Brett's Aunt had a tradition of passing out balloons to spread joy after someone passes. When she passed Brett wanted to carry out her tradition. Beardo, Kay, Brett and I drove around all day passing these balloons to everyone we saw on the street. We really made a lot of people's day, something Beardo did often. It really was my favorite memory with my friend.
-Emily B.
Hi my name is Leona my dad is phill who owns sabbath tattoo when I was probably 8 or 9 beardo came into my dads shop wanting a tattoo and he happened to pick something I drew a little flower it wasn’t pretty and you could definitely tell it was drawn by a child but he still got it and it’s one of my favorite stories to tell, he was such a character and one that definitely was a key memory in my childhood.
We all adored Kris and send our deepest condolences. It still doesn't seem real. Philip and Kris had a special bond that went back many years, as did Kris and I. Kris actually brought Philip and i together. We're really going to miss him. Im really going to miss his funny, demented sense of humour. He loved to mess around, especially with us girls. Theres a picture I included of myself, passed out on kris's couch, covered in packing peanuts. Of course, he dumped these on me, lol. Sometime later, I woke up, confused, disoriented and freezing cold. Kris came and put a pair of his wool socks on my feet and made me a cup of hot tea. And that was Kris. A goofy friend who was genuinely sweet and loved his friends. I apologize, ive never been the best with words, but I hope you enjoy these pictures and know how loved he was by so many.
-Angela J.
I was cab driving one weekend night and i didnt have a fair, just looking around for a place to post up for anyone who needed a ride. As I'm driving down railroad I see Beardo passed out under a tree just outside Jommy Johns.
2 cops were walking, making sure everyone was being safe, and stopped at a passed out Beardo. As they began flipping open their ticket book, I swooped into the parking stall, hopped out and said, "I got him, I got him.... Thx guys," and drug him into my cab front passenger seat. He mumbled a bunch and I told him I was taking him home.
The look on the cop's faces was priceless. They couldn't believe what had just happened. Mouths open, ticket book open ready to cite him.
Beardo ended up face planting in my lap while I took him home. He was safe.
Many motorcycle chats and big hugs with him. He will be missed
Thx
-RED
After being close friends (and Moore st neighbors) for years our daughter was born. He came to our house right off the shuttle to hold her. He said it was the first baby he had ever held (whether truth or not) but he took her with zero hesitation. They had many adventures together and him and Sammy started their first babysitters club.
After we moved to SD he continued to visit every year and send and endless amounts of roller skates and heart shaped sunglasses or whatever unnecessary thing he thought our girls might enjoy.
One early morning he was knocking on our bedroom window whisper/yelling my name asking if I wanted to go to the pink paint store. It was either because I was pregnant and feeling sorry for myself or else because I was the only one who could safely drive at that time in the morning, but he really needed help picking out pink paint for his bike and made sure to tell me it was because he didn’t want me to feel left out.
When our second was born he came to meet her, once again loving the baby stage and also entertaining 3 year old Everly like a pro. The picture of him in the tree is helping put up a swing for the girls (that they still use all the time). Even though it was a terrible lightning storm, he wouldn’t listen to me to get off the ladder.
We had a trip planned to Bellingham last week to see him and Jared, I found out he passed on the morning of the 5th when I texted him and Jared confirming that we were coming. We went though with the trip, it was bittersweet with him gone, but also so fun so show our kids all the places we used to hang out and I loved seeing the pictures of the girls on his fridge he had printed out.
We loved him and he loved us back in the best ways. He was smart and reckless, honest and hilarious, thoughtful and sincere and I’m grateful to have had him as a friend.
I’m so sorry that you’ve lost your son and brother, the death of family is the hardest one, I hope that you find comfort in knowing that he was loved by so many and that these pictures bring a smile during all the pain.
-Clair N.
I’ve spent a lot of time processing Kris’s passing. I’ve bounced around to different stages of the mourning process and I’m not entirely sure which stage I’m in on a day to day basis, but I had some thoughts about Kris that I wanted to share.
We were fortunate enough to live next door to Kris for 6 years. We spent 5-6 nights a week together, having dinner, working on garage projects, yard and house projects and living life together.
