WILLOW SPRING - Kenneth George Lessard cut a striking figure on the school bus in ninth grade. He was 6 feet 3, sinewy and blessed with a mischievous grin.

When a petite teenage girl from Willow Spring climbed onto the bus on her first day of high school and saw the waggish boy, she immediately set her sights on him.

The two soon began saving seats for each other.

A romance blossomed, followed by a lifetime of being by each other's side -- as sweethearts, confidants, husband and wife, parents and caregivers.

"He was so tall and handsome and cool," recalled Janet Baker Lessard, that Willow Spring suitor all grown up and in the home the couple built together.

On Oct. 8, slightly more than four decades after that first encounter, Kenneth Lessard died in the arms of his wife at age 59, leaving a wealth of memories that buoy her spirits.

The boy she met on the school bus was a prankster, the middle son of a state trooper.

"He stayed in trouble all the time," Janet Lessard said. "If there was a commode on the principal's steps with a Baby Ruth in it, they knew to come to him."

Kenneth was the kind of guy who would go to give blood, then shriek as the nurse stuck him with a needle to get a rise from the wide-eyed mothers and children in the room.

He and his buddies used to follow elderly couples onto the elevator at the round high-rise hotel in downtown Raleigh, then subtly push the stop and emergency buttons, pretending to be stuck inside.

"His father would have to get him out of trouble all the time; he was always bailing him out," Janet said.

Kenneth Lessard was born in Rochester, N.H., and spent the first four years of his life there. His family moved to Fuquay-Varina, before Fuquay Springs merged with Varina.

After graduating from high school in 1967, Kenneth did a stint in the Army, choosing to join the military police because he liked their uniforms.

"He was a meticulous dresser," his wife said. "He was the clotheshorse in the family. He was the one with the walk-in closet."

The man who couldn't keep a secret was posted stateside during the Vietnam War, at Fort Ritchie in Maryland, on watch at Site R, the underground hideaway to protect top government officials.

"If you knew this man, he could not hold anything in, and here they were giving him top-secret security clearance," his wife said.

After his discharge from the Army, Lessard spent three years at Kings Business College.

He worked as a tobacco contractor and became licensed as a residential building contractor in 1986.

He built houses throughout Wake County. But it was the "estate" that he and his wife built on a two-acre rural plot off N.C. 42 that gave him the most pride.

The couple had been flipping through a magazine and stopped.

"He said, 'That's it, that's the castle I want to build for you,' " Janet recalled. "He was one of those kinds of guys that whatever it took, he could do it."

The couple raised their daughter Melanie in the 3,000-square-foot castle, and she was her father's princess. The back deck overlooks a pond stocked with catfish, koi, carp and bass.

Kenneth, an avid outdoorsman who loved boating, fishing, bird-watching and gardening, built the pond after a hurricane ravaged dozens of trees on the property and left huge stump holes.

On weekends, the Lessards would trek to Kerr Lake, where they watched the morning fog lift and the sun rise over the big stripers below.

After a day of fishing, Kenneth would prepare one of his gourmet meals. He did all the cooking because his schedule was more flexible than his wife's. She spent three decades working at the N.C. League of Municipalities.

This past January, nearly 10 years after being diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma, Kenneth learned he had epithelioid sarcoma, an aggressive cancer.

The past 10 months were filled with hospital visits, long talks and hints of a man who stayed true to his core his entire life.

The couple talked about everything, about his health, about their lives together and how he wanted an upbeat celebration, with his favorite Elvis Presley tunes, rather than a tearful, mournful funeral.

"He was in his right mind to the very end," his wife said.

For the last five days of his life, though, Kenneth did not sleep. "He didn't want to close his eyes," his wife said, "because he was afraid he might not open them again."

Knowing that he worried about how his wife and daughter would fare in his absence, Janet tried to soothe his mind.

"I just wanted him to know it was OK to let go, that we were going to be OK," Janet said. "I told him, 'Well, when you get to heaven, you better save me a seat, just like on that school bus.' "

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In addition to his wife and daughter, Lessard is survived by his parents, George Alfred and Pennie Waters Lessard; his two brothers; and numerous in-laws, nieces and nephews.

As a lover of the outdoors, Kenneth asked that no floral arrangements be sent and that anyone wishing to do so contribute outdoor plants that can be planted around his home.