Ivan P. Kerns, 94, of Carlisle, passed away on Thursday, October 2, 2025, at Cumberland Crossings Retirement Community, Carlisle.  He was born on September 17, 1931, in Enola and was a son of the late Leroy Kerns and Pauline (Bennett) Kerns.  Ivan was married to the late Leona R. (Waggoner) Kerns who passed away on November 27, 2001.  They were married for over 49 years.

Ivan graduated from Carlisle High School with the class of 1950.  While in seventh grade, he tried out for and made the baseball team, but during the physical, the Doctor discovered a heart problem so he couldn't play sports involving long durations of running.  He joined a band and learned to play the Hawaiian guitar when he was 12 years old.  He went with the band on a bus to a National competition in Cleveland, Ohio.  During his last three years of school, Ivan was a pinsetter and ball return man at a local bowling alley.  He got paid five cents per game.  He also worked stocking shelves at McRoy's Five and Dime Store and the old Carlisle Food Market on the weekend bagging groceries.  While in High School, he had the lead in the junior class play and was in an operetta where he had to wear a kilt.  He started dancing at a local soda fountain across the street from where George's Sub Shop was located (Peerless) and developed a love for dancing.  He became the only male cheerleader in his Senior year of High School, and also competed in Track and Field doing pole vaulting with a stiff bamboo or aluminum pole where you had to land on your feet on the other side of the vault with no airbags to break your fall.

While in High School, he pursued drafting (drawings for blueprints).  He spent a lot of time at the YMCA playing table tennis.  In later years, he played competitively in many USATT sanctioned and non-sanctioned tournaments winning many medals and trophies.  Eventually, he played many years in the Keystone State Senior Games as well as the National Senior Games.

After graduating from High School, he joined a drama group called the Carlisle Players and was in two plays.  He worked for a few months at the Standard Piezo Crystal Co. until he decided to join the Air Force.  During the medical physical, the doctor discovered a serious heart defect called a coarctation of the aorta and told him he needed surgery immediately.  It was November of 1950 when he was told he was going to be one of the first people in the world to have open-heart surgery to repair the defect.  It was done at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia.  He was 19 years old at the time.  Ultimately, he became the longest surviving heart patient for that kind of surgery.

Ivan began working for AMP Inc. as a draftsman and later a design draftsman.  He also was selling storm windows and doors on the side for a company in Harrisburg.  While still 19 years old, he also started teaching all types of ballroom dancing part-time including Swing dancing at the prestigious Arthur Murray Dance Studio in Harrisburg.  He did this for about 2 years until he started dating his future wife.

He met Leona Waggoner in High School and dated a few times, but they didn't start dating seriously until after graduation.  They got married on August 17, 1951, when he was a month shy of 21 years old.  She was the love of his life.

While working full time, he designed and built their family home as well as having three daughters by the time he was 28 years old.

He briefly stopped working at AMP to run his own home improvement business as well as working for a landscaping business and then returned to AMP after about a year.  He later added a part-time sales position with Erie Insurance selling auto and home protection policies for 13 years, working evenings and weekends while still full-time at AMP.  While at AMP, he held several positions including draftsman, receiving and storage, production supervisor, management and was also a die engineer where he was included in a group that received a U. S. Patent.

He was involved with a group for about a year called NICAP (National Investigation Committee on Ariel Phenomena) in the early 1960s that a retired General from the Marine Corps started.  Ivan investigated UFO sightings.  People called the police with sightings; the police would give Ivan their name and he would interview them, then he would author a report to submit to NICAP.

Growing up, he went to Grace Evangelical United Brethren Church that later became Grace United Methodist Church.  He then attended Carlisle Brethren in Christ Church that is now the Meeting House, where he was involved for a long time during his retirement in the drama ministry.

He spent a lot of time with his family playing, hiking, and swimming, and made sure the family had a vacation to the ocean each summer.  He was loving, kind and patient, and never raised his voice in anger.

Retiring after 37 years with AMP, he and his wife pursued genealogy research.  After her passing, he and his friend traveled all over the world in every continent and many countries except Australia and Antarctica.  In his 70's and 80's, he got to stand on the equator in Ecuador, be on the Great Wall in China, went to Zambia, and had a hot air ballon ride over the Serengeti in Africa.

He also became President and instructor of the Central Pennsylvania Swing Dance Club (The Green Door) for 10 years and did dance demonstrations with a partner in nursing homes for the residents.  He organized and was also President of the Carlisle Area Table Tennis Club for 25 years, and the first President of Carlisle Cares, which provides shelter for the homeless, and then was on the Board of Directors for 10 years.  He also volunteered every Sunday night for years to supervise the overnight stays at the homeless shelter.

He had a fantastic sense of humor!  Family game nights were so much fun as he would sometimes tweak the rules and tryed to lose the best.  He always had a positive and loving attitude, always encouraging others, and had a quiet, gentle, and kind demeanor.

He built a one hundred foot by twenty-foot ice skating rink in his backyard and put it up every winter for several years for family fun taking it down after each winter.

He volunteered over five hundred hours to watch for planes after World War II on top of the Molly Pitcher building.

He is survived by three daughters, Vicki Lee Goodyear-Claybaugh of Bedford, Kathy Lynn Lebo and Cindy L. Witherow, both of Carlisle, six grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and many nieces and nephews.

A visitation will begin at 10:00 a.m. on Thursday, October 9, 2025, followed by a funeral service at 11:00 a.m. in the Ewing Brothers Funeral Home, 630 S. Hanover St., Carlisle.  The burial will be in Cumberland Valley Memorial Gardens, Carlisle.  Memorial contributions may be made to Community Cares, 50 W Penn St, Carlisle, PA 17013.  www.EwingBrothers.com.