by Kerstan Szczepanski, Exhibit City News
November 24th, 1951 – December 6th, 2023
Judy Marie Kackley, born in 1951, passed away December 6th in her home in Boulder City. She was 72 and in hospice care when she peacefully died of lung cancer.
Exhibit City News (ECN) had a connection with Kackley. Publisher Don Svehla relates, “Judy was special to ECN… she enjoyed being my right hand for nine years. She even put ‘publisher’s right hand’ on her business card!”
“Judy was like family to me those many years we worked together,” Svehla continues. “I knew her whole family. Her daughter, Dee, even worked with us at the office part-time for a few of those years. Judy’s husband Monte fixed things around the office and even made a couple pieces of the furnishings still in use. Back in those years we started at 7:00 a.m. and Judy was always there at least 20 minutes early. Me with my coffee and her with her soft drinks and cigarettes!”
Kackley had a heart attack once before while working at ECN, died, and was resuscitated. Svehla remembers, “Judy died right outside my office door while I was on a sales trip to Southern California. She was brought back by fire and rescue. She spent three weeks in surgical intensive care. Naturally, she retired.”
From then on, Kackley was not afraid of dying. She felt her “bonus life” as she called it, was to make people smile. In Boulder City she was known for participating in western couples and square dancing.
Says Svehla, “She was able to enjoy another 10 years of life. That included time with her grandchildren.”
Kackley had an effect on the people around her. She cared and wanted people to be happy. She was joyous and succeed in her goal of making people smile.
“Judy was quite special, and certainly one of a kind,” Svehla says. “Looking back on those years, the adventures we shared from over a decade ago come back in vivid detail. Judy, your memory is cherished in the archives of the archiver to the tradeshow and event industry. There’s a reason why your business cards actually said ‘publisher’s right hand’ on them. You certainly were a heavy lifter for me and the organization, while you worked here. Your memory lives on in the history of our 30 year old publication.”
The last line in her obituary from the Boulder City Review sums Kackley up well. “She asked that if someone wants to honor her memory, then they could make someone smile.”
RIP, Judy Kackley.
This story originally appeared in the Q2 2024 issue of Exhibit City News, p. 93. For original layout, visit https://issuu.com/exhibitcitynews/docs/ecn_q1_2024.
