There’s one thing that everyone who knew Kenneth Jameson could say about him with certainty – the man loved golf. Even before he retired from Hillyard as traffic manager after 27 years of service, he was a regular fixture at St. Joseph’s Fairview Golf Course. He was still a familiar face at Fairview when he passed away at the age of 93 in 2017.

Because of his love of the sport, it should come as no surprise to his friends that the MWSU Foundation

Kenneth and Marjorie Jameson

received approximately $340,000 as a gift from his and his wife’s estate that will benefit the University golf team.

The Kenneth R. Jameson and Marjorie C. Jameson Scholarship Fund will award scholarships for students with financial need, with first consideration given to members of Missouri Western’s golf team.

“They wanted to do something to give back to the community and help kids in college,” said Clark Tally, longtime friend of the Jamesons.

Marjorie and Kenneth, both St. Joseph natives, met Clark and his family when they became neighbors in the early 1990s. Since Kenneth and his wife had no children and the Tallys had no extended family in St. Joseph, Clark and his wife, Susan, and their two daughters, “adopted” the Jamesons as family, celebrating holidays with them and spending a lot of time together.

“I thought of him as a father and he thought of me as a son,” Clark said.

The Jamesons’ connection to Missouri Western came about through their friends Mike and Cathy Habermehl, who coached golf teams at Missouri Western for several years. Kenneth met Mike in 1985, when Mike became the golf pro at Fairview, and they remained friends until Kenneth passed away. When Kenneth was no longer able to golf, he still visited Fairview every morning Monday through Friday to play cards.

“This will help the golf team a lot,” Mike said. “I am so pleased.”

Both Mike and Clark say the Jamesons were two of the kindest people you could ever know. “Honest,” “friendly” and “sweet” were descriptors they used.

“No one would not consider him a friend,” Mike said of Kenneth.

“Of all the good things you can say about somebody, you could say it about them,” Clark said.