His wife Rhonda believes life in the outdoors has helped her husband reach 100 and stay in good health.
Ken himself says he is lucky to become a centenarian.
But Rhonda looks after him well, he said.
‘‘I didn’t think I would ever do that (live to 100),’’ Ken said.
‘‘I’m very lucky to have a good wife and a good home.’’
In his younger years, Ken enjoyed many South Island adventures with his late older brother Allan.
They included an ascent of Mt Troup in the vast and largely untouched Fiordland area in about 1952 and many hunting trips in remote parts of the Canterbury high country in the 1950s and 1960s.
He was a keen fisherman, a life member and patron of the Ashburton smallbore rifle club, a Mid Canterbury junior tennis and intermediate golf champion, and a representative rugby and table tennis player.
Today the couple live in their Aitken St house which was built by Ken’s parents in 1912.
Ken grew up in the architecturally designed villa and attended Ashburton Borough School and Ashburton High School, before working for Pyne Gould Guinness as a stock clerk.
In 1944 he was called up for World War 2 military service.
But the war soon ended so after only a short stint with the Southern District School of Instruction at Burnham, he returned to PGG, where he worked as a stock agent in Mayfield and Ashburton.
While he enjoyed being a stock agent, he dreamed of owning a farm.
He achieved the goal when he was 32, buying a rough block of dryland in Westerfield.
He introduced border dyke irrigation and transformed the property into a productive mixed farm.
He farmed there until he was 85.
Retiring into Ashburton, he retained his interest in the outdoors, enjoying trips to the beech forest at Staveley and working on his sizeable vegetable garden.
Ken celebrated his milestone on November 26 with family and friends.
