Kenneth Eugene Koehn, 51, former Newton resident, died Thursday (April 11, 1996) at his home in Harrisonburg, Virginia, the result of a cancer that developed very quickly.  He was the son of Martha and Galen Koehn of North Newton.

He was born Sept. 8, 1944 in Torrance, California.

He was an international aid specialist and businessman.  He was raised in Newton and graduated from Newton High School, where he starred in football and basketball.  He was a graduate of Bethel College, where he received the college's Young Alumnus Award in 1975.  In 1968 he received a master's degree in political science from Kansas State University.  He performed alternative service in Zaire, Africa, where he taught at the college level in the Teachers Abroad Program of the Mennonite Central Committtee.  He headed development programs in Bangladesh under the auspices of the Mennonite Central Committee.  He later worked for the cooperative league of the United States of America setting up cooperatives in Third World countries.  During his 17 years with Development Alternative Incorporated in Washington, D.C. he designed development programs and provided expertise to projects worldwide.  He worked as an agricultural consultant and project field director in Zaire and Niger.  In 1990 he formed a partnership creating Shenandoah Growers LTD, purveyors of fresh herbs in Harrisonburg.  The company provides herbs to central east coast states.  He was active in the Mennonite Economic Development Association.  He was a memeber of the Parkview and Bethel College Mennonite Churches serving on church boards and serving as Sunday school caretaker.  He was active in his son's Boy Scout troop.  He assisted coaching in both Little and Pony League baseball.

Other survivors include his wife, Diana Macualay-Koehn; two sons, Daniel and Timothy, both of Harrisonburg; two brothers, Roy of Gaithersburg, Maryland, and Larry of West Palm Beach, Florida, and one sister, Wendy Jones of Des Moines, Iowa.