Charles "Chuck" V. Rothermich

Charles “Chuck” V. Rothermich, 58, of Kearney, passed away on Wednesday, January 25, 2023 at his home. A Memorial Service will be held on Saturday, June 10, 2023 at 10:00 a.m. at Horner Lieske McBride & Kuhl Funeral and Cremation Services in Kearney. There will be no visitation and private burial will be later. Military honors will be provided by the Kearney American Legion Post #52, the Kearney V.F.W. Post #759 and the United States Air Force Honor Guard. Donations in lieu of flowers can be made to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, https://pancan.org Please visit www.hlmkfuneral.com to leave a tribute or message of condolence. Horner Lieske McBride & Kuhl Funeral and Cremation Services are in charge of arrangements. Chuck Rothermich was all about family. Even as he battled pancreatic cancer, he was more concerned about his wife Sandy and three children. Chuck lost that battle on Jan. 25, dying at home in Kearney, NE. He was 58, two months short of his 59th birthday. “He called me his princess and I called him my knight,” said his wife Sandy, who described Chuck as the “love of my life.” Chuck met Sandy online and they were married in 1997. They renewed their vows in 2012 on a family cruise. “When he proposed the first time, he didn’t get down on one knee,” she said. “But when we decided to renew our vows, he did.” Charles Victor Rothermich was born in St. Charles, MO, and was stationed in many cities before meeting Sandy. After getting married, they lived Colorado Springs, CO, Cedar Falls, IA, and Fayetteville, NC, before settling in Kearney with their family. He served in the U.S. Air Force from 1986 to 1998, separating as a major, and worked as an engineer and a facilities and maintenance manager at several production facilities in Iowa, North Carolina, and Nebraska. He is survived by his wife, Sandra (nee Sandra Kalet), his children, Hannah, Matthew, and Benjamin; his mother Alice Rothermich of St. Charles, MO, and three sisters - Mary Kay Nasevich, Diane (Jeff) Brouk, and Kristin (Tim) Foley, many nieces and nephews, and one great nephew. Chuck was predeceased by his father, Kenneth Victor Rothermich. Chuck attended Duchesne High School in St. Charles, where he served as president of Key Club as a junior. He later received his Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Missouri University of Science & Technology and his Masters in Space Communications from the Air Force Institute of Technology. His sister Kristin said Chuck was always engineering something as a kid. “He made model airplanes,” when he was growing up, and then, “as a teenager, put rocket fireworks in them.” Chuck collected beer cans, but not to display, said Diane. “He would cut off the tops and bottoms, duct tape them together, and use them as rocket launchers.” “When Chuck came home from college once,” Kristin said, “he had the entire basement set up with those small green army men. He liked to strategize.” He would do impressions of Steve Martin and dance like Elvis Presley, always finishing it by saying “Thank you. Thank you, very much,” Diane said. Sandy called him the “king of the dad jokes,” and said he had the most infectious laugh of anyone she has known. ““Every time he laughed we lost it,” Sandy says. “His laughter was contagious.” Matthew agreed. “I loved when he would make funny jokes and he had such a memorable laugh that would make me laugh even harder,” he said. Ben remembers the same thing. They would hold regular family game nights that inevitably would end in hysterical laughter because Chuck would tell a joke and start laughing. “We would have game night and all be sitting around the table,” Ben said. “He would always tell a joke that made everyone start laughing, and he would always laugh really hard at his jokes, too. It would take us minutes to compose ourselves to keep playing the game.” His brother-in-law Hank Kalet said Chuck had a sharp wit and a willingness to be silly, which made him a perfect fit with the family. “We would do Zoom calls and Chuck, my brother Mark, and I would constantly riff, which would make Sandy laugh so hard she couldn’t breath,” he said. Chuck fished whenever he could find the time, and loved to garden and cook — especially with family. Hannah, learned her way around the kitchen from Chuck, would always turn to him when she had a cooking question. One memory stands out, she said. “Every time dad would make pumpkin pie, he’d always pour the leftovers into small glasses for me and him,” she said. They then would drink the pie filling. The kitchen was an important place for Chuck and Sandy, too. Sandy remembers their “impromptu kitchen dancing” — to almost any song, including Josh Turner’s “Why Don't We Just Dance” and “Your Man,” as well as “Marry Me” by Train and “A Thousand Years” by Christina Perri, which was their vow renewal song. “He’d be cooking and he’d grab my hands and start dancing and we would just slow dance. The dogs would get in on the action and we'd just giggle."

Tributes

Charles "Chuck" V. Rothermich

March 23, 1964 - January 25, 2023