Linda Sprigg Madl
Linda Madl, 75, passed away Sept. 30, 2023, at Duke University Medical Center. She was born on October 7, 1947, the daughter of Richard Allen Sprigg and Norma Jean (Coen) Sprigg in Anderson County, Kansas. Her father operated a small construction company, so she grew up in several eastern Kansas communities in a mobile home. The family settled in Paola where she developed a love of horses and dogs. In High School she was elected to the National Honor Society. She earned a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism at Baker University, Baldwin City, Ks, and while there met her future husband, Ronald Madl. Upon her graduation in 1969, she and Ron married and moved to St Louis, Mo, when Ron was hired as a research scientist at Ralston Purina. She enjoyed books and writing.
During their twenty years in St Louis, she served as editor for the American Soybean Association which was headquartered there. Then she performed a similar role for the Consulting Engineers Council of Missouri, and was Marketing Coordinator for Woodward-Clyde Consultants, an environmental engineering firm. She also served as president of the St Louis Writers Guild.
In 1997, when Ron was hired at Kansas State University, they moved back to Manhattan, Ks. She continued to apply her writing skills as a grant writer for the Department of the Army at nearby Ft Riley. Later she served as technical writer for the K-State faculty member who was part of the International Panel for Climate Change research team when they and Al Gore were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. She served as founding member and president of the Kansas Writers, Inc., and was president of the K-State Social Club. She loved to visit old historic houses on her travels and served as a docent at the historic Wolf House Museum in Manhattan.
She authored several novels and short stories and published fourteen books plus several e-books. During her years in Manhattan, she served on the Municipal Library Board. She was one of the founding members of the Coffeeshop Writers, a group of Manhattan, Kansas authors of a wide variety of fiction who began gathering at a local coffee shop, and subsequently maintained their friendship and writing support for over twenty years through email and video visits even after most of them moved to other states. This group collaborated on anthologies, the most notable was Trespassing Time – Ghost Stories from the Prairie and it was she who named the book.
During retirement in Florida for a few years she served as writer/editor for the community newspaper. When she moved to North Carolina in 2017, she continued as a writer/editor for her community news magazine and wrote book reviews for the community.
In 2015 she was diagnosed with an incurable lung disease (IPF). She received a lung transplant at Duke Medical Center in September 2017, and survived with the new lung for 6 years.
She was proceeded in death by her mother, father, and sister, Lisa. She is survived by her husband Ron, of Cary, NC, daughter, Lori and her husband, Francisco J. Dolz, of Durham, NC, and two nephews, Dustin Boehm and Mitchell Boehm of Kansas City, KS.
The family requests memorial donations be made to “spcawake.org” or “https://www.mcfks.org/donate/WolfHouseHistoricSiteFund” in lieu of flowers.