Sympathy

We send our condolences to ProBoat E-Training instructor Pat Kearns, who recently lost her mother:

Willamina “Billie” Byrne, 86 years old, of Stevensville, MD died at the Genesis/Corsica Hills Nursing Center, Centreville, MD on Tuesday, March 20, 2007. Born in Des Moines, Iowa, she was the daughter of the late William F. and Louise Laswell Krull. She is predeceased by her sister, Mary Louise Krull Noonan. She was a member of the 1938 graduating class of Presentation Academy in Louisville, Kentucky.

She is survived by her husband of 64 years, John Byrne, also a resident at the Corsica Hills Center. They were married in Louisville and, following John’s WWII service in the Army Signal Corps, the couple settled in Newark, New Jersey, later moving to raise a family in the New Jersey shore town of Belmar.

For nearly 30 years, Billie was the first voice to callers and first smile to visitors to WJLK, the radio station that served as the “Voice of the Asbury Park Press” in Asbury Park, New Jersey. In 1999, the couple moved to Stevensville, Maryland, to be near family there. Billie was a devoted and active member of St. Rose Roman Catholic Church in Belmar for 40 years and, most recently, a parishioner at St. Christopher’s Church in Chester, Maryland.

In addition to her husband, she is survived by her daughter, Patricia Kearns of Naples, Florida and her son, John Byrne of Centreville, Maryland; her grandson, Michael Kearns of Cleveland, Ohio; granddaughter, Jennifer Ruppert of Chester, Maryland and four great grandchildren.