Phillip Joseph Fontana, 74, died Sunday, July 28, 2024, from complications incurred after a catastrophic fall.

Born May 1, 1950, at St. Mary's Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri, to Frank J. Fontana, a maintenance foreman for Trans World Airlines, and Margaret M. (Scimeca) Fontana, a homemaker par excellence, Phil lived in the Kansas City area nearly his whole life except for a brief stint in St. Louis in the late 1980s. Both parents and his only sibling, brother Thomas F. Fontana, predeceased him.

Educated in Kansas City at St. Louis Catholic School (class of 1964) and Rockhurst High School (class of 1968), Phil graduated from the University of Missouri-Kansas City with a double major in political science and economics in 1971 and added a Master of Arts degree in political science from UMKC later that decade.

An entrepreneur from an early age, Phil began a successful neighborhood lawn-mowing business as a child and as a teenager worked for AMC as an usher at The Midland Theatre when it still showed movies. Phil started working for United Airlines at the Kansas City Municipal Airport December 5, 1968, as a ramp agent and customer service representative before moving to the newly opened KCI Airport in 1972 for a career lasting almost fifty-four years. When he retired in August 2022 he was in the top ten for seniority in the company and was the last employee of any airline to have also worked downtown.

Travel was one of Phil's greatest passions, and he flew extensively on his father's TWA passes in his teens and twenties on multiple family trips around the United States and to Europe, especially to Rome. In the early 1970s he circumnavigated the globe with stops in Italy, Greece, Egypt, the Holy Land, India, Thailand, Hong Kong, Guam, and Honolulu. Always an adventurer, he hitchhiked through New Zealand and walked the Milford Track on its South Island, one of his fondest life experiences. Reaching the 13,679' summit of Mauna Loa at Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park and marveling at the vastness of the night sky from atop the peak also held a special place in his heart. His greatest trek, however, occurred in 1980 when he rode his Schwinn Varsity bicycle over 2000 miles from Gladstone, Missouri, to Goleta, California. Along the way he hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and pedaled through the heat and headwinds near Death Valley. Phil took his family on numerous roadtrips to Missouri's Ozark National Scenic Riverways, the Badlands and Black Hills of South Dakota, the national parks of Colorado and Utah, and dozens of Civil War battlefields, where every plaque and monument was read and studied in full, much to the chagrin of his loved ones.

After meeting her at work, Phil married Alexandra (Sandy, née Polchowski) on April 24, 1982, at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church and had his only child, a son, Alexander Phillip (Alex), in February 1986. Both survive him of the home. Additional survivors include nephews Michael Fontana (Violet) and Paul Fontana, niece Beth Fontana (Scott Spreitler), sisters-in-law Patricia Polchowski, Stella Solliday (Norman), and Edwina Fontana, and dear friends Steve Smith and Beth Ann Peterson.

Throughout his life, Phil's interests included the stock market (though not quite Warren Buffett, we still called him the Guru of Gladstone), good buffet restaurants both local and abroad, the neon extravagance of Las Vegas, and nature in its myriad forms, especially the birds and squirrels he adored and fed every day at Macken Park in North Kansas City and in the backyard at home. Donations in his name may be made to the North Kansas City Parks and Recreation Foundation, Kansas City PBS, and the City Union Mission.

The family wish to thank the caring and compassionate staff of the Gladstone EMS, North Kansas City Hospital, and Passantino Bros. Funeral Home during this trying time.

Visitation will be 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. on Thursday, August 1, at Passantino Bros. Funeral Home, where a prayer service will begin at 6:00 p.m. Inurnment at Mount Olivet Cemetery to follow at a later date.

When Phil was alive, he exhorted us to speak honestly at his funeral and not to heap faint praise upon him (and to shop around for a funeral home since money saves). Now that he's gone, any enmity and bitterness are too. Phil Fontana was a funny, decent man, a hardworking husband and father who cared for his family and the world around him. Our lives are emptier without him.

Condolences may be offered at www.passantinobros.com