Dr. Kenneth David Smith, 81, whose career with SIL International as a linguist and administrator spanned more than half a century, died November 8, 2016 in Carol Stream, Illinois.

Born July 19, 1935, Ken grew up in Evanston, Illinois, until the end of World War II when his family moved to East Orange, New Jersey. After completing a degree in mechanical engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, he moved to Waltham, Massachusetts, where he worked at Raytheon Company and completed a Bachelor of Divinity at Gordon Divinity School in 1960. During this time, while playing the organ at Waltham Evangelical Free Church, he noticed Marilyn Brady singing alto in the choir. They married there in 1959.

Having sensed a call to "technical missionary" service in high school, he joined Wycliffe Bible Translators and SIL in 1960. In 1962 he sailed with Marilyn and their newborn daughter Linda to South Vietnam for his first assignment. After learning Vietnamese, he took up study of the Sedang language. In addition to language research, he also served as general contractor for the building of a linguistic workshop center in Kontum. His colleagues recognized his gift of administration and in January 1975, while on furlough, he was elected branch director. Before he could return to take up the role, however, SIL personnel had to evacuate the country because of the communist takeover later that year.

Returning overseas, Ken and Marilyn went to the Philippines. For the next three years, he directed the phase-out of the Vietnam/Cambodia Branch as members published or archived their materials before moving on to other assignments. During that time, he made nine visits to Thailand and Malaysia, initiating SIL work in both of those countries. In 1979 the SIL board appointed him to serve as the first director of the SIL branch in Sabah, Malaysia, where he served until 1985.

From 1986-1992 and again from 1993-1997, he worked as executive assistant to the SIL Asia Area director in Manila. During the first three of those years, he also served as the first director of the Thailand Group, a role performed mostly from Manila. In 1998 Ken and Marilyn moved to Chiang Mai, Thailand, where he then served 12 years as finance manager for the Mainland Southeast Asia Group.

After spending most of his life serving Bibleless people groups in Southeast Asia, Ken's last assignment, from 2011-2015, was as cashier, financial aid administrator, and work-study coordinator for the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics in Dallas, Texas.

In between field terms, Ken earned an M.A. in linguistics (University of North Dakota, 1968), a Ph.D. in linguistics (University of Pennsylvania, 1975), taught linguistics (especially literacy-related courses), and compiled a dictionary of the Sedang language (published 2012).

He retired in 2015 at the age of 80.

After living with cancer for many years, his health began to decline early in 2016. He died peacefully at home in Windsor Park Retirement Community on November 8, 2016.

He is survived by his wife of 57 years, Marilyn Smith; his children, Linda (Bruce) Hansen, nurse and homemaker in Laibin, China; Dr. David (Marie) Smith, music professor and director of The Genevans, the student choir of Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania; Peter (Wendy) Smith, a business consultant in Warrenville, Illinois; Philip (Jessica) Smith, Global Ministries Field Director for Leadership Resources International, also in Warrenville, Illinois; and 15 grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his parents and brother Donald in the late 1970s, and by his son Jonathan Howard Smith, who died in a traffic accident in 1971 in Nha Trang, Vietnam, at the age of two. The story of that event is told by Hugh Steven in a 1974 book, It Takes Time to Love, published by Wycliffe Bible Translators.  (It was privately reprinted in 2003 with an Epilogue update by Ken.)

As a young boy, Ken accepted Jesus as his Savior. His life was permeated by a devotion to his Lord and a desire to serve Him faithfully. He was widely known for his humble spirit of service and his organizational skills. He was gifted in turning chaos into order. He loved music and participated in choirs whenever he could. He played trumpet, piano, and organ, and enjoyed accompanying people singing hymns as much as they enjoyed him doing it. His forgiving spirit, sense of humor, and optimistic outlook on life will be greatly missed.

A memorial service will be held on Saturday, November 19, 2016 at 10:00 a.m. at Windsor Park, 124 Windsor Park Drive, in Carol Stream, IL. Interment was private at Memorial Park Cemetery in Skokie, IL.

In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts may be directed to Wycliffe Bible Translators , P.O. Box 628200, Orlando, FL 32862.

