Louis Angelo Betros

Louis Angelo Betros, age 87, Lenexa, Kansas, passed away peacefully on Tuesday, September 20, 2011.

Lou was born December 10, 1923, in Miami, Florida, and moved to Kansas City in 1945. In childhood, due to recurring illness, his mother often could not support the family and so Lou and his brothers stayed at children’s homes. Kendall Home for Children of Dade County was one he fondly remembered. Being one of the few children who could read and write, he was assigned to help the other children learn. Teachers liked his inquisitive, helpful nature and one bought him a vacuum tube so he could make a radio. Another taught him woodworking and insect collecting. The resulting insect collection, housed in display boxes he made, won a $25 prize and was given to Ernest Coe, who was instrumental in the creation of Everglades National Park.

Soon, though, his interests became focused on electronics. On his own, he read everything he could, with what would remain a lifelong insatiable appetite for knowledge. At the outbreak of WWII, his entire high school class was hired by Pan Am to work at their Dinner Key Airbase, where his knowledge of electronics was quickly directed to teaching navigation and electronics to fellow employees. With the end of WWII came the return home of GI’s in search of an education, many of whom attended Central Technical Institute in Kansas City, which borrowed Lou from Pan Am to develop and expand their curriculum. He was only going to stay a year, but a young lady caught his attention. He married Catherine Jane Reid in 1949. They were inseparable until her death in 2007.

Lou continued teaching and writing for the Institute for the next 24 years. In 1962, Lou attended the Remington Rand School in Ilion, New York, where he was introduced to the new field of computer programming. This experience changed his professional life and set the future. By the early 1970s he was developing computer software to print the newly developed bar code label for items on store shelves. His ongoing software development included work with various companies including IDS inEngland.

Lou was a scoutmaster for Troop 392 at Santa Fe Elementary School in Overland Park, Kansas. One of the highlights was taking the Boy Scouts on an adventurous backpacking trip to Colorado in 1966. Though no one had any experience backpacking, it resulted in a desire to return on a family backpacking trip the following summer. This would begin a long and active involvement with the Johnson County Outdoor Club (now the Kansas City Outdoor Club) throughout the 1970s and 80s. Lou and Jane were founding members of the Possum Trot Orienteering Club and when GPS technology was first being introduced, he combined his technical abilities with the sport to develop orienteering maps. One of the greatest thrills in his life was when, in his early 70s, he learned to fly and earned his pilot's license. In his mid 80s, he built his own super-duper computer to handle his flight simulator software.

Lou was preceded in death by his beloved wife Catherine Jane (Reid) Betros,; mother Myrtle Maude Marshall; father Angelo Demetrius Betros; and his two brothers, George A. and James A. Betros. He is survived by his three children, Charles Betros (and wife Lisa) of Dobbs Ferry, New York; Phillip Betros of Hawley, Pennsylvania; and Betsy Betros of Mission, Kansas; and by his granddaughters Emily Betros of Kalamazoo, Michigan, and Abbe Tykwinski of Lansing, Michigan.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests memorial contributions be made in Lou’s name, in support of the parks he loved so much:

Parks and Recreation Foundation of Johnson County

P. O. Box 4775

Shawnee Mission Kansas 66204

Visitation will be from 1:00-2:00 p.m., Sunday, September 25, 2011, at the Amos Family Chapel of Shawnee. Memorial service will follow at 2:00 p.m. at the chapel.