Love story ends well, for all of us

Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2007 | 7:17 a.m.

They met as students at Kansas State. She was on the dance team. He played the three main sports. She favored baseball.

On their first date, Lon Kruger took the woman he would marry, Barbara Miles, to a baseball awards function - at which he was honored - then to a Manhattan, Kan., bowling alley to play billiards.

"I think he'll admit to that," she says, smiling.

"Oh, sure," he says. "We went to an athletic banquet. After that, we went to a local establishment."

He didn't recall whether they played 8-ball or who won.

"I'm sure it wasn't a real competitive match," he says, laughing. "More of a social thing."

They have been married 32 years, they have two grown children and both have been hits in their fields, Lon in coaching basketball and "Barb" in charitable endeavors everywhere they've lived.

From Edinburg, Texas, to Manhattan, to Gainesville, Fla., to Champaign, Ill., to Atlanta and now Las Vegas, both Krugers have given amply of their resources to worthy causes.

When Lon Kruger spoke publicly last week for the first time after undergoing sextuple heart bypass surgery, he talked about the American Heart Association and childhood obesity as potential future causes.

An abundance of his time, though, is obviously spent working on his basketball program and with his players.

Barb Kruger might not know the meaning of leisure time.

"It's another way for us to get to know the community," she says of her philanthropy. "I've been blessed."

So have the many organizations she has touched.

Among them:

She has been involved with the Junior League, in which women volunteer in various ways to improve their community, for years, and she works with several other organizations.

Seems there's always another one that has attracted her interest.

"Wherever we've lived, she's been very active in the community," Lon Kruger says. "She enjoys that, so it's pretty easy when you have a passion for doing something."

When the Krugers moved to Las Vegas in 2004, Barb Kruger became enamored with the area. Its diversity, especially, appeals to her. She doesn't even mind the heat.

"Once it gets above 100," she says, "it doesn't matter."

If being a public figure has its drawbacks, such as seeing her husband's salary in print or being asked about his condition moments after the four-hour procedure, Kruger doesn't mention them.

At first, it was going to be only an angioplasty, so hearing "bypass" that first time was frightening. Then, four or five blockages became six.

Still, with glassy eyes, she was calm and composed when speaking with a reporter about her husband's successful surgery in a waiting room at St. Rose Dominican Hospital, Siena Campus.

She embraces that public platform to help others.

At Safe Nest, she has worked on many committees and helped rewrite the organization's bylaws.

"She's just wonderful," says Brittany McCoy, Safe Nest's public relations events coordinator. "She's always mindful of the importance of reaching out in support of nonprofit organizations, and she has a really great spirit about her."

No doubt, that's how Lon Kruger lost interest in the green felt of a billiards table at a bowling alley in Kansas.