Kris was different from nearly any person I’ve met. He had a magnetic personality. He drew people to him and people wanted to be a part of his life. He made people feel a sense of belonging.
He had a way of getting people to step outside their comfort zone. Whether it was giving me confidence to take a 1200-mile trip on a motorcycle we all had built or getting my mother visiting from out of state to climb into a side car for a ride, he had a knack for making people feel brave enough to do things they would remember.
That same personality made him a friend to strangers—it’s how we met him, and how so many others did too. This meant helping someone he just met that needed new brakes on their car or someone who bought their first motorcycle but had no idea how to get it running. He was constantly juggling his many projects along with helping others with their needs. That meant the projects were never done, but that was the rhythm that Kris lived in. It was messy, but it was intentional and it was fun to be a part of.
We left our home state and moved to Washington to build new relationships, friendships and to deepen our relationship. We built great relationships in our faith communities and our neighborhood but we didn’t learn what community truly was until we met our neighbors. Kris and everyone at the Moore St. house taught us more about community and loving others than we could have imagined. We learned what it meant to help others, what it meant to live in community and what it meant to love people.
Kris had a sense of calm and peace that you’d notice once you got to know him. He lived out adventures in his life that many wouldn’t dream of, but he also seemed comfortable in the quiet and simple things. That looked like watching the latest Fast & Furious with a home cooked meal, planting a garden, texting Clair about new books one of them had just read, or sitting quietly on a bench with Everly and June (our two girls) to eat ice cream.
He was intentional about being involved in Everly’s life and later June’s life as well. Kris and Sammy took Everly to Lee’s every week to work on crossword puzzles and eat breakfast as part of the babysitter’s club. Later when we moved back to South Dakota, Kris made an effort to visit yearly. When he wasn’t visiting he sent care packages to the girls full of roller skates and endless supplies of heart shaped sunglasses.
Kris spent a lot of his free time away from Alaska visiting those he cared for across the country and helping others in his backyard.
I know our story is not unique. I’ve seen and heard stories from others and they all reflect the same love Kris showed.
Kris was intentional about being involved with the lives of the people he cared for, but he never let that stop him from living in the moment. He lived his life fully and without fear every day. He did loud and wild things that were reckless and full of life. He lived an adventure.
Kris loved people fully in his own way and lived life on his own terms. We miss him and we consider ourselves the lucky ones to have been a part of the life he lived.
Sincerely,
Cody, Clair, Everly & June N.
I can't really put into words what Beardo meant to all of us. I'm still trying to figure it out. When I was looking for trouble trouble was his middle name. One of my favorite tattoos I got from Kay sitting on his couch on a drunken night. Once on a full moon which happened to coincide with the anniversary of my dad's passing me and Kay went over to Beardos after hanging downtown. I just wanted to blow stuff up and let go of my energy and Kris made me a bouquet of skyrockets wrapped up in a bow. We then drank all the beer and stumbled around the neighborhood shooting them off and falling in ditches. I'm glad he came to ShBang last year. I saw the humanity in him when I saw him curled around his motorcycle sleeping the first morning of the festival. I had wondered the night before where he was gonna sleep but knew better than to ask. No invitations. Beardo made me feel cool when I was around him. It was like we were in a secret club no one else was lucky enough to get invited too. He might just be the definition of F.O.M.O. The day after he died Kay and I went over to the house and when we were sitting together and his brother noticed my Ralph Steadman phone case and him and Brett recited a quote from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: "There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die."
Beardo forever.
-Summer Ray
I remember Bror and Kris being best friends as kids, and getting up to all sorts of shit. I specifically remember them riding bikes and sliding around the gravel pit by the DeBoer house (and ruining a begged-for and expensive pair of Gotcha shoes that Mom never let Bror forget about). I thought they were nuts and doing dangerous stuff for no good reason - and I was so jealous. I've learned to lighten up from my childhood anxious, adult-pleasing ways for the most part. Kris was a good role model for that <3
-Kate Z.
He was always there when I needed something. I could always count on him. I love kris and I am gutted that he's gone. He brought out the kid in me and life just seemed like a fun adventure when I was with him, even after I sort of grew up and started a family, he could always bring out the belly laughs and life was worry free when he was around. I am really going to miss him.
