ALBERT GENE “BUBBY” BOLLWERK
Feb. 28, 1947–Oct. 17, 2025
Albert Gene “Bubby” Bollwerk was born on Friday, Feb. 28, 1947, in Valentine, Nebraska. Al and his twin sister were the last of eight kids born to their parents, William and Helen Bollwerk. He died from a heart attack on Friday, Oct. 17, 2025, in Parker, Colorado, at 78 years of age.
Al was brought up in Edgemont, South Dakota, where he was a boy scout and worked at his brother’s Texaco station — beginning a long love affair with automobiles. In Edgemont, Al also met his high school sweetheart, Brenda Nadine Maharba Hanson, to whom he proposed when she was only 16. Brenda didn’t say no, and Al was no quitter. The two were wed in Edgemont a couple years after she graduated high school. They were married 57 years.
Al attended a vocational school and became an electronic technician — which he later put to use in the United States Air Force, where he worked on avionics systems in A-7D Corsair fighter planes during the Vietnam War.
Al and Brenda travelled all over the United States during and following Al’s military service. They later settled in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where Al worked in the telecom industry on the national communications grid, and also started a family. In Cheyenne Al and Brenda had four kids, Johnathan, Caroline, Luke and Daniel. Al and Brenda were deeply involved in church all throughout their marriage and took their faith in God and salvation through His son, Jesus Christ, very seriously.
In 1984, the Bollwerk family moved to Parker, where Al had a long career working in the telecom industry for Mountain Bell, AT&T, Lucent Technologies, and AVAYA. He was a hard worker, always overcommitted to occupational and personal projects.
In Parker, Al and Brenda raised their four kids to adulthood and participated in their local church, Community Baptist Church. In the late 1990s Al and Brenda helped to establish Hanson Research Station on Brenda’s father/grandfather’s family ranch, where they helped to facilitate the excavation and preservation of dinosaur bones and paleontological and sedimentological scientific research amplifying the Biblical Six-day Creation theory.
Al and Brenda were world travelers together, visiting all 50 States and many countries — including Panama, Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Greece, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Lichtenstein, South Korea, Japan, China, Australia,
New Zealand, Spain, Canada, and others.
Family, relatives, and friends were some of the most important things to Al and Brenda, as well as church, faith, and politics. Al was a notoriously infamous spendthrift who would buy tools, use them, then return them. He made a dime stretch a mile. Al loved his five classic cars, buying everything as cheaply as possible, and saving money by doing work himself. Al loved family genealogies, shopping research, and getting the best deal on everything purchased.
Al Bollwerk is survived by his wife, Brenda; his four children and their spouses, Johnathan and Dana, Caroline and Lance, Luke, Daniel, their five grandchildren; his twin sister, Alberta; and two brothers, Don and Richard.
He is missed. He will be celebrated at 10 a.m. on Nov. 29 at New Beginning Community Church in Parker, and at 9 a.m. on June 19, 2026, at Black Hills National Cemetery near Sturgis, South Dakota, where he will receive full military honors.