riverbend

Kevin Deneen Saul, 66, passed away the morning of Wednesday, January 25th, 2023, after a short, courageous battle with pancreatic cancer. He was born the second of two children to the late Wilbert and Anna (Kelly) Saul on Thanksgiving Day, November 22, 1956 in Alton, IL. For years, Anna would say she had two turkeys that year. Surviving are his loving wife of 38 years, Liz; sons Jared (34) and Aaron (29) Saul; sister Joyce (Andy) Ventimiglia; sister-in-law Sylvia Hoffstetter, brother-in-law Chuck (Paula) Hoffstetter, brother-in-law Van Hoffstetter, 6 nieces, 1 nephew, and many great nieces and nephews.

Kevin graduated from Roxana High School in 1974, and received an Associate’s Degree in Computer Science from Lewis & Clark Community College in 1978. He worked for McDonnell Douglas from ’79-’90, until his department was relocated to North Carolina and he chose not to follow.

He then worked for Wood River Refinery for 28 years — 4 in Operations and 24 in IT — before retiring in 2018. As ownership of the refinery shifted from Shell to Equilon, to Tosco, to ConocoPhillips, to Phillips 66, Kevin would joke that he worked for 5 different companies without ever leaving his desk. Every year, he would plan and lead the department’s Christmas party, and proudly MC the company Easter egg hunt at Kendall Hill Park.

In May 1980, a rainstorm permanently changed his life when, instead of spending the evening shooting off bottle rockets by the pond with his buddy Lou, he went to Pizza Hut, where a mutual friend introduced him to Liz. He asked her out two weeks later, and in 1984 they were married. In May 1988 they welcomed home a firstborn son, Jared, followed by a second, Aaron, in March 1993.

At the stroke of midnight on New Year’s 2000, Kevin, family, and friends revisited that same pond, shooting off 2000 bottle rockets in a homemade contraption of his own design. It involved a lot of wiring, cardboard toilet paper/paper towel tubes, and much planning, and every single bottle rocket went off that night on the first try.

Kevin and his family enjoyed taking a big trip every year. In the 90s and early 2000s, the four Sauls went on long roadtrips to every corner of the US, often accompanied by the latest audiobook or Tales of Suspense cassette from Cracker Barrel, or the same Jeff Foxworthy tape. In later years, they ended up visiting Hawaii,…