If Steve Kulig called you a friend, you were his friend for life.
He celebrated the best of your days with you. He lifted you up when you were down. When your world was upside down, you never were alone. He would be there for you. He was your bridge over the troubled waters when they came your way.
“He was loyal,” Woody Lovelace was saying Saturday on a day of celebration and remembrance at Highland Country Club, where nearly 100 friends gathered and were reminded of Steve Kulig’s laid-back ways and his acts of kindness throughout his life. “He had your back if you were his friend. He had your back.”
Steve Kulig wanted no sorrow this day.
No need for tears.
Just for the woman and sons he loved and friends he cherished to enjoy one another, and to remember he passed their way.
“He would have been so happy,” wife Mary Bostic Kulig said. “He would have been amazed at the love everyone had for him.”
Along Life’s Way
Steve Kulig grew up in the red brick home along Kirkwood Drive in the Murray Hills neighborhood. He had a passion for baseball, basketball and football, and played for Little League teams. His father, the late Al Kulig, was one of his Little League coaches. Steve Kulig would take his baseball and basketball skills to E.E. Smith High School.
“He was a catcher with a good bat,” Tom Morketter said, remembering Kulig as All Mid-South 4-A Conference on the diamond and the 1978 conference basketball player of the year.
He later earned his master’s from Appalachian State University and worked in information technology and developing software systems for law enforcement agencies. He had an analytical mind and could navigate his way through the complexities of software.
“Computer-wise, he could do everything,” Robert Wilson Jr. said. “He would sit me on the couch and teach me.”
When not at work, you could find Steve Kulig on the golf courses with friends. The game wasn’t so much about tee shots straight and far, fairways down the middle or curling birdie putts, but about being with his golfing pals and the fellowship of just being with each other.
“Regardless of where life took him, Steve never strayed from who he was,” Tom Morketter said. “‘Kool’ was cool. He was gracious and kind. He helped kids working at Harris-Teeter,” and was known for $20 tips.
His heart for others knew no boundaries.
It was Steve Kulig’s way.
“He was just born like that,” Mary Bostic Kulig later said. “It was just his personality. His mother was like that. He just always said, ‘It makes you feel so good.’”
Woody Lovelace said he first met Steve Kulig when they were students at Appalachian State University in Boone.
“Steve and I were great in our faith in God,” he said. “We just sort of clicked. He could be real private. He could be a loner. He could be the center of attention in the room. He could be pragmatic. But the constant is that he was unselfish.”
Apples of His Eyes
Steve Kulig married the love of his life on October 9, 1999. Mary Bostic was a nurse with an effervescent personality who was raising two young sons from a previous marriage. If she was the girl of his dreams, JC Hayes and Zack Hayes became the apples of his eyes.
“He told me, ‘I get way more from those two boys than I could ever give them,’” Lovelace said.
Zack Hayes and his brother beg to differ.
“He raised me,” Zack Hayes, 37, said after Saturday’s celebration. “He was my dad. He meant everything to me. It was a very special relationship. He filled a big gap in my life. He was a great man and a great role model, and a great grandfather.”
Diagnosed with esophageal cancer more than a year ago, Steve Kulig fought the good fight.
“Steve was a fighter 100%,” Tom Morketter said.
Mary Kulig was by his side, taking him for every treatment at Duke Medical Center, and JC and Zack Hayes often were there, too.
“Nurses at Duke will say,” Bill McFadyen said, “‘We never saw two sons so attentive to their dad.’”
Stephen Carl Kulig died December 11, 2025.
He was 65.
“He was a forever friend, and that’s what Steve was to me,” Woody Lovelace said. “Steve was my forever friend, and I loved him and he loved me. And he loved all of you.”
JC Hayes said Saturday was not about Steve Kulig’s death, but about Steve Kulig’s life.
“Please do an act of kindness for a stranger,” he asked, “in Steve’s honor.”
Epilogue
Mary Bostic Kulig spent her career as corporate director of nursing, seeing the faces of patients who came for treatments at the Cape Fear Valley Cancer Treatment and CyberKnife Center at Cape Fear Valley Medical Center.
She was an empathetic ear and compassionate voice in their anxieties and fears, and loved seeing patients ring the silver bell when their treatments were done and their hopes for healthy and cancer-free lives renewed.
No matter where life leads us, some bonds are forever.
“I was with Steve when he died,” she said, and grateful for their time together and for his love of her sons. “He was the kindest and sweetest man. No matter the situation, he taught them to be kind and never disrespect anybody. He always told them to take the high road. He was their whole world, and they were his.”
She says her niece, Nastashia Bostic Williams, sent a photo of a rainbow on Sunday morning at Hampstead along the coast in Pender County.
“It was a beautiful rainbow,” Mary Bostic Kulig said. “She said, ‘I believe Steve was sending you that rainbow’ as a reminder he is OK, and all is well with his soul.
Bill Kirby Jr. can be reached at billkirby49@gmail.com or 910-624-1961.
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