10/27/2011
By TIM UNRUH Salina Journal

FALUN -- Overnight showers cleared the air and morning sun sprayed brilliant fall colors on Falun while two black Percheron horses showed a special lady home.

Gayle Wilkins' funeral wasn't quite what she'd scripted a few weeks back, with major roles planned for her "big boys" -- draft horses Ike and Jet, Thunder and Gus, Otis and Stan, and her favorite, Hannibal.

Her horses were sidelined by a snowstorm in Colorado and truck breakdowns there and in Junction City, while they were in transit to Salina.

So some friends of the closely knit draft horse family, Percherons Ace and Onyx, stepped in to pull Wilkins' main show wagon and led some 30 cars Wednesday morning in a milelong procession from Falun Lutheran Church to the town cemetery.

Their owner, Greg VanCoevern, of Salina, led the team with his daughter Kala VanCoevern Ade as the co-pilot.

"Gayle has a lot of friends in the draft horse world, from all over the United States," said Joanne VanCoevern, Greg's wife.

Wilkins died Saturday after a three-year battle with breast cancer, leaving a throng of admirers in her family and those who shared her passion for horses and other animals. She was 69.

"She's a sweetheart. I've loved her all my life," said Julie Farr, of Salina, a fellow member of the Salina High School Class of 1960. They showed horses together.

Farr wore a pink blouse in honor of Wilkins, and Wilkins' boyfriend, Kenny Gawith, donned a pink dress shirt.

"She was everything," he said.

Her youngest brother, George Duffield, of New York City, referred to Wilkins as a "go-getter," and the only one of six siblings with a passion for horses.

"When we were kids, she used to care for horses, just to be around them," he said.

Reared in Salina, Wilkins was a military wife who spent time overseas, then Washington, D.C., and other areas on the East Coast.

She and her husband, the late Col. Charles Wilkins, moved to Kansas in the early 1980s and purchased a ranch near Brookville. They added a dude ranch named "Terra Cotta," where they raised horses and a few cattle.

Their first two cattle were named Chester and Upright after the styles of their two deep freezes, said her brother Bob Duffield, of Salina.

Wilkins was among those who like the smell of barns, horses, hay, "even horse poo," said the Rev. Ethan Feistner, of the Falun and Salemsborg Lutheran Parish, who officiated the funeral at Ryan Mortuary in Salina.

He spoke of Wilkins' jokes during the last couple of weeks of her life, and her love of four-legged creatures. The funeral program tabbed her as a "lover, protector and rescuer of animals," including horses, dogs, cats, ducks and chickens.

She was involved in showing draft horses since the mid-1990s and collected a number of top finishes. A pair of gloves and a riding crop were buried with her.

"Gayle said she would always get such a rush when she entered the gates into the arena, with her 'big boys,' " Feistner said during the service.

She gave specific wishes for her funeral. Soloist Bradley Barrett, of Missouri, auditioned songs for her and recorded his voice for her favorites that were played at the service.

Many of her Percherons were to be involved. Two of them were tabbed to pull the show wagon, and another pair would be hitched to the horse-drawn hearse that Pat Hopkins hauled from Dewey, Okla. But there weren't enough horses available.

The horse community sticks together, she said, and were able to put a team together for the show wagon.

"Gayle is a very special lady," Hopkins said, mentioning her friend's "strength in the face of adversity. She was always cheerful and very positive."

Feistner praised Wilkins' "fighting spirit." A week after entering hospice care, "she left and attended two more draft horse shows" at the Kansas and Oklahoma state fairs.

Bob Duffield and a cousin, Gary Nelson, a Falun rancher and registered nurse, accompanied Wilkins to the shows.

At last month's state fair in Hutchinson, Wilkins was treated like a queen, Bob Duffield said.

"They wheeled her out in the ring in her wheelchair as her team ran around her," he said.

The next week at Oklahoma City, all the horses wore pink ribbons in her honor, Bob said.

"As soon as we got to the Oklahoma State Fair, she perked up," Nelson said.

At her funeral, Feistner predicted tears at times, then laughter, and perhaps a mixture of both as friends and family remembered Wilkins.

He assured the mourners that Wilkins "is enjoying the ultimate arena."

Family and friends figured Wilkins would have approved of the sendoff, considering the circumstances.

Feistner expedited proceedings by giving thanks for the meal at the gravesite, rather than waiting for everyone to gather back at the church in Falun.

"You can get right in line and eat," he said. "I think Gayle would go for that."

-- Reporter Tim Unruh can be reached at 822-1419 or by email at tunruh@salina.com.

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