Philip "Phil" D. Ridenour was born on April 14, 1943 in Emporia, KS to Oliver and Elizabeth "Betty" (McIntosh) Ridenour.  He passed away in his beloved town of Cimarron, Kansas on June 13, 2023.

Almost the first 2 years of his life, Phil lived with his mother, maternal grandparents, Ernest and Florence McIntosh and his aunt, Dorothy, while his father, Oliver, served the US Army in North Africa and Italy. Oliver contracted malaria. When Ollie returned from WWII, the family moved to Mesa Arizona for the climate recommended for malaria patients. During his childhood, Phil attended 5 different grade schools and 3 different high schools because of job changes and Oliver's disease.  The longest that Phil lived in one place during childhood was Peabody, KS, where Phil attended the 5th through 9th grades.  It was in Peabody where Phil met a local girl named Patricia Berns who sometimes helped him mow lawns. He later claimed that he traded his trumpet for the baritone to sit behind Patricia who played French horn.

Phil spent his sophomore year of high school in Humble, Texas and his junior and senior years in Grain Valley, Missouri, where he graduated in 1961.  Phil and Patricia were reacquainted that summer when Phil visited Peabody friends.

Phil was an outstanding high school student and athlete.  He received full-ride football scholarships offers from the University of Missouri, the University of Kansas, and an academic full-ride scholarship offer from Missouri. Phil chose Kansas where he majored in English. During spring football practice his freshman year Phil came down with mononucleosis. He had a bad ankle injury, was on crutches on a hilly campus the next spring and quit the football team.  Thereafter, during his junior and senior years, he worked at his fraternity Beta Theta Pi and in summers as a gas engine mechanic overhauling engines, a skill that he learned from high school summers at a Grain Valley auto repair shop.

In the fall of 1962, Patricia transferred from Grinnell College (Iowa) to the University of Kansas, and the two remained inseparable for the next 61 years. They married on July 26, 1964, before Phil's senior year of college.  Their first year of marriage they lived in a mobile home park on the outskirts of Topeka, Kansas where Patricia taught junior high social studies and English.

After graduation, Phil accepted a job writing shop manuals for Cummins Engine Company in Columbus, Indiana. In Columbus, Patricia taught school, they bought their first home, and in July, 1966, they welcomed their firstborn, Scott.

With his passion for learning and problem solving, Phil did not find his work at Cummins to be sufficiently challenging, (and many of his infamous one-liner jokes to family started with "my boss at Cummins…") Phil decided to go to law school. Patricia was not willing to teach school and have Scott go to day care. So Phil decided she should also take a few hours of legal education. The people who purchased their house requested to close sooner than they expected, and in need of the equity from the house to afford law school, the couple spent the August of 1967 living in a tent with their one year old son, Scott, while Phil continued to work at Cummins.

Patricia and Phil attended the University of Kansas Law School from 1967-1970. First year law students were all required to prepare and deliver a moot court case to a law professor as judge.  Phil took 2nd place in the class and Patricia won 1st! During finals of their second year first semester, their second son, Eric, was born in January, 1969.  Patricia took the next semester off in order to be at home with her newborn, and she graduated a summer after Phil.

Upon graduation from KU law, Phil accepted a job with the Kansas City law firm Watson Ess, Marshall and Engles. Pat and Phil soon discovered that they had little interest or patience with big city life, and in 1971 they moved to Cimarron, KS and both worked for Frigon Law Office.

In 1974, along with Kyler Knobbe, the couple formed the law firm, Ridenour and Knobbe.  In 1976, they welcomed their daughter, Blythe. In 1991 they formed Ridenour and Ridenour, and in 2010, they joined the law firm of Martindell Swearer Shaffer Ridenour LLP. Phil and Patricia both retired from the practice of law in 2018.

Phil published in legal agricultural journals, tax journals, and law school research publications on agricultural tax, employment law, estate and trust issues and legal ethical challenges. His legal education presentations usually received the highest valuations from the audience because of the clarity of the presentation and the humor he naturally inserted. He presented lectures in continuing education seminars in Denver, New Orleans, Charleston SC, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Palo Alto, Portland, Kansas City, Memphis, Arkansas, Sioux City, Des Moines, Chicago, New York City and many smaller towns in between. He spoke at many Kansas State extension programs for agriculture and at numerous Kansas Bar Association continuing education programs.

He was honored to join the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel.  He was President of the SW Kansas Bar Association, received the Distinguished Service Award of the Kansas Bar for his work as a jurist on the Board for Discipline of Attorneys for 21 years, and advised the Kansas legislature as a member of the Probate Law Advisory Committee for 33 years.

In Cimarron, Phil served 8 years as District 102 school board member, was President of Rotary Club more than once, coached all three children's summer baseball and softball teams and was speaker at Athletic banquets and Veterans Day programs. At the Methodist Church he led an adult Sunday School class for over 30 years and filled in for the pastor in giving some Sunday messages.

His interests included reading, with an especial joy of Shakespeare and English murder mysteries, photography, blacksmithing, ham radio, sailing, welding, ranching, camping and his children's and grandchildren's extra-curricular activities.  He was unapologetically appreciative of the beauty of the philharmonic symphony, a forged weld, the offensive line play of a football game, Shakespeare's prose, the grasses of the High Plains, proper use of the English language, the Kansas Jayhawks, quick one-line humor, the "new" church organ, Christianity, and his devotion and love he had for Patricia, his best friend of over 60 years and wife of nearly 59 years. With his positive life attitude and one-of-a-kind sense of humor, Phil left the world a better, more enjoyable place.

In addition to his wife, Patricia, Phil is survived by his special Aunt Dorothy McIntosh Greene; two sisters, Beth Ridenour (Jim) and Susan Gough; three children Scott Ridenour (Vickie), Eric Ridenour (Jill) and Blythe Jones (Chris); nine grandchildren, Mitchell Ridenour, Katelyn Bischof (Tyler), Maris Hamilton (Wilson), Jackson Ridenour, Andrew Ridenour, Seth Ridenour, Walter Jones, Oliver Jones, McIntosh "Mack" Jones; and two great grandchildren, Everly Bischof and Paisley Bischof.  He is preceded in death by his sister Jane Jones and his daughter-in-law Rhonda (Geerdes) Ridenour.

The family suggests memorial donations to Cimarron Methodist Church, P.O. Box 448, Cimarron, Kansas 67835 and The Shepherd's Center care home, P. O. Box 843 Cimarron, Kansas 67835.

A memorial service for Philip Ridenour will be at 2:00pm, Saturday, July 1st at the Cimarron Methodist Church.  The family would like to greet friends in Fellowship Hall after the service.