Gene Edwin Wirth passed away on Tuesday, July 25, 2023. All are invited to attend a Celebration of Life for Gene on Monday, August 14, 2:00 pm, at Mueller's Funeral Home in Kennewick, Washington, with a reception to follow. The Graveside Service will be at 1:00 pm the same day, at Mueller's Funeral Home.

At 88 years old, Gene left behind a legacy of love, and a lifelong pursuit of knowledge and adventure, and will be missed terribly by all who knew him. Gene is survived by his beloved wife, Marcia; his three children, Christy, Suzanne, and Mark; his son-in-law Bryce Mansfield and daughter-in-law Marilyn Wirth; and five granddaughters, Isabella and Sophia Mansfield, and Evelina, Lucelia, and Juniper Wirth.

Gene was born into a dry land wheat farming family on December 2, 1934, to Earl and Clara Wirth, loving and devout parents. Earl and Clara were both children of original homesteaders in Washington, in the Connell and Horse Heaven Hills areas, and instilled a dedicated work ethic in Gene that would last a lifetime. He loved learning from the earliest of ages, and would ride a school bus on a meandering 75 mile round trip route to Lind for his early school years. This gave him the opportunity to begin his relentless pursuit of knowledge, using these extra hours to read. Growing up during WWII, he would tell a story of an earliest memory, at just six years old, of his father teaching him to pull the main switch in the town transformer, which would turn off all of the electricity in the town in the event of an air raid. Gene also shared stories of his mother's great kindness in the Depression era time he grew up in—people down on their luck would come to her for work and a meal. Later, they believed that a symbol on their fence marked them as a hospitable place for the needy—his family was known for their kindness. These gifts for bravery, and for hospitality and generosity, would be distinguishing characteristics of Gene for the rest of his life.

Gene received his Bachelor's Degree in Agronomy from Washington State University (WSC at the time). His entering test scores placed him 9th out of 2,800 WSC entrance exam entrants, and he enjoyed the larger learning community in Pullman. During his studies at WSC, he was recognized as the Outstanding Junior in the College of Agriculture, leading to coursework at Washington University in St. Louis. Gene was a proud Cougar alumni all his life, spending many fruitful years later as director of the WSU College of Agriculture Alumni Association. Gene was awarded a Master's Degree in Plant Physiology at Purdue University in 1965. During his time as a graduate student, he collaborated with other graduate students from all over the world, and counted many Purdue students as close friends for the rest of his life. Gene spent three years as the Walla Walla County Extension Agent, specializing in weed control and production. After his graduate work at Purdue, he joined Union Chemicals Division in 1965, with specialities in wheat fertility, plant analysis, and dealer training, where he worked for more than 25 years.

In Gene's work with the Union Chemicals Division, he lead agricultural tours, surveys, and projects in China, Sicily, Iran, Turkey, Southern Asia, and Central America, among other countries. These were exciting times, and Gene was often the only American, or one of just a few Americans, given access to these places. He was a part of the first team of American delegates to visit China in the 1970s, in the role of agriculture specialist. Gene was inspired and compelled throughout his life to help people learn how to grow food to feed their communities. He owned wheat land in Oregon and Washington, and believed that his career in agriculture—in helping others learn to grow food—would help him change the world for the better. He took on leadership roles in Union Chemicals and elsewhere—Gene became a national level soil fertility specialist and, among other roles, was the first chairman of the standardization committee that verifies professionals for the Soil Science Society of America. He was the national chairman of the soils board of ARCPACS, which was the registry of professionals of American agronomists and soil scientists, and the Chairman of the Soil Improvement Committee of the Northwest Plant Food Association. Throughout the 1970s, Gene also owned a Hertz Rental Car franchise in eastern Washington, running five locations, and he served on the national board of directors of Hertz's licensee organization. Owning a rental car business gave Gene plenty of interesting content for his daily journals, and later his memoirs, including outfitting President Nixon and team for the dedication of one of the nuclear reactors, and adventures in car chases with armed robbers. Gene's world travels provided an endless amount of material for his memoirs, as well. As he was phasing out his Hertz business in the late 1970s, Gene was beginning a Wendy's franchise in China. This, however, fell apart as he was meeting the person who he would begin the best chapter of his life with, Marcia.

