Charles Berton Starks

on Tuesday, May 18, 2021.

~ C.B. was the only child of Charles Berton “Bert” and Grace Elizabeth Couchman Starks. He was born in Larned, Kansas, on September 15, 1938. He loved growing up in this small western Kansas town and often talked about riding his bike on the brick streets and of all the boyhood activities he experienced with friends in the 1940 and 50s era. How things were made and how they worked was always a particular fascination. When his mother bought him a clarinet he requested, he took it apart instead of wanting it for a musical instrument.

Starks Senior passed away when C.B. was ten-years old. Two years later, his mother married Solon Burgess, admired by C.B. as a devoted stepfather. The family moved to Wichita, Kansas, where C.B. lived into adulthood, marrying Duana Jabara and fathering three children – Charles Berton “C.B” Starks III (Debbie), Hanna Christina (Nolan Collins), and Grace Anne (David Bean). He moved to the Kansas City Metropolitan area in the late 1970s, early 1980s.

C.B. was especially proud of quickly passing all the requirements for his private and commercial pilot licenses, of being a long-haul Peterbilt truck driver, and later successfully moving into sales positions, further as the Executive Vice President of plastic products sales and manufacturing until retirement.

On October 6, 1990, C.B. married a Kansas City newcomer, Yvonne Guerrero (sons Todd M. Guerrero and Trent M. Guerrero). The couple later purchased a home in Olathe where she resides as his widow. They loved their home together – enjoyed personally and physically designing, decorating, and remodeling both the interior and exterior suburban residence, including a converted room aptly named “The Toy Room”. In that room, C.B. engineered the designing and wiring for two large-scale German-made LGB model G gauge trains to run under his control simultaneously along the ceiling.

Together, they were active in local and national Republican politics, and had a small home-based business – Starks Realities – selling and designing printed ads, literature, and various writing projects for customers, including representing another company in sales for the Advertising Specialty Items industry that often included the Starks’ designs.

All the children survive with their children, C.B.’s grandchildren – Charles Berton “Chas” Starks IV, Madison Mae Starks, Macy Grace Starks, Haley Elizabeth Bean, Jack William Starks, Julian David Bean, Avery Wilfred Collins, Brennan Charles Bean, and Helena Christina Collins.

C.B.’s family invites you to share your thoughts, expressions of sympathy and fond memories of our very loved and already deeply missed elegant, handsome, talented, always interesting and fun, proud Kansan and American.