Page 36 - 2016 Autumn-Winter Issue

In Loving Memory

Ken Seibert

The Button Man

by Cathy Seehuetter
Our TCF family has sadly lost a VIP in our world.
Anyone who attended a TCF National Conference from
2002 in Salt Lake City to the one held in Dallas in 2015
no doubt saw Kenny Seibert conscientiously working
behind a long table overflowing with beautiful smiling
pictures of children, siblings and grandchildren that
he made into 3” photo buttons. He made them with
great care and respect, and they were proudly worn by
their moms, dads, stepparents, brothers and sisters, and
grandparents at the conferences. Kenny, who did what
could be an exhausting task with great compassion and
diligence for 14 consecutive national conferences, was affectionately known as the “Button Man”. In those 14 years that
the” Button Man” made photo buttons for our conference attendees, he made over 25,000 buttons; he did this in honor
and memory of his daughter Samantha, who died in a tragic automobile accident.

Kenny Seibert (Samantha’s dad) and TCF’s “Button Man” died on September 27, 2016 in Kankakee, Illinois at the age
of 67 years old after a battle with cancer. He is survived by his beloved wife of 41 years, Mary-who was the 2014 TCF
National Conference chair in Chicago, in leadership for the Kankakee Chapter, as well as Regional Coordinator for
the state of Illinois-and his son Andy. Kenny’s daughter, Samantha, preceded him in death in 1996. Kenny has been
described as a faithful and devoted family man and Vietnam navy veteran who also loved working with wood.

Mary and Kenny generously donated their photo button-making equipment to The Compassionate Friends so that
buttons will continue to be made for conference attendees for years to come.

When you look at a photo button that was made for you from 2002 to 2015, please take a minute to remember with
gratitude the man who made it, and please keep him and his family in your thoughts and in your heart.

Cathy’s 15-year-old daughter, Nina Westmoreland, was killed by an alcohol-impaired driver on Cathy’s birthday while her family was vacationing in
Florida in 1995. In 2012, her stepson Chris died by suicide. She has been very involved in TCF, locally as newsletter editor and then chapter leader
for the St. Paul Chapter. She served for six years on the TCF National Board of Directors and is Minnesota’s Regional Coordinator. Cathy was the
Conference Chair for the TCF national conference in 2011. She is a writer and has been published in Chicken Soup for the Christian Family Soul, and
a contributing writer to The Tincture of Time: Restoration After the Death of a Child, Open to Hope: Inspirational Stories of Healing After Loss, the
TCF national magazine, We Need Not Walk Alone, and many other grief publications and newsletters. She is also the Executive Assistant to the TCF
Executive Director. Cathy is married, has three surviving children and five grandchildren, all of whom are the loves of her life.

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