Keith Sanborn

The Hon. Keith Sanborn was a World War II U.S. Navy combat veteran who served in the Sedgwick County justice system for two-thirds of his 100 years, first as an 18th Judicial District prosecutor then as judge. He died at home in hospice care on Aug. 1, 2022. Judge Sanborn was known for his high ethical standards, his integrity and fierce commitment to, and respect for, the rule of law. He was a proud progressive Democrat who wholeheartedly supported the civil-rights movement, and took public service as a sacred obligation. He relished talking politics, and followed the news with growing concern but unwavering optimism for America’s future until months before his death. This intellectually gifted, cheery, kind and gracious man served as Wichita District Attorney from 1959-1977 then for three terms sat on the 18th District bench. “His unwavering and gentle sense of fairness became a moral compass for his family,’’ said son Keith John Sanborn, a Catskill, N.Y., filmmaker. Encouraged to seek higher office, this humble man preferred serving the community that shaped him. He argued at least two cases before the United States Supreme Court, which entitled him to membership in the rarified Supreme Court Bar Association. But true to his principles, he quit that body to protest the court’s involvement in the 2000 presidential election. He never stopped thinking of himself as “a plain country boy.’’ What the judge really loved was performing wedding ceremonies. and he remained a sought-after officiant well into his 90s. He smiled and laughed easily and often, but never beamed more brightly than when he presided over daughter Wendy Sanborn’s 1989 marriage to John Dougan. “My dad was all about love,’’ Wendy, a Hollywood, CA, graphic artist, said. “He believed everyone should get six hugs a day.’’ Born Norman Keith Sanborn at home in Bluff City on April 27, 1922, he was two when his parents – interior designer Jonathan Earl Sanborn and Lola Mardis Sanborn – moved their only child to Wichita. He attended Sunnyside Elementary School and East High School, then Antioch College until he enlisted in the wartime Navy. An aviator in the Pacific Theater, he served on a search-and-rescue squadron, looking for downed pilots and Japanese ships, some of which he recalled strafing. At the officers’-club pool at U.S. Naval Air Station/Pensacola, Sanborn spied a curvaceous brunette in a black bathing suit. Instantly smitten, he told himself, “That’s the girl I’m going to marry.’’ He spent weeks talking W.A.V.E. control-tower operator Wanda Szymborski, of Syracuse, N.Y., into a first date, then fulfilled his prophecy on July 19, 1946. He absolutely adored her, and when she died in 2018, he said, “There goes the girl of my dreams.’’ Wanda gave birth to Deborah K. Sanborn, the first of the couple’s four children, at Barbers Point Naval Air Station on Oahu, Hawaii. Keith brought them home to Kansas, where he simultaneously earned a bachelor’s degree from the Municipal University of Wichita – now Wichita State – and a law degree from Topeka’s Washburn University, on the GI Bill. After a short stint in private practice, he joined the District Attorney’s office. Her father’s deep faith and progressive social views came from his mother, said Deborah, of San Diego, an educator. “She was a very spiritual woman whose values were far ahead of their time.’’ She remembers her dad joining an African American colleague at a lunch-counter sit-in. “Dad led by example. He never lectured us about racial issues, but I never heard any of us use a derogatory racial stereotype,’’ she said. “It was just understood.’’ Ever gracious, he never bashed political opponents, and enjoyed close friendships with Democrats and Republicans. As both prosecutor and judge, Keith was involved in many high-profile cases. He never forgot entering the horror he witnessed in the BTK Killer’s first victims’ house. Keith successfully prosecuted 19-year-old Michael Soles, the 1976 Holiday Inn Killer. Then 96, he attended Soles’s 2017 parole hearing, lobbying to keep him locked up. He remained a prolific contributor to the Wichita Eagle’s op-ed page into his mid-90s. In 2003, The Washburn Judiciary asked Sanborn what he had learned during his long career. He said that “most people try to do the right thing most of the time,’’ and that “people in the community will help you do your job if you ask.’’ He insisted that “the Constitution and Bill of Rights…must be protected by lawyers and judges if our freedom is to endure.” He was active in Hillside Christian Church, which his parents helped found. He belonged to the Wichita Audubon Society, the Wichita Art Museum, the Wichita Bar Association and the Kansas Bar Association. Through the pandemic, his family and fans kept up with the judge via Sunday Zooms. He always signed off with the mysterious term, “lakamakahia.’’ Though it sounds Hawaiian, it probably isn’t a word in any language. But everyone who loved him knows what it meant. Lakamakahia, Judge Keith Sanborn. This longtime admirer wishes you Godspeed.