Walter Lavern Cobler

Born into poverty during the Great Depression, Walter Lavern Cobler vastly exceeded everyone’s expectations for him. Everyone except his beloved mother, Barbara Ellen. She told her boy that the veil covering his face at birth meant he was destined to be special, to do great things. She was right.

The eighth of 11 Cobler children, Walt was the first in his family to get a high school diploma and the first to graduate from college. Before he could take these first giant steps, though, he had to navigate a hardscrabble childhood during the Depression and World War II. Children born during this time were laborers meant to help put food on the table. Walt and his siblings worked almost as soon as they could walk. One particular chore that Walt dreaded was his father, Walter Herbert, having him haul a bucket of pig slop in each arm to the pen the family kept in Little Russia near the Kansas River. The buckets were so heavy that young Walt had to stop every 40 or 50 paces to put them down before he could take another step. The boy did this and many other chores without complaint. He knew his dad wouldn’t hear of it.

Walt hated school in the first grade because the other children would make fun of his ill-fitting, hand-me-down clothes provided by older siblings and church drives. For a time, he would hide under the family porch until his older brothers and siblings walked to school. When he emerged, his loving mother would take pity and let the 6-year-old boy stay home rather than walk to school alone. That ended when he flunked a grade because of too many absences. The next time he hid under the porch, his mother made him walk to school across busy Kansas Avenue alone. He quit hiding after that.

Walt felt trapped by the life he had inherited, but he also felt lucky he had his mother and older brothers and sisters that he idolized. Brothers Bill and Clyde and sister Mary were particular heroes to him, offering love and guidance throughout his life. After graduating from Topeka High School in 1949, he went to work at Morrell’s meatpacking plant, earning a man’s wages pushing 2,500-pound meat carts to their next station. After about 18 months, Walt looked at two old Morrell workers, maybe 40 or 45 years old, who were still doing his same job. He made up his mind then and there that he didn’t want to be them. This was one of many incredible decisions he made in his life: quitting the security of a paycheck to gamble on himself by taking a nine-month program at Clark’s Business College.

The Clark education and the back-breaking work of his first 21 years paid off when he was drafted in 1952 into the Marine Corps. He used his brains and his brawn to become the honor man of his platoon, always saying the Marines changed his life. After boot camp, he set out on a huge ship bound for Korea, figuring he’d be on the front lines. His life changed again when the boat docked in Japan on the way and his name was one of a handful called for an assignment in that country. Because he had learned double-entry accounting at Clark’s, he was assigned the job of managing officers’ clubs there and converting the operation away from using single-entry accounting. Instead of his story ending on the front lines of Korea, it was just beginning.

A Marine colonel asked him to re-up with the promise of a promotion and a secure life. Brimming with confidence, Walt said, “With all due respect, sir, I wouldn’t stay in the Marines if I had your job.” The colonel patiently asked him to explain, and Walt told him how he wanted to go back to college and become a certified public accountant. After listening to him, the colonel said, “Son, I think you should do that.”

Walt was married by then and had a baby daughter, Sharen. He worked multiple jobs to make it through Washburn University in three years, graduating in 1957 and then passing his CPA exam. But he was still in debt, struggling to feed his family, which grew to include his son, Walter Jr., in 1958, and then Christopher in 1960. At the same time, his married life was crumbling as his wife checked into the Topeka State Hospital for mental health treatment. When she left the hospital and said she wanted a divorce, Walt agreed but only if he had full custody of the kids because he knew she couldn’t care for them. To his children, this was the most remarkable of the many important decisions in his long life: to get full custody in the early 1960s when single fathers almost never did. Walt thought his life was over because no woman would want to marry a poor man with three children.

Nancy saw much more when Walt, wearing an olive fedora and an impish smile, strode into Blue Cross Blue Shield where she worked. He was there to do a three-week audit. That turned into a love affair that lasted more than six decades. They were married Feb. 14, 1964, and spent a lifetime together dancing, fishing, traveling and, most of all, raising their family. When they danced, people always stopped to watch the way they floated across the floor in such harmony. Walt and Nancy completed their family with the birth of Kathryn in 1965.

Walt’s financial fortunes started to turn after that. He formed his own CPA practice, eventually growing it to be the largest privately owned firm in Kansas. Many business leaders learned he was the man to get deals figured out and put together, as he helped form many ventures, including KTPK radio station, State Savings and Loan, and a land deal near what would become a regional shopping center. His CPA practice expanded dramatically after client Frank Lacy, who opened the first McDonald’s restaurant in Topeka in 1961, asked him to fly to Chicago to meet with a company vice president for finances. Walt explained why his tax solution for Frank’s restaurants was better than what the corporate office was advising to be done. After that, Cobler & Associates grew to handle the financial operations for about 600 McDonald’s franchises across the western United States. The computer revolution helped make this remote work possible, and the boy born with the veil was a visionary.

Along the way, Walt became involved in many political and civic activities, becoming longtime friends with Mayor Bill McCormick, who appointed him to be chairman of the Topeka Airport Authority Board, and helping a variety of Kansas Democratic Party candidates. One of those, Kansas Gov. Joan Finney, asked him to become chairman of the Kansas Public Employment Retirement board to figure out how to keep it solvent. A Topeka Capital-Journal editorial in 1993 praised his leadership with the headline “The Good Shepherd.” An official resolution signed by the KPERS board members, its executive secretary and Gov. Finney noted that he led the public retirement system back to “financial health and integrity, with the fund surpassing $5 billion in assets for the first time in its history during his tenure as board chair.”

Ready to retire away from the harsh Kansas winters, Walt and Nancy searched for the perfect place, building a home in 1994 in Sonoita, Arizona, at an elevation of 4,900 feet and with a magnificent view of Mount Wrightson. There, they lived happily for 32 of their 62-year marriage, encouraging family and friends to visit their 50 acres and get away from the worries of the rest of the world. The grandchildren especially loved the rides Grandpa Cobler gave on his immaculately restored 1949 Ford 8N tractor, a prized possession that reminded him of a childhood spent doing farm work, such as driving a team of horses pulling a corn cutter.

Walt’s mind remained sharp even as his body started failing him during his final years. He managed his portfolio, tinkered in his shop tackling all manner of day-to-day challenges, and played cards any time he could get together a game. As trips to Vegas to play poker and blackjack became more infrequent, he challenged his brain with daily Scrabble battles against Nancy. She bested him more frequently than he’d like to admit, but both liked to say, “Where would you rather be? Nowhere but here with you.”

Walt died peacefully July 16, 2026, in a Tucson hospital after waiting for his out-of-town children to get there to say their goodbyes, express their love and gratitude, and share final hugs.

He is survived by his wife, Nancy; their four children, Sharen Swagerty of Canon City, Colorado; Walt Jr. (Mona) of Kingman, Arizona; Chris (Paula) of Arlington, Texas; and Kathryn Robinson (Rick) of Tucson; a younger brother, Bob, of Topeka, eight grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his parents and nine brothers and sisters, Clifford, Nellie, Geraldine, Bill, Clyde, Mary, Opal, Larry and Jim. Services will be at 9:30 a.m. July 24 at East Lawn Palms Mortuary and Cemetery, 5801 E. Grant Road, in Tucson. The officiant will be Michael Schiefelbein, beloved nephew and minister. Graveside services will immediately follow.

The funeral service will be livestreamed on East Lawn Palm Mortuary and Cemetery's Facebook page.