William Stoudt Burkey

Bill Burkey passed peacefully on April 14, 2024 at his Blue Bell, PA retirement residence. Born June 4, 1949, Bill grew up in Hamburg, PA until family circumstances moved him to Pittsburgh where he graduated from Upper St. Clair High School in 1967. He attended Ursinus College, joined Beta Sigma Lambda Fraternity and graduated in 1971 with a degree in Political Science. A few weeks later Bill married Diana Horning who would be his cherished bride for fifty-three years. The couple soon bought a home in Lower Providence Township, near Collegeville, where they lived for forty-seven years and where they raised their adored and adoring daughter, Lara Kristine.   After a series of career experiments, Bill found a niche in the abrasive business doing inside and outside sales with various companies for over thirty years until his retirement in 2011. Bill was a serious, sensitive, intelligent, compassionate man. Music was where he found his bliss. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of classic rock’n roll, especially the “British Invasion” and the Beatles. He was a respectable musician himself, progressing from competence at piano, to drums, to bass guitar - occasionally performing privately with friends. Listening to music, Bill would move into a Zen-like meditative state with total concentration and absorption of lyrics and harmonies. He cherished abiding friendships with his fraternity brothers and the revived friendships with his early Hamburg companions; but it was as a dedicated husband and father that he drew the measure of himself. Bill was predeceased by his mother Mary Helen Stoudt Burkey Robinson, his father Charles A. Burkey and his elder brother Charles “Skip” Burkey. Along with wife Diana and daughter Lara, he is survived by his younger brother John Stoudt Burkey; niece The Rev. Dr. Julia H. Burkey (Daniel Cooperrider), grandniece Reverie; nephew William T. Burkey (Ruth Hertzberg), grandniece Penelope; niece Lynn DeVasto (David Middleton); grandnephew Michael Germer; cousins Susan Forrester Coates (Steven) and Jean Helen “Toni” Bernbaum. Memorial service and burial to be held at St. John’s Gernant’s Church, Leesport, PA on Friday, April 19, 2024 at 10:00am.   In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to The American Cancer Society.