Bernard Willis Harder

BERNARD WILLIS HARDER Bernard Willis Harder died on January 16, 2025, after a short illness, just short of his 95th birthday.  Willis was the first child of B.G. and Elise (Wiebe) Harder, born on February 27, 1930.  He grew up on the family farm in Butler County, near Brainerd.  He graduated from Berean Academy in 1948, attended Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California for two years, before graduating from Bethel College in 1953 in education and industrial arts.  He completed his alternative service as an orderly at the Menninger Psychiatric Hospital in Topeka in 1955.  Willis met Dorothy Regier at Bethel College, while both were working in the cafeteria, and they married in 1954 upon her graduation from Bethel.  After both taught school for a year, they moved in 1956 to Dorothy's parents' farm in western Harvey County where they resided for the next 40 years.   They had three children:  Kurt, David, and Lynn.  Willis became an active member of Hoffnungsau Mennonite Church, Inman, teaching youth and adult educational classes continuously and serving periodically in various leadership roles until the mid-1990s.  Willis grew the farm over the first couple of decades and was an early adopter of newer tillage methods and crop varieties.  In addition to farming, Willis was an active member of the community serving in numerous capacities:  for Harvey County on the planning and zoning board and on the watershed council; on the Bethel College Board; on the Western District Board of the General Conference Mennonite Church; and on the Sunshine Meadows Retirement Community Board.  In the 1990s, Kurt operated more of the farm and Willis' focus shifted.  He became President of the Schowalter Foundation in Newton, and he and Dorothy moved to North Newton.  They joined Bethel College Mennonite Church in 2000.  Willis retired in 2006 from the Schowalter Foundation.  Then, Willis and Dorothy traveled in North America, he devoted more time to their nine grandchildren, reading, and Church activities.  Willis is survived by his son David (Michele Horn), daughter Lynn Schmidt (Steve), daughter-in-law Dorothy Janzen (Keith), sister Lois Nattier (Sidney), nine grandchildren and four great grandchildren.  Willis' wife, eldest son, parents, and two siblings, Elna Dick (Harold) and Don, predecease him.    His Celebration of Life service is February 1, 2:30 p.m., at Kidron Bethel Village Chapel, North Newton and will be live streamed at www.youtube.com/@KidronBethelVillage/streams.  More information on Willis' life is at www.wigginsfuneralhomes.com.