Funeral services for Larry Willnow, 60, of Regent, ND, will be Thursday, March 3, 2011 at 1:30 p.m. at Faith Lutheran Church in Regent. Pastor Joe Burgess will officiate and burial will follow at the Regent Cemetery.

Visitation will be from 1:00 to 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, March 2, 2011 at the Evanson Jensen Funeral Home in Mott and one hour prior to the service at the church on Thursday afternoon.

Larry Willnow was born February 27, 1950 in Elgin, North Dakota and spent all of his growing years in Regent. He graduated from Regent High School in 1968. Larry often talked about the fun he had in grade school and the time spent playing with his good friends, the Greff boys. Watching the steam locomotives come into town from vantage of an old horse drawn grader down by the tracks was another memorable pastime. The greatest excitement came when he got to go fishing with Grandpa and Grandma Schatz down on the Cannonball or out at Stewart's Dam.

High school found Larry involved in studies, athletics, and music. Much of the summer and fall was spent summer fallowing and swathing. One highlight he told about was the day the Gallop-ing Goose made its final run to pick up cars. Larry was by the Co-Op Store at the time when Ardmore Quamme announced that the train was heading for New England and they could ride it there and back. Larry was on a mission for our mother to pick up cream and brown sugar for caramel rolls that were ready for the oven. He chose the rolls over the train ride and never regretted it.


Larry spent the next four years at the University of North Dakota in the Aviation program,
graduating with a multi engine and an instructor degree. He flew for several private companies in the Minneapolis area and a mail charter between Minneapolis and Minot. When our dad had his first heart attack, Larry returned home to help with farming and continued to fly hail suppression out of Bowman. Upon our father's death in 1976, Larry began farming full time and did so until his death.

Larry never lost his love of flying. He actually restored a wrecked cub he found in Mandan.
With the help of a mechanic at the Mandan Airport on the frame and the engine and our mother sewing fabric on the body and wings, it was deemed airworthy. As hard as he tried, he never did get our mother to ride in the airplane – her rational was that, "anything that she put together with cloth and a needle and thread was nothing that she was going to risk her neck in."

Larry's hobbies included: flying his cub, building and flying radio control airplanes, playing guitar, prairie dog hunting, coffee at the Regent Garage, his Harley, and, of course, if it can be called a hobby, farming.

Larry loved living in Regent and often said he could not imagine living anywhere else. He was preceded in death by his father and mother. Survivors include brother and sister-in-law Art and Mary Willnow, three nephews and their wives and grand nephews and a grand niece, Todd and
Brenda with their son, Kyle Willnow of Valrico, FL; Brian and his son, Jordon Willnow of
Vancouver, WA; Kevin and Jackie and their son, Cody Rencurel, and daughter, Chandra Willnow of Havre, MT. He will be greatly missed and we wish him a wonderful rest in peace.