On August 2, 1980, Gene married the love of his life, Marcia Martin Hanlon. Marcia and Gene had been set up on a blind date, only to realize it was not blind at all. They had actually met a year earlier—at Esther's Pies, an old Tri-Cities favorite. Marcia thought Gene was flirting with her, only to realize he was on a date with someone else. Gene had presumably seen his future at Esther's Pies, and the Lord brought them back together a year later. Marcia brought along her daughter, Christy, from her earlier marriage, and Gene promptly adopted her, and suddenly had a family of three. Gene and Marcia celebrated their wedding with a luau, including a pig roast, and a honeymoon to Maui. Twenty years later, their son, Mark, would continue the pig roast tradition in their backyard, much to Gene's surprise and pride. Suzanne and Mark quickly made the Wirth Family a family of five. Gene was a loving and devoted dad, encouraging his kids in their own pursuits of life and happiness, with endless memories of camping, reading together, spending time at the family home in Sandpoint, exploring, skiing, hunting, traveling, and generally encouraging lifelong pursuits of knowledge and friendships. He was so proud of his children. That pride continued to grow when Bryce and Marilyn joined the family, and then his five grandchildren—in his eyes, neither the new spouses nor his granddaughters could ever do any wrong. His buttons were constantly bursting with pride. Gene was a doting, loving grandfather.

Shortly after Suzanne and Mark were born, Gene retired from Union. He began teaching courses in soil fertility at the Tri-Cities WSU branch campus and in chemistry, botany, weeds, fertilizer technology, and pest management at Columbia Basin College. This career change gave him time to pursue other interests, too: consulting, non-profits, investments, Cub Scout leadership, and numerous other passions.

Gene's faith in the Lord started as an early memory, as he would tiptoe downstairs in his grandparents' home and see them on their knees, praying in German, as they did every morning. His faith was constant throughout his lifetime. Gene was a faithful member of the Methodist Church, serving as chairman of the Missions Commission for their local church, and on the wider Methodist Church conference board of global ministries for many years. If Gene was out of town—as he travelled frequently—he would always find a church, wherever he was, to attend on a Sunday. He served as president of Eastern Washington's "Walk to Emmaus" and served on countless "Walks" as a part of the multi-denominational Christian layperson's movement. Gene and Marcia shared this passion for serving in their church, and it will be one of many places Marcia will miss him. Gene had a huge heart for serving others—family, friends, strangers—and it must have really pleased the heart of God.

In the 1990s-2000s, Gene and team helped develop Kenya Methodist University, which received Kenyan government authorization in the late 1990s, and became fully chartered in 2006. Gene traveled back and forth to Kenya frequently over about 25 years, pouring his academic knowledge into the programs and making lifelong friendships with Kenyans, who would, in turn, visit him in the U.S. Initially focused on seminary and agriculture, the university grew and expanded quickly. In 2001, Gene and family travelled to the university to celebrate the first graduating four-year class. He served many years on the board of the Kenya Methodist University Development Association as executive director. Eventually, into the 2010 decade, the university had grown from the original 31 students in 1997 to over 10,000 students over six branch campuses throughout Kenya. The goal being to eventually operate without the development association, Gene then began to minimize his leadership role, though never his lifelong friendships with his Kenyan friends. Gene was especially proud of the years his daughter, Suzanne, worked in Kenya, supporting the university and the community in Meru, and developing her own lifelong friendships there.

