Portrait of Kenneth Locke. IMB Photo
Charles Kenneth Locke, an International Mission Board missionary emeritus who shared the gospel in Hong Kong, East Asia and Russia, died May 21, 2025, in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. He was 91.
Kenneth was born Jan. 12, 1934, in Del Rio, Texas, to the late Morgan C. Locke and Thelma Jones Locke. He graduated from Del Rio High School and received the Master of Education from Texas A&M University, College Station, and the Doctor of Philosophy from North Texas State University (now University of North Texas) in Denton.
He grew up attending church with his family and came to saving faith in Christ as a child. During college, Kenneth participated in the ROTC program and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in May 1955 when he graduated. That fall, he entered the U.S. Army and spent a year at Fort Benning, Georgia, before receiving orders for Korea. While on a train to San Francisco to catch his plane, he met Lou Ann Lewis, who was traveling to San Francisco to board a ship bound for Hong Kong, where she planned to serve as a missionary. After a week together in San Francisco, Kenneth left for Korea and Lou Ann went to Hong Kong.
Ken was released from the Army in December of 1957 and spent the following spring teaching in Texas and saving money to get to Hong Kong. He and Lou Ann were married on Aug. 30, 1958. They lived in Hong Kong for four years, while Kenneth taught school and Lou Ann continued her work as a missionary. In the summer of 1962, they returned to Texas where Kenneth completed his master’s degree. Afterward, he worked as director of student personnel services at Weatherford Junior College and worked toward his doctorate, which he received in 1970.
While seeking missionary appointment he wrote, “My wife and I have felt ever since we returned from Hong Kong that this was an area where we could work and make our influence felt among a greater number of people with a greater need than anywhere else. We felt that with our background and training, we could be of service there.”
In 1970, the International Mission Board appointed Kenneth and Lou Ann missionaries to Hong Kong. They also served in East Asia and Russia.
According to his family, “From making a home in distant lands, to traveling by bus with his family from Kathmandu to London, to escaping China with Lou Ann during the Tiananmen Square uprising in 1989 so they could make it home for their eldest son’s wedding, to the stories he told about growing up in Del Rio, Texas, and the stories he told of some of the outlandish places he had visited and worked in, to allowing his life to demonstrate Christianity in action to those in atheist countries, Ken lived a full and meaningful life.”
Kenneth was preceded in death by his wife of 61 years, Lou Ann Locke.
He is survived by his sons Ken (Elizabeth) and Larry (Lisa); his brother Larry Locke (Doris); three grandchildren; and great-grandchildren.
A funeral service was held June 11 at Ruggles-Wilcox Chapel of the Smith Family Funeral Home in Arkadelphia.
Read an obituary here.