Kevin Delane Bennett

Kevin Delane Bennett, 62, of Oblong, IL, passed away on August 12, 2026, at Eastgate Manor Nursing & Rehabilitation in Washington, IN. He came into the world on October 16, 1963, in Vincennes, IN, and he grew up in Oblong, learning early that a day was meant to be worked. As a boy, he baled hay, split and sold firewood, and, along with his brothers, helped his dad, Sam, wire houses all over the area. Their dad made sure his boys knew the value of hard work, and it took.

Work came easy to him. Staying in one piece did not. He was the most accident-prone person you'd ever meet. During his school years, he played a number of sports but loved football most of all. Let's just say, football did not love him back. He broke his neck at a practice one day, and his brother Barry, who didn't have a license yet, drove him straight to the hospital. The neck was only one of many. Kevin and his brothers were forever into something. Just as an example, they once came across what they took for smoke bombs and threw them on the ground, and the hole they blew in the earth told them plainly these were cherry bombs. That was more or less how their boyhood went. Their dad liked to say the day ought to begin with a whipping, because the boys would need it before it was over!

Kevin graduated from Oblong High School with the class of 1981 and went on to Ivy Tech to learn HVAC. Around that time he got into some trouble and was given a choice between jail and the Army, and he chose the Army. His first stint ended when he hurt his neck again and took a medical discharge. He married his first wife, Beth, in 1984 and opened his own shop, Bennett's Heating and Cooling, and ran it a couple of years before going back to the Army in 1986, this time for eight years. He spent much of it at Fort Polk, with stretches in Korea, the Philippines, and Hawaii, where his daughter Samantha was born. He served in the infantry during the Gulf War. He carried a lot of stories from those years, though he didn't always tell them. He had a helicopter shot down under him twice and broke an arm along the way, and eventually he was medically discharged again. Kevin was, more or less, a walking medical mystery, and he'd have told you so himself.

Back home, he worked as an EMT in Robinson from 1993 to 1995 before deciding to take another path. He enrolled at Olney Central College to study radiology, and while he was in X-ray school a dump truck t-boned him, killing his passenger and breaking both of his arms. He finished anyway and graduated in 1997. From there he made a life in radiology as an X-ray and CAT scan technician at Crawford Memorial Hospital and at Union Hospital in Terre Haute for several years before taking up travel work, which thrilled him. It carried him as far as Seattle and California and on to Boston, Florida, Iowa, and Wisconsin, just about everywhere a job could take a man. Somewhere in all that traveling he met Nadine, who was a traveling CAT scan tech like himself. They met in Massachusetts in 2002, went to California together, and married in Las Vegas in March of 2005. Learning they had a baby on the way was reason enough to stop traveling and put down roots. Brandon came along in 2007 in Pennsylvania, where Kevin was working for St. Luke's University Health Network.

Everything Kevin loved, he made sure Brandon loved too. The outdoors came first. He got Brandon his first quad—a small one—when he was four and his first dirt bike at six, and they spent those years fishing and riding four-wheelers together. Kevin couldn't be cooped up indoors, and he was never happier than when he was out under the open sky. Sport came next, so much so that he coached Brandon's teams. That love ran just as deep on the couch as on the field. He was loyal to his Chicago Bears and to NASCAR, having pulled for Jeff Gordon for years. The couch wasn't only for game day, though. He loved sci-fi and came back to Star Wars again and again, and the History Channel ran constantly (no doubt enjoyed alongside his usual Oreos and milk). He watched war movies by the dozen, American Sniper being his all-time favorite, which figured for a man who loved a gun in his hands. He took to the woods to shoot every chance he got.

Kevin was a straight-shooter in every sense. He never sugar-coated a thing and always spoke his mind, and if you wanted the plain truth, he was the man to ask. He was ornery in the best way too. He liked his moonshine, and he liked it best alongside his best friend, Todd Wayne. Back in high school, he ran a little country-style drag racing—unofficial, of course—until work left him no time for it. He was a character who wanted nothing more than to make you laugh, and he had a story for every occasion—some of them growing a size or two with each telling—though most were true. For all the stories that stretched, one thing about Kevin never needed embellishing, and that was how much he loved his family.

He'd started having strokes over the years, and in May of 2018, a massive one changed everything. The following year, his daughter Samantha brought him to Indiana, and he spent his last eight years at Eastgate Manor. However much those years took from him, they never touched what he felt for his granddaughter, Wrigley Rose. She called him "Pop-Pop," and he adored her. The hardest part of all of it was that the stroke kept him from getting down on the floor to play with her the way he wanted to. The stroke took a great deal from Kevin, but it never got the last word on who he was. That word belongs to the years before it, the ones spent outside and on the move, and to the man his family will keep remembering.

Kevin is survived by his children, Samantha (Ryan) Bass and Brandon Bennett; his granddaughter, Wrigley Rose Bass; his mother, Pam Batman; his siblings, Barry (Jennifer) Bennett, Brett (Brenda) Bennett, and Cary (Candy) Cunningham; his nieces and nephews, Tara Jones, Brie Rauch, Brooke Wright, Maddie Bell, Cameron Nash, Sydney Cunningham, and London Cunningham; and his lifelong friend, Todd Wayne. He was preceded in death by his father, Sam Bennett, and by his grandparents, including his beloved granny, Dorothy Wiman.

A time of visitation will be held from 12:00 to 2:00 p.m. on Friday, August 28th, at the Goodwine Funeral Home in Robinson. A memorial service officiated by Celebrant Curt Goodwine will immediately follow at 2:00 p.m. During the service, friends and family will be given the opportunity to speak to the fullness of Kevin's life by sharing some of their favorite memories. For those unable to attend, a live stream of the service will be available at www.goodwinefuneralhomes.com/live-stream/live-stream. Burial will follow in the Oblong Cemetery, where military rites will be accorded by the combined units of the U.S. Army, the Robinson V.F.W. Post #4549, the Robinson American Legion Post #69, and the Flat Rock American Legion Post #132.

Memorials may be made to the American Stroke Association, with envelopes available at the funeral home.