Monday, April 15th, 1957 – Wednesday, June 4th, 2025
Mark Einar Hermansen, 68, Olathe, Kansas passed away Wednesday, June 4, 2025 at Olathe Medical Center, Olathe, Kansas. There will be a private family service. Memorial Contributions may be made to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research or Boy Scout Troop 494 at St. Paul’s Catholic Church in Olathe. Condolences may be left at www.brucefuneralhome.com
Mark was born in Chicago, Illinois on April 15, 1957 to Robert and Varley Lee (Erickson) Hermansen. He graduated from Illinois State University (1979) with a degree in agribusiness and dreamt of living life as a farmer. On May 24, 1980, he married his college sweetheart Barbara Bunten in Matteson, Illinois and took his farming dreams out west with his family in tow to Olathe in 1984. He never owned a farm or worked on a farm, but lived out those dreams by turning his backyards into giant gardens and growing zucchini (the size of a small child) he never ate. He worked with taxes and accounting for many years, and his last job was for SPX Cooling Technologies (Overland Park).
Mark was a scoutmaster with Boy Scout Troop 494 at St. Paul’s Church in Olathe in the late 1990s and most of his energy and passion was poured into scouting with his son Erik for several years. The rest of his time was spent climbing with the Kansas City Climbing Club, helping Olathe launch their first Flying Disc Club at Prairie Center Park, coaching his son’s soccer team when he didn’t know the sport, grilling countless hamburgers in the backyard, outwitting everyone in board and card games, telling horrendous, eye-rolling Dad jokes, backpacking the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, trying to kill his family canoeing down the Niangua in the Ozarks, camping all over the country including his favorite places the Boundary Waters, the bottom of the Grand Canyon and the Badlands, cycling everywhere he could with his children or friend Stan training for the MS150, voraciously reading books and newspapers every chance he got, striving to achieve the perfect Swedish pancakes and sharing his love of history and his Saami (Scandinavian) heritage with his cherished granddaughter Isabella.
You couldn’t take the sky from Mark, and even though he always quipped the only way you could have a party in outer space is if you “planet”, we know he is having the party of a lifetime in Valhalla.
Mark is survived by his wife Barbara of the home; children Lynne Hermansen and Erik Hermansen both of Olathe, Kansas; brother Glenn (Heidi) Hermansen, De Soto, Illinois, granddaughter Isabella Hermansen, nieces and nephews he adored and numerous cousins. He was preceded in death by his parents.
Obituary published by Bruce Funeral Home.
