Colleen Anne Durda

Colleen was spirited, stubborn, and rarely inclined to let a good political debate die quietly. She was the first to show up and often the last to leave at family gatherings, armed with a sharp sense of humor and an almost suspicious capacity for trivia. She had a beautiful singing voice and, when presented with the right female country song—especially anything by The Chicks—was perfectly willing to turn wherever she happened to be into a karaoke bar.

Colleen grew up in the Lewisville and Flower Mound area and fled the nest about as quickly as she could. She played college softball first in Oklahoma, then Ohio, before eventually finishing at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, with brief study-abroad stints at Oxford and in Ireland along the way.

She spent her twenties in the Dallas area, where she coached her sister’s tournament softball teams and built a career in the title industry. Her longest tenure was at RamQuest, where she made many lasting professional and personal friendships. She also became one of the people clients could count on to show up onsite and figure out how to make their title software actually work, a job well suited to someone who liked people, problems, and having an answer.

In January 2014, she met “her person,” the late Frank Durda IV of Fort Worth. Their whirlwind romance quickly transformed Colleen into a Fort Worth girl, with an enthusiasm for cowboy boots, the Stock Yards, and Hotel Drover. They married in 2016 and set about traveling the world and building a family. Their greatest undertaking was their daughter, Kathryn. Frank’s unexpected passing meant he never had the chance to become the doting father Colleen knew he would be, and Colleen went on to raise Kate with enough plans and activities for several childhoods.

She wanted Kate to see things, try things and know that the world was large. Their eight years together included Disneyland, Wyoming and countless itineraries that did not leave much room for sitting around. Through Fit4Mom Fort Worth and Saint Andrew Catholic School, Colleen also built communities around the two of them that became an important part of their life.

She was an enthusiastic and entirely unbiased admirer of her daughter. Anyone within conversational distance was likely to hear about Kate’s encyclopedic knowledge of animals, her gift for languages or whatever performance she had most recently undertaken. Colleen loved nothing more than having all the cousins together, although matching family pajamas on Christmas morning made a serious run at first place.

The final years of Colleen’s life brought serious health challenges. They were part of her story, but they were never the whole of it.

She is survived by her daughter, Kathryn Durda; her parents, Anne and Don Chunta; her brother, Collin Chunta, and his partner, Kaela Pratt; and her sister and brother-in-law, Maureen and Ivan Kornienko. Any list like this is necessarily incomplete. Colleen’s life was also crowded, in the best sense, with aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, friends and the many people she collected along the way.

We will miss the hard hugs, the spontaneous plans, the debates that went on several rounds longer than expected and, despite our occasional protests, the matching Christmas pajamas.

If you wish to send flowers, please send them to Laurel Land Funeral Home. For those who would prefer to make a donation in Colleen’s memory, she loved attending shows at and supporting Casa Mañana in Fort Worth.

Donations in Colleen's honor can be made to the Tarrant Area Food Bank, at https://tafb.org/donate-main/ or to Casa Manana Theatre of Ft. Worth.

Viewing / Visitation will be held at Laurel Land Funeral Home of Fort Worth, 7100 CROWLEY RD, FORT WORTH, TX 76134, US, on September 17, 2026, from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm.

A Funeral Mass will take place at St. Andrew Catholic Church, 3312 Dryden Rd, Fort Worth, TX 76109, US, on September 18, 2026, from 10:00 am to 11:00 am, followed by a Committal Service at Greenwood Memorial Park, 3100 White Settlement Rd, Fort Worth, TX 76107, US, on September 18, 2026, from 11:30 am to 12:00 pm.