Madge Nelson (brother and sister in law), Nathanial Rees Nelson and Andrew William Nelson (sons).

He is survived by Jerry (Linda) Nelson, Dale (Clarice) Nelson, Vickie (Larry) Aragon, Janet Nelson, Lisa (Dave) Fluke, Shelly (Chris) Gravett, Matthew (Lei) Nelson, Joshua Nelson, Jenifer (Steve) Erikson, Amber Erikson, Ruth and Jim Johnson, and 22 grandchildren, and 1 great granddaughter.

Viewing Sunday, September 22, 2024 from 6:00 -7:00 pm at Brown Family Mortuary and Monday September, 23, 2024 from 10:00 -10:45am at the L.D.S. chapel on 345 W 100 N, Funeral to follow at 11:00am, Interment to follow at Santaquin City Cemetery.