Howard Kirby Skavdahl

Howard Kirby Skavdahl was received into the arms of his loving Savior, Jesus Christ on October 15th, 2024. He lived a life reflecting the reality he was a child of God who consistently sought to love God and love others well. 

Born in Santa Monica, California, his family moved to Lake Forest Park, Washington where his father worked as an aeronautical engineer with Boeing. Kirby developed a love of flying early and obtained his pilot’s license before he graduated high school. The joy of flying would be a defining theme in his life through which he learned who he was, who God was and provided a way to serve others. 

He graduated from Washington State University, then University of Washington Dental School. He spent 2 years in Virginia completing training in periodontics before moving back to the Northwest. He and his wife, Connie, settled in Tri-Cities where Kirby built and maintained a periodontal practice. Periodontics was his passion and each one of his patients knew it. He practiced with excellence, showing compassion to his patients and performing his skill with a precision that resulted in superior outcomes. He was also passionate about improving the level of periodontal care throughout our nation and was actively involved in the SPEAR study group – committed to academic excellence in dental care. He practiced periodontics for a total of 42 years with the goal of showing Christ’s love to his patients by providing the highest level of care possible. 

Amidst his highly successful professional career, Kirby also knew how to play hard. While he had many hobbies, his principal joy was skiing. Through many snowstorms and icy roads he made sure his family was in the mountains, tearing up the slopes, almost every weekend. It brought him more joy than any of his professional accomplishments that he taught each of his children and all nine grandchildren how to ski. This reflected his deep love for his family which came before all his professional and personal endeavors. 

Kirby married Connie in 1977 and was “the best husband [she] could ever ask for” for 47 years. Throughout their marriage he loved her with tenderness and was always finding ways to spend time with her doing the activities she most enjoyed. Two of their favorites were cross-country skiing and hiking the beautiful trails in the Wood River Valley. Together they had 3 children who were deeply loved and who all had close relationships with their father. One of the things Kirby said before he died was that he never felt more connected to God than when raising his family. That was reflected in how he parented his children – not just encouraging their various activities, but enthusiastically joining them in those activities. Whether it was figure-skating, throwing a baseball, building a BMX ramp or working through a complicated trigonometry problem he was right there with them. 

Above all, Kirby loved Jesus. He never lost his first love and humbly recognized that all that he did flowed from the love of Christ. To his final day he demonstrated that he was at complete peace with God because of Jesus Christ. All that he did was life-giving because he found his source of life in Christ. We praise God that he is wholly united with that eternal source of love today. 

A memorial service will be held at Crossview Church in Kennewick, WA on October 26 at 11:00am.

In lieu of flowers, please consider and donation to:

Mission Aviation Fellowship (give.maf.org)

OR

World Medical Mission (https://www.samaritanspurse.org/donation-items/world-medical-mission/)