Sole-authored works:

1963 Word lists: Sedang, Katu, Brou

1965 English guide to Cây-Cỏ Miền Nam Viêt-Nam by Phạm Hoàng Hộ Bộ Quốc-Gia Giáo-Dục Xuất-Bản, 1960

1967 Sedang dialects , Bulletin de la Société des Etudes Indochinoises

1967 Smith, Kenneth D., Sedang dialects

1967 'Bái hòc tơpui Rơtéang = Bài hoc tiếng Sedang = Sedang language lessons , Tủ sách ngôn-ngữ dân tộc thiểu số Việt Nam

1968 Laryngealization and de-laryngealization in Sedang phonemics

1968 The phonology of Sedang personal names , Anthropological Linguistics

1969 The phonology of Sedang personal names , Anthropological Linguistics

1969 Sedang ethnodialects ,  Anthropological Linguistics

1969 Sedang affixation , Mon-Khmer Studies

1969 Homonyms in Sedang kinship terminology

1970 Proto-North-Bahnaric

1972 A phonological reconstruction of Proto-North-Bahnaric , Language Data, Asian-Pacific Series,

1973 Denasolaryngealization in Sedang folk-linguistics , Mon-Khmer Studies

1973 More on Sedang ethnodialects , Mon-Khmer Studies

1973 Eastern North Bahnaric: Cua and Kotua , Mon-Khmer Studies

1974 Text vs. dictionary letter frequencies for primers , Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session

1974 A computer analysis of Vietnam language relationships , Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session

1974 Sociolinguistics and the Bahnar pronoun system

1975 The velar animal prefix relic in Vietnam languages , Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area

1975 Phonology and syntax of Sedang, a Vietnam Mon-Khmer language

1976 North Bahnaric numeral systems

1976 A summary of the work of the Summer Institute of Linguistics in languages of the Tai family ,

1976 Sedang pronoun reference , Mon-Khmer Studies

1976 Sedang animal folk taxonomy , Mon-Khmer Studies

1978 An automatic typewriter assist to comparative linguists, with application to 30 Mon-Khmer languages ,

1978 The payoff from rhyming dictionaries: distribution and frequency of word-final -VCs and a bridge between Bahnaric and Katuic

1979 Sedang grammar: Phonological and syntactic structure , Pacific Linguistics B, Linguistics

1981 A lexico-statistical study of 45 Mon-Khmer languages , Linguistic Society of the Philippines Special Monograph Issue, Language Assessment

1981 Bilingual education in the Austronesian languages of Vietnam circa 1974 , 1981, Literacy and Education

1982 Bibliography of the Summer Institute of Linguistics Malaysia Branch 1978 - 1981 , Library/Museum/Archiving

1983 Institut Linguistik SIL, Cawangan, Malaysia: Annual report of the Malaysia Branch of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, January-December 1982 , Communications

1984 The languages of Sabah: a tentative lexicostatistical classification , Pacific Linguistics C, Language Assessment, Sociolinguistics

1985 Technical writing: a look at the final manuscript , Academic Training, Publishing

1989 Kinship variation among Vietnam language groups , Mon-Khmer Studies, Anthropology, Linguistics

1992 The -VC rhyme link between Bahnaric and Katuic , Mon-Khmer Studies, Linguistics

2012 Từ-điển Xơ-đăng-Anh-Việt-Pháp Sedang Dictionary with English, Vietnamese, and French Glossaries , SIL Language and Culture Documentation and Description, Linguistics

Works authored with others:

1973 Gregerson, Kenneth J. and Kenneth D. Smith, The development of Todrah register , Mon-Khmer Studies

1976 Gregerson, Kenneth J., Kenneth D. Smith, and David D. Thomas, The place of Bahnar within Bahnaric , 1976, Oceanic Linguistics, Linguistics, Sociolinguistics

2015 Sidwell, Paul and Kenneth D. Smith, Sedang

Works edited:

1985 Annual report of the Malaysia branch of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, January-December 1984

Works compiled :

1967 Ngữ-vựng Sedang = Sedang vocabulary , Tủ sách ngôn-ngữ dân tộc thiểu số Việt Nam

1968 Vietnam word list (revised): Sedang

1970 Vietnam word list (revised): Kơtua

1978 Bibliography of the Summer Institute of Linguistics Mainland Southeast Asia Branch 1958-1978 and Supplement of Unpublished materials 1958-1978

2000 Từ-diển xơ-dăng-anh-việt-pháp Sedang dictionary with English, Vietnamese and French glossaries: a thesaurus-alphabetical listing of Sedang words and word groups

Self-published:

2005 Themes of Life, Vignettes from the Life of Our Family , self-published