Gene loved travel—he loved traveling to meet up with old friends and loved meeting and talking with strangers. In his memoirs, he quoted St. Augustine: "The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page." While he traveled extensively for his work, his sense of adventure led him to veer off the beaten path. In his memoirs, Gene writes about a tear gas pen-pistol he acquired in his travels—and about loading it by feel at midnight in Palermo, Sicily. Years later, the same pistol was discovered by airport police at Teheran, Iran, in the early 1970s, and he spent the weekend in jail for it, a stay that could have been much longer if a friend at the U.S. embassy hadn't intervened. Once, while setting up a soil and plant lab in Sicily on a project for the World Council of Churches refugee program, he ended up getting scooped up in a Communist cell, much to his surprise, and also to his relief that he didn't understand Italian. When he left the commune, he was given a bottle of Crèma Marsala wine as a thank you gift for his efforts to improve their soil fertility program. The wine broke in his suitcase, stained it red, and this suitcase never lost its deep, red, aromatic interior. He had some slapstick adventures on the Orient Express. He wandered late at night all over the world, particularly writing about these walks in Indonesia, Cambodia, and Los Angeles. He collected interesting pistols. After visiting colleagues in Ireland, he was detained by security at the Shannon, Ireland, airport, having been accused of stealing a book from the hotel's bookcase (he hadn't). It took his Irish friends to free him, to continue his trip to Columbia University in New York. There were heartbreaks, too—after he had met and participated in the Community Christian Church of Kabul, Afghanistan, he started to provide support for years for their school for the blind—when the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, everyone who had any contact with it and the school was murdered and the church was bulldozed. In his memoirs, Gene wrote: "People make travel worthwhile, but opportunities to know people are more rare than opportunities to know cathedrals and castles."

When Gene married Marcia, and started a family, travels continued, but with far less international intrigue. Gene traveled with his family to the Black Forest in Germany many times to visit with his German family—his grandfather had emigrated to the U.S. in the late 1800s, and the U.S. and German branches of the family wrote letters back and forth through the decades. Gene always loved family history and genealogy, and had these many letters translated into English, which are now a family heirloom. In the Black Forest, Gene visited the town archives near Bairsbronn, where records of his family are kept back into the 1600s, and visited the 300-plus year old house his grandfather was born in. Gene drove his family around mainland Europe, and around the United Kingdom and Ireland, over the course of many years. He also took his family to Disneyland for many spring breaks while his kids were young, and then his kids with his granddaughters. He never really warmed to Disneyland, but he loved being with his family and seeing them have fun. However, he took these opportunities to tour the family through Southern California missions and archeological sites.

Originally with the idea that he would fly into remote areas to advise on agriculture, Gene earned his pilot license and owned a series of Cessna 182 aircraft over the years. He would fly into remote areas and camp on the ground. Gene loved rocks and rock formations and seeing these from a birds-eye view was thrilling for him. He would fly Marcia on dates and up to Sandpoint. Gene loved hunting as a child through adulthood—duck, goose, moose, goat, antelope, bear, elk, sheep, deer, and coyotes—and went hunting with Mark, and fly-fishing with Mark, Bryce, and granddaughters. For years, trophy heads and pelts hung on family walls. Gene climbed mountains—all the Tetons, Mt. Rainier, all the glaciated volcanoes in Washington and various other rocky peaks in the Cascades. Gene's favorite sport was skiing, and he skiied beautifully. While he was single, he would fly on the weekends to ski at St. Anton in Austria. He loved to ski with his family, teaching all of them, and their spouses, and some of his granddaughters, to ski at Schweitzer Mountain, just up the road from Sandpoint. Gene was proud to spend his 66th birthday skiing all the double black diamond slopes at Schweitzer in one day. Gene loved music. He played in the WSU Marching Band during his college days, and writes in his memoirs about the band's escapades. He shared a love of music with his granddaughters, one of the many things he had in common with them. Gene sang in his church's Messiah production about 30 times, and in various choirs throughout his lifetime. He was also an avid bird watcher, and loved rocks, and sharing his knowledge of these with all his loved ones.

Our family and community is at a loss without Gene in our lives, and are thankful for the legacy he left. He was incredibly loving, and incredibly loved. He certainly gave more than he received, in all areas of his life, and made all those around better for his devotion to family and friends and the Lord. Throughout his life, he kept journals, which he later used to write his memoirs. He encouraged everyone he knew to write about their lives—we are so glad that he wrote about his, and found it inspiring that he thought his loved ones had memorable lives, as well. During the last few years, loved ones would read sections of Gene's memoirs out loud to him. Thank you to all of Gene's family and friends who supported him through his life, and especially these last four hard years of cancer and Alzheimer's, to Chaplaincy Health Care's Hospice Staff and to Fleur de Lis and Staff for their loving care. If so led, donations can be made in Gene's name to Chaplaincy Health Care.