Holiday World's sudden loss

As a young man, Will Koch set his sights on a serious business. Computer-science and engineering degrees in hand from the universities of Notre Dame and Southern California, he moved to Los Angeles to take a job designing weapons systems for a defense contractor.

But it wasn't long before Koch, known for his "goofy" laugh as well as his brains, returned to his rural Southern Indiana home to take over the family business, an obscure amusement park in a town called Santa Claus.

There, at Holiday World, he found fulfillment and success, over the next two decades helping to design rides, tripling the number of visitors and winning worldwide acclaim among roller-coaster enthusiasts.

Koch died unexpectedly this week at the age of 48. He had suffered from Type I diabetes since the 1980s, said Paula Werne, Holiday World's longtime spokeswoman. Koch's wife and children found him late Sunday upon returning from Louisville, Ky., where they'd watched a movie.

On Monday, the amusement park bustled as usual and Pat Koch greeted guests, as she often does, despite her son's death only hours earlier.

William Albert Koch Jr., was a descendant of a prominent Southern Indiana family whose 19th-century metal shop grew into a major installer of painting systems in factories worldwide.

Koch was the third generation to lead Holiday World, which was founded in 1946 by his grandfather as Santa Claus Land, one of the nation's first theme parks. (Disneyland came nine years later.) The name was changed to Holiday World in 1984.

After taking over the enterprise in 1990, Koch quickly set about expanding it, adding new rides and attractions. He built a water park, Splashin' Safari, which soon was outdrawing the older rides.

In 1995, Koch attracted international attention with the Raven, a wooden roller coaster he helped design in harmony with the area's rolling, wooded terrain.

"Will hated to cut down a tree," Werne said.

The Raven "wasn't the largest roller coaster, but it was fresh," said Tim Baldwin, of the trade journal Amusement Today.