Kelly Junkin Young

Kelly Junkin Young, 59, passed away on Sunday, January 19, 2025 at Baylor Scott & White Medical Center in Irving, Texas from pancreatic cancer.

She was born to parents, Willie Junkin and Linda Laffitte Whatley in Mansfield, Louisiana on October 10, 1965. She grew up in Mansfield, studied Kinesiology at ULM and LSU-Shreveport, and worked as an elementary school Physical Education teacher for 17 years. Before going back to school and becoming certified in Adaptive PE, she would go on to serve special needs students in the DeSoto Parish School district for an additional 8 years.

Kelly lived her life to the fullest, every day and in every moment, knowing tomorrow was never promised. Her life is marked by family, friendship, adventure, and selfless love to all who knew her. She was deeply dedicated to her church and local community and was especially blessed by the friendship, encouragement, and faith of her prayer group in her later years.

Kelly’s adventurous, kind, and loving spirit was known not only throughout her community but in friendships she cultivated and maintained around the world. She served on countless mission trips, both locally and in foreign countries, where she shared the love of Christ by preaching the gospel and meeting the physical needs of the communities she served. A few of her favorite trips included bringing food and medicine to remote villages whose roads were washed away by hurricanes, to communities who were struggling and praying for a miracle. As well as sharing her motherly love and teacher’s heart with an all-boys’ orphanage in Brazil, boys who deeply needed to see hope and love in hard circumstances.

She found great comfort, encouragement, and fulfillment in her closest “God friends” (friends God had specifically given her for life) and in her family. She deeply enjoyed all life offered, all that God created, in her odysseys with friends and family. Whether it was adventuring to New York to see the incredible sights, shows and eat amazing food, to exploring the Alaskan wilderness, fishing for sockeye salmon at midnight with her family, and everywhere in between, she was ready for adventure.

In her last years, she enjoyed time on the golf course, where she relentlessly tried to better her game, and ultimately herself through practice, repetition, and frustration. But she found it an incredibly rewarding and satisfying frustration to endure, to see the benefit of her labor as she consistently lowered her score month by month.

However, what Kelly cherished most was family. Her best memories were with family at the center- whether on a beach, a ski vacation, trying new restaurants in Dallas, Baton Rouge, New Orleans and beyond, to simply being at home on the Young Farm where she loved taking walks, lounging in the pool, admiring the sunflowers in bloom, taking her granddaughter on 4-wheeler rides around to see the bulls and cows, and fishing with her husband in the twilight hours to find stillness and peace in God’s creation.

Kelly helped countless people and touched so many lives in her time on earth. Sharing her faith with others and how God had worked in her life was second nature to her. She had a servant’s heart, always more concerned about others than she was for herself, even to the very end. She rests in the strength of her faith and the hope we have in our Lord, Jesus, for a renewed heaven and earth where we will meet again.

Kelly is survived by her husband, Charles Young; daughter, Alex Hunter; son, Jacob Young; granddaughters, Rosie Hunter and Josephine Hunter; father, Willie Junkin; mother, Linda Whatley; sisters, Kathy Terry, Kasey McAllen, and Anna Hawkins; and brother, Will Junkin.

The funeral service will be held at 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, January 25, 2025 located at First Baptist Church Keithville, 6295 Williams Rd, Keithville, LA 71047. Visitation will be held prior from 1:00 p.m. until time of service.