John C. Craft

Jack Craft died on December 2, 2025, from an aortic valve infection, at the age of 87 — beloved husband, father, grandfather, brother, friend, and citizen.

John Charles Craft was born in Denver, Colorado, the son of Cecil and Ellen Craft. He grew up in North Platte, Nebraska, and considered himself fortunate to have been raised in a small Midwestern town. He was married for sixty-four years to his high-school sweetheart, Karen Winfrey, who always says the best decision of her life was to transfer from Wellesley College to the University of Nebraska to join him. She has fifth-grade memories of Jack; he stood out because he loved to talk.

At the University of Nebraska, Jack majored in history — a lifelong interest. He was President of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity and lettered in tennis (his granddaughter Eliza wears his letterman’s sweater).

Growing up, Jack worked as a land surveyor in the Nevada desert and Wyoming plains for the Union Pacific Railroad; sold vodka-spiked oranges with his fellow lettermen at Cornhusker games; and labored in his father’s Squirt pop-bottling plant — a job that taught him he’d rather be a lawyer.

After graduating from Northwestern Law School, where he served on the law review, Jack and Karen moved to Kansas City. He joined the law firm of Lathrop, Righter, Gordon, and Parker. Not long after he started, he got a phone call from a young lawyer in St. Louis — John Danforth — who asked Jack to help run his campaign for Missouri Attorney General. After the election, Jack joined Danforth’s office – two of the most formative, fun years of his career.

Influenced by a father and mother who each served in the Nebraska legislature, Jack was an old-school Republican who believed in the value of government. He often quoted the line, “Good government is good politics,” and never hesitated to reach across the aisle. When his close friend Kit Bond ran for auditor, governor, and then senator, Jack played a major part in his campaigns. Over the years, among his many other roles, Jack advised Mayor Richard Berkley and was legal counsel to the Police Board.

In 1987, Jack founded Craft, Fridkin & Rhyne, a law firm that specialized in business and regulatory law. He initiated the conversion of the historic Main Post Office on Pershing Road into an Internal Revenue Service Center. In 2004, the firm merged its practice with Lathrop & Gage. Finding solutions for tough problems was a challenge Jack embraced.

Throughout his life, Jack worked hard for the benefit of both Kansas City and Missouri. He served as Chairman of many civic initiatives, including the Public Improvements Advisory Committee; the Kansas City Port Authority; the Planned Industrial Expansion Authority; and led the effort to fund a major expansion of the Kansas City Zoo. He was involved in the community in countless other ways: as a founding member of the Local Investment Commission; as a board member of the Hawthorn Foundation; and as a board member of Missouri’s Children and Family Services.

Of his many accomplishments, he was probably most proud of Union Station. He led the Bistate Initiative that funded the redevelopment of the Kansas City icon; while few believed a bistate tax could pass, Jack persevered, and the hope became a reality – that tax is thought to be the first of its kind in the United States. During Union Station’s historic renovation, Jack convinced his family to climb the 95-foot scaffolding to touch the decorative ceiling medallions.

No father was ever more consistently loving, fair, and ready for fun. He made batches of fudge to be eaten straight from the pan, relished annual Father-Daughter dinners, delighted in the Missouri State Fair, took weekly visits to the library. Elizabeth’s friends commented on his huge, ever-present smile and nicknamed him “Smilin’ Jack.” Gretchen and Elizabeth appreciated the fact that he gave great advice – but only when asked. Most often, he counseled them to “Enjoy the process”; he even had a mug emblazoned with this favorite motto. He took great interest in his daughters’ professional lives, becoming a minor expert in Hollywood deal-making and the economics of book-publishing. The risks he took in his own life taught them they could take risks too, secure in the knowledge he would never judge their decisions, only support them.

Jack said being a grandparent was an experience even better than expected. He tirelessly read stories aloud, flipped Swedish pancakes (“just like the ones Mrs. Bargell used to make”), made visits to Foo’s, and ate the decorated gingerbread cookies baked by Jack, Eliza, and Eleanor. With boundless enthusiasm, he led trips to the zoo, Worlds of Fun, Top Golf, and escape rooms.

A lifelong athlete, over the years, he pursued golf, tennis, running, working out with a NordicTrack, twice-weekly personal training, and even a period of hot yoga. He took great pleasure in long morning walks through the grounds of the Nelson-Atkins Museum and Kauffman Garden, especially when a daughter walked with him. He started every morning with the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. He read everything from Apple in China to de Tocqueville to Middlemarch – surprisingly, he was a fan of Game of Thrones. This year, he joined the whole family in a “slow read” of War and Peace.

Jack enjoyed many things: Trader Joe’s coffee ice cream, pinball, the In Our Time podcast, his daughters’ podcasts, power naps, the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations,” Japanese gardens, Oriental rugs, German chocolate cake, watching the sun rise from the kitchen window, lunches and dinners with friends, and running errands at Costco – the only kind of shopping he looked forward to. He was a happy assistant to Karen in decorating for Christmas. Jack and Karen were tireless sight-seers in dozens of countries, and in Paris last May, logged more than 17,000 steps in a single day. On every trip to New York, Jack made two or three visits to the Met. He loved Kansas City: the Chiefs, Winstead’s, Loose Park, Q39, Breakfast Club speakers, and the Plaza Lights. He often remarked, “The next six months will be very interesting.”

The four of us – Jack, Karen, Gretchen, and Elizabeth – spent his last days together. We reminisced: a visit to Six Flags in 100-degree heat, daily picnics on the beach in Nantucket, driving across Germany, and eating free funnel cakes in Eureka Springs. We laughed over old jokes and discussed the next mayor’s race in Los Angeles.

A doctor told us, “People tend to die the way they lived.” Jack died the way he lived; he faced a difficult decision with lawyerlike clarity and sweet equanimity, surrounded by his family who loved him with all our hearts.

Until the end, Jack remained himself — good-natured, clear-thinking, curious, optimistic about the Cornhuskers, and full of love for us.

Jack Craft is survived by his wife, Karen; daughters Gretchen Craft Rubin and Elizabeth Craft Fierro; sons-in-law Jamie Rubin and Adam Fierro; grandchildren Eliza Rubin, Eleanor Rubin, and Jack Fierro; brothers Cecil Craft and Tom Craft, and sister Susan Craft Colsky.

As Jack requested, there will not be a funeral. In Jack’s memory, please enjoy a visit to Union Station or Kauffman Garden.

“Late Fragment”

By Raymond Carver

And did you get what

you wanted from this life, even so?

I did. 

And what did you want?

To call myself beloved, to feel myself

beloved on the earth.