Bernard Kost

July 13, 1925 – February 21, 2021

Bernard Kost passed away, peacefully and at home on February 21st, with his wife and children at his side. Even at age 95, he was healthy and pain-free to the end. Those in his life knew and loved him as Buddy.

Bernard was born in Houston Texas, to Joseph Louis Kost and Mamie Bunin, both of whom immigrated to the US from the Ukraine, arriving in Galveston in the early 20th century. He moved with his parents to San Antonio as a teenager and graduated from Alamo Heights High School.

In 1943, at the age of 17 and while in college at Texas A&M, he enrolled in the military’s V-12 program and joined the Marine Corps. He valued the education and many friends he made during military training at Arkansas A&M. After the war ended, he finished his studies at UCLA where he obtained a B.S. in Business Administration, with a major in Marketing. He returned home and joined his father as a furniture salesman at Bledsoe Furniture, in the historic Stevens Building on E. Commerce Street in downtown San Antonio. He married Florence Penner in 1950. The Korean war began just weeks after their wedding and Bernard was called back into military service, sent to Camp LeJeune in North Carolina and officer training at Quantico, Virginia and was then deployed in the Mediterranean on the U.S.S. Randall.

Bernard began his commercial real estate career in 1964. Kost Realty marketed warehouses, retail stores, and other properties, and developed condominium and apartment projects. He was committed to high ethical standards in business and was an active and long-time member of the San Antonio Board of Realtors and Texas Association of Realtors. He helped establish and was the first president of the San Antonio Board of Realtors Federal Credit Union (name later changed to TAP-FCU). He served as president of the San Antonio Board of Realtors in 1981, writing frequent articles for the San Antonio newspaper about the city’s real estate business opportunities and issues. He was a certified instructor for the faculty subcommittee of the Texas Association of Realtors and traveled throughout the state teaching classes on real estate investment and commercial development.

Although he loved his work, Bernard had equal time and passion for other interests and pursuits: vacations with his wife and family, volleyball and weekends with his close-knit group of San Antonio friends, and do-it-yourself repairs and maintenance around the house. He was fluent in French, self-taught and a studious learner of the language.

He first studied French at the Alliance Francaise in Paris and then for many years at the Institut de Francais in Ville Franche, where he would spend the month of June. He continued learning and practicing French in villages throughout France and during extended stays in Paris, where he made lifelong friends.

Buddy was kind, generous, a great storyteller and focused on his family, who he showered with love and attention. He was relaxed, gentle and good-humored, loved people, and was happiest being with his wife, children, grandchildren, extended family, and friends. As a young father, he took up canoeing, developed expert skills, taught his family and friends, and trained others as a Sierra Club instructor. The legendary canoe trips he organized to some of the wildest and most remote Texas rivers are treasured memories shared by many.

His life was full of adventures; he planned detailed itineraries and made all the arrangements. He and Florence spent many summers hiking in mountain ranges around the world and regularly made the trek to Skoki lodge in the Canadian Rockies backcountry, and the remote trails in Glacier and Big Bend National Parks.

He was an enthusiastic organizer of family trips to Europe, Mexico, Canada and China. He loved family ski trips to Utah and Colorado, and summers in Chautauqua, NY with his grandchildren.

Bernard is preceded in death by his son Bryan Louis Kost, parents Joseph and Mamie, sister Louise Scherr, mother- and father-in-law Jeanette and Max Penner, and brothers-in-law Howard Brown, Ted Frank and Stephen Behrendt. He is survived by Florence, his wife of 70 years, son Alan Randal Kost (wife Katherine Liu), daughter Kathryn Lyle Kost (husband David McCormick), daughter-in-law Tina Marie Kost, and grandsons Calvin Kost McCormick, Anson Liu Kost, Owen Penner McCormick, Cody Mercer and Chris Thomas. He also leaves behind his brother, Harold Kost and wife Greta, sisters-in-law Emylin Brown, Libby Frank, Marilyn Behrendt, and Benita Spector, and many cousins, nieces, nephews and friends who know him as Uncle Buddy.