Kenneth Nugent; Singer, Oil Company Executive

Kenneth Nugent of Port Hueneme, a retired oil industry worker and onetime country music performer, died Friday in an Oxnard hospital after a brief illness. He was 84.

Nugent was born Kenneth J. Holcomb on June 6, 1912, in Los Angeles. His parents, Harry J. Holcomb and Pearl P. Reynolds, divorced when Kenneth was 5 and he took his stepfather’s name upon his mother’s marriage to Robert E. Nugent in 1920.

Nugent graduated from Ventura High School and Ventura College and was a star in baseball and basketball at both schools.

Upon graduation from college, he joined the Happy Mountaineers, an early country and western singing group in California. Nugent played guitar and was lead singer. The group regularly performed on live radio in Santa Barbara and Los Angeles and provided background music for several movies, relatives said.

After a short career in music, Nugent went to work in the oil business, starting out as a roustabout for the Honolulu Oil Co. He worked as a lab technician and salesman and was an executive with oil firms throughout the state. Nugent was a 50-year member of the Petroleum Production Pioneers.

Nugent’s first wife, Virginia, died in 1981.

He is survived by his wife, Paula; a son, William K. Nugent of Ventura; two grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the American Cancer Society or the hospice program of the Livingston Visiting Nurses Assn.

A vigil service is scheduled for 7 p.m. Monday in the Joseph P. Reardon Funeral Home in Ventura. Family and friends may call at the funeral home from 2 to 7 p.m. Monday.

A burial Mass will be said at 8:45 a.m. Tuesday in the San Buenaventura Mission. Burial will follow in Ivy Lawn Memorial Park, Ventura. Arrangements are under the direction of Joseph P. Reardon Funeral Home.