The world seems a lot less exciting after the 4th and dimmer. I hope some of these stories will make people laugh and remember the good times that they had, i know I was just one of the many, many people who felt that way.
Italy: He came to visit me in June? 2022, right after I had my daughter Nova. I had to drive to pick him up in Rome traffic, which can be horrendous. I'm having shotty service and driving around in crazy traffic and then, there he is: scootering around in some piazza, hair flowing in the wind just looking like a little kid in a candy shop
We went wine tasting in Tuscany, stayed in this beautiful cliffside village called Pitigliano, went to the famous Saturnia hot springs, and headed back to Formia where I lived. The next day I had to leave him alone for the day while I went to base and did paperwork for my husband. He said he'd be fine and I pointed him to the beach near the house. There are bars all along the beach there and I am certain he took advantage of this, because when I called to see where he was at the end of the day he was real happy and a bit confusing but still its sometimes hard to tell if he's just being silly or just absolutely blind drunk. Well he's nowhere to be found and I'm driving around and there he was, passed out in someone's driveway in his kitty onesie, laying on a giant rubber ducky, with his boots neatly set beside him and about 15 Italians standing around scratching their heads trying to figure out where he came from and what to do with him. I so wish I had a picture because it was quite the sight. So I tell them in my basic Italian "he's fine, he's with me, please don't call the police" and I'm trying to wake him up and finally he shoots up, professional as ever, gets his boots and his rubber ducky in the front seat and off we go.
About 5 people contacted me to tell me they saw him on the beach that day having a great time! He definitely sticks out in a sea of Italians in their speedos lol. One lady messaged me to say "tell him thanks for keeping his soul clean, it comes out from his eyes" and I always thought that was very true, he had the kindest eyes underneath a dirty biker persona.
-Holly T.
I had a crush on Kris in high school, although I was a the kind of person who followed all the rules and wasn't very cool. I thought Kris was cool.
One day in our Senior Year I was hanging out with Kris and his friends and I farted. I was mortified. He looked and me and said aww that was so cute and then continued his conversation like nothing had happened. It was very sweet.
-Katy S.
It’s difficult to narrow it down to just a couple stories since we became friends as teenagers. So many different periods of time, and phases of our lives.
Kris was always thoughtful and always generous. In my late teens there was a summer that felt like we spent every day together. Lots of adventures, and plenty of mornings where i woke up complaining of a hangover. Kris made me a “hangover kit”. It was in a big pink plastic case. It had aspirin, Alka-Seltzer, Tums, napkins, small airplane size bottles of liquor and a mix tape that he had recorded himself with the classical music of Johann Sebastian Bach. We had previously had a conversation about classical music making us feel calm. I still have that tape with his handwriting on it.
Many decades later when I lived on the top of Alabama Hill, he showed up to my place unannounced. My child was probably around 5. Kris & Jared pulled into our driveway with 2 huge tires, chains & ropes. They rigged up a tire swing in my front yard, and another in my backyard. It was so thoughtful and so out of the blue.
I got married in September 2024. After the wedding, i asked my child (who was 18 by then) who was his favorite person to chat with at the wedding. He said Kris. Kris made people feel seen. Made them feel like they belonged. Made them feel understood. One of a kind friend that you never had a dull moment with. He could get you howling with laughter, and would play the best pranks on people. He will always be missed and loved.
-Claire T.
My first introduction to Kris was on a winter vacation to Washington with a cousin. MT Baker was standing majestic outside the kitchen window and I really wanted to go skiing. Ben and Kris graciously said they would take me and they would try snowboarding. They got lots of powder the night before we went and it snowed all day we were there. Ben and Kris weren't little kids trying to learn, they were twenty something men. Have you ever fallen in 2-3 ft powder snow with a board hooked to your feet and tried to stand up again? It is gut wrenching, ab killing exercise!
Guess who was willing to go again the next day?! Yep! Kris! Ben said no way! Linda graciously let us use her car again and off we went. Kris boarded better in that powder snow on his second day than this Michigander could ski ! I went with him to Whistler a couple of months later and he was going thru the trees! (Forrest!) Linda informed me that next Christmas he was asking for a beacon so he could board out of bounds!!! He was an awesome boarder and an AMAZING man!
-Ann R.