Kenneth "Ken" E. Beale

Mr. Kenneth ‘Ken’ E. Beale, 83, of Chapin, South Carolina joined Jesus for Eternity on Saturday, September 26, 2026. Ken was born on May 15, 1943, in Norfolk, Virginia to Mr. Sam C. and Mrs. Alma Lee Beale. He grew up in Churchland, Virginia where he attended elementary and junior high. Ken went on to play the tuba in his high school band, met lifelong friends, and graduated from Churchland High School in 1961. After high school, he attended Old Dominion University where he graduated with an associate’s degree in 1963. After graduating, Ken worked at the Newport News Naval Shipyard in Newport News, Virginia for several years.

Ken began to court his high school classmate when he ran into her during a Christmas concert at their high school Alma Mater. Later Ken married her, Ms. Florence Elizabeth Brewster, on March 27, 1965, in a small, intimate service in their hometown. They were richly blessed to have celebrated 61 years of marriage this year.

In 1965, he took a job at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. He and Flo moved to Maryland and began their life as a married couple. After several years, in 1967, they moved to Saxton, Pennsylvania where he worked for Saxton Steam Generating Station for 6 years. In 1973, Ken took a job at Three-Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Middletown, Pennsylvania, working for them for 3 years. After several years in Pennsylvania, Ken began looking for work across the country and accepted a job in 1976 at South Carolina Electric and Gas Company in South Carolina. During his 28 years of service with SCE&G, he worked in Emergency Management and Coordination with the VC Summer Plant in Jenkinsville, South Carolina. He retired from SCE&G in 2004. After enjoying a brief retirement, Ken joined the team at Jim Hudson Lexus in 2010, where he served in the Service Department as a Service Porter until he retired again in 2023 at the age of 80.

Shortly after moving to Columbia, South Carolina in 1976 to begin his new job at South Carolina Electric and Gas Company, Ken and Flo began attending Union United Methodist Church. They both joined the church in 1976 and have been members ever since. It was during this season of life that Ken came to know and understand the greatest relationship of all—the love of his Heavenly Father. This changed the trajectory of his perspective and life.

During his early years at Union United Methodist Church, he began to not only grow in his faith but also desired to serve those around him. Ken enjoyed doing outreach at Epworth Children’s Home and worked for years as a youth group leader with the Methodist Youth Fellowship. Over the years, he enjoyed going on several mission trips to Costa Rica and Peru. Ken also began a young couples’ Sunday school class at church in 1985 called the New Life Class. Over the years, he gave birth to the yearly ‘New Life Golf Tournament’ which occurs each May. This class soon became like family and is still going strong to this day. Ken continued to teach lessons up through the spring. Even during his brief stay at The Heritage at Lowman, you would still find him teaching, even preaching and praying at the nurse’s station.

If you knew Ken, you would know much of what he loved. He loved spending time at his home where he enjoyed so many things. You could often find him in one of 3 places: his yard, kitchen, or his favorite chair. He enjoyed his yard from mowing to planting flowers and even the edging! If he wasn’t in the yard, you’d find him in the kitchen cooking dinner, baking sweet treats, or making his yearly vegetable beef stew to share with the neighbors. If he wasn’t cooking in the kitchen, you’d find him, in later years, at the kitchen table painting. This was a gift that he didn’t even know he had until he discovered it while painting with his granddaughter one day—when she got tired and ran off, he stayed painting, and it stuck! The third place was his chair. This was where you’d find him perched to cheer on the Gamecocks—from football to ladies’ basketball or countless golfing tournaments. If Ken wasn’t at home, you’d find him at the course playing or the clubhouse visiting. He was a long-standing member of Mid-Carolina Country Club, where he served on the board for numerous years. Ken loved the game, he loved playing with family and friends, and his love of the game sparked several trips, one to Scotland and Ireland and another to Pebble Beach, to play on some of the finest courses.

Ken was always up for a new adventure. He loved to travel, visit new places and take people along for the ride. He was the initiator, orchestrator, and expeditor of many trips and vacations over the years. He had a passion for travel! Litchfield Beach was one of his absolute favorites as it held countless family memories, but many beaches, states, and countries were experienced along the way and many a course was played.

But if you know Ken well, then you know above all Ken was a lover of people. He loved his high school buddies and would often plan dinners and visits to spend time with them when he traveled to his childhood home. Ken’s Sunday School class meant the world to him, the families, and his small men’s prayer and accountability group. There he found community and purpose and was passionate about the lives he’d met and the relationships he’d found in his church. But oh, his family, he was particularly partial to them. Ken adored his family. He was always up for planning a trip or a visit, and before leaving that visit was already up for planning the next one. Whether Ken was going due to a birth, or a birthday, a game or a show, a holiday or just an ‘I want to come visit’ trip—he loved spending time with his family—his wife, his girls’ and their families and all his grandchildren, his sister and her family. He’d be the first one to plan it and he would leave always looking forward to the next.

Ken was preceded in death by his parents, Sam and Alma. He is now peacefully reunited, resting in the eternal embrace of his beloved mother, Alma, with whom he shared an exceptionally close and special bond.

Ken leaves behind a lifetime of beautiful memories and a legacy of love for his devoted wife, Florence "Flo" Beale of Chapin, who will forever carry his spirit in her heart. His unwavering love and faithful devotion live on through his beloved daughters, Elizabeth "Beth" Marvin and her husband, Sean, and Sherri Baker and her husband, Shane. He was a proud and steadfast father whose girls were the true joy and light of his life.

Ken’s legacy of love continues through his five cherished grandchildren: Caroline Leitten and husband, Nick, Christopher "Chris" Marvin and wife, Brooklyn, Cameron Marvin and wife, Linsy, McKenna Baker and fiancé, Amanuel Mellace, and Bryson Baker. Nothing gave Ken greater joy than being their "Papa B," a role he adored and wore with endless pride. Ken’s legacy also reaches into the next generation with the birth of his first great-grandson, Graham Marvin.

He is also survived by his sister whom he adored, Patricia "Pat" Walker and her husband, Thomas Walker, as well as his nephew, Lee Walker, his niece, Cindy Stanley, and their families, all of whom held a very special place in his heart.

He is also survived by his sister-in-law, Jeanie Gilpin, and her husband, George Gilpin.

Above all, Ken’s greatest passion in life was for people to know the deep, transformative love of Jesus and to walk in a personal relationship with Him. Ken loved best by serving; his devotion may not always have come in spoken words, but he possessed a true servant's heart and genuinely longed to lift others up. It was his deepest prayer that this contagious love and spirit of service would ignite a fire in others, inspiring them to genuinely and wholeheartedly love those around them well.

A Celebration of Life will be held on Saturday, October 31, 2026, at 11:00 AM, at Union United Methodist Church, 7582 Woodrow St., Irmo, SC 29063. Together, family and friends will gather to celebrate and rejoice in the gift of hope left behind by a life that fought the good fight and is now in Glory with his Savior.

In lieu of flowers, Ken would be deeply honored if you made a memorial donation to Papa B's Kitchen to sustain his legacy through Go Love Peru a non-profit children's ministry and orphanage in Iquitos, Peru, founded by his granddaughter, Caroline and her husband, Nick. Fittingly, these gifts will directly fund furnishings for the new community center on the Go Love property, built to love on the local Iquitos community and share the gospel in active, tangible ways. Memorial contributions will pour straight into local outreach and the completion of an on-site kitchen to break bread with people in need—a beautiful reflection of "Papa B," who loved nothing more than to cook and serve these sweet children while he was on this side of Glory.