Meredith Caprice Trexler Drees passed away on March 28, 2026, at her home near Hill City, Kansas, surrounded by her family. She was born May 19, 1984, in Garden City, Kansas, to Brad and Kim Trexler and grew up on their farm and ranch near Hill City, Kansas.
Meredith accomplished and experienced so much in her too short life that a simple listing of each achievement and venture would be impressively long. More importantly, it would fail to emphasize the most important fact about her – her sincere, infectious love for everything true, good, and beautiful. People everywhere felt drawn to her by her magnetic personality, full of warmth, generosity, kindness, open-mindedness, and a genuine interest in other people and their stories. A devoted Christian, she let her light of moral and spiritual faithfulness shine in this needy and broken present time. Although her influence will long outlive her, her loss leaves ours a poorer world.
Meredith had an idyllic childhood on the Trexler farm and ranch. Her deep love for her life there on the farm and for her family – her grandparents Allen and Carol Trexler and her sister Brittney as well as her parents – was near the center of her soul throughout her life. Her parents equipped her with insights, skills, and especially a strong sense of confidence in herself and her abilities. This self-confidence bred the courage with which Meredith welcomed new experiences, and which was so prominent even at life’s end. Even as a child she was a talented artist, and her special feel for art and beauty was a lens framing everything else in her life. She loved animals in general but had special relationships with her dogs, Lily, Stella and Sage. She also had an affinity for horses, riding alone from the age of four and spending most childhood days on horseback. She attended and participated in many horse shows with her family, was a state fair champion, and twice earned a part in the American Quarter Horse Show in Fort Worth, Texas. In those years she was active in FFA and became a gifted public speaker like her father before her, a skill that would serve her well in her eventual career as a teacher and scholar.
After graduating from Hill City High School in 2002, she earned an A.A. Degree in Criminal Justice from Colby Community College, where she was a presidential scholar as well as the recipient of an art scholarship. She then attended Fort Hays State University. Meredith initially intended to major in Political Science as a preliminary to getting a law degree, but she soon discovered and switched to Philosophy after taking a stimulating class from Dr. Douglas Drabkin. As a Philosophy major, she began also to study with Dr. Stephen Tramel, who became a lifelong friend and mentor. In this period, she grew rapidly as a writer and independent thinker through exposure to philosophical issues and the writings of great philosophers, especially Plato. She also encountered the philosophical writings of C.S. Lewis. The link between the experience of beauty and moral development, emphasized by both Plato and Lewis, struck a deep chord in Meredith, and exploring and further developing this link became her lifelong project, the thread uniting all her later academic and professional life.
After graduating from Fort Hays State University with a B.A. in Philosophy and a minor in French, she studied abroad in France with a friend, Zach Jurgensen. This experience was to blossom in her future in two ways. It ignited a love of travel with its wonderful opportunities to experience the world’s wealth of art, architecture, foods, and history. Since that time, she has travelled often and extensively, especially to Europe, and spent time living and studying with a few others at the Kilns, C.S. Lewis’ home at Oxford, England. The other bloom was even more significant. Zach would later introduce her to her eventual husband.
After her year abroad, Meredith began graduate studies at the University of Kansas, where she earned her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in philosophy. It was in 2007, during her studies at the University of Kansas, that Zach introduced Meredith to his friend, Jeff Drees. After some academically and professionally busy years in which they came to know and love each other deeply, Meredith and Jeff married on October 9, 2015, in Salina, Kansas. Meredith and Jeff have had a wonderful life together, each loving and entering into what mattered most to the other. Jeff was not only supportive of Meredith’s professional life, but he also welcomed becoming part of the life and work of the Trexler family farm and ranch. Jeff has become so fully a member of the Trexler family that, when Meredith’s father Brad died, he felt that he had lost another father.
After completing her Ph.D. at the University of Kansas in 2013, Meredith began her professional career as an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kansas Wesleyan University in Salina, Kansas. Her impact was immediate and lasting. She brought enthusiasm and new energy to the university, transforming a small, marginal program into one that was vibrant and increasingly popular. As a teacher, she created new classes, interdisciplinary projects, a travel abroad program, and a campus-wide Socratic Café. Her impact on her students was immense, and her work and influence will live on through their lives and careers. Meredith was also active as a professional scholar. She was chosen to be a Research Fellow at Notre Dame’s Center for Philosophy of Religion. She made invited presentations to professional conferences at Rutgers University in New Jersey, in Dublin, Ireland, and in Athens, Greece. She has published several professional articles, including a collaborative article on Kant with the highly regarded Italian Kant scholar Paolo Diego Bubbio, contributed to various collections of essays, authored the book Aesthetic Experience and Moral Vision in Plato, Kant, and Murdoch, co-edited with Anne J. Mamary a collection of philosophical readings inspired by the work of Anthony Preus in the book Politeia: New Readings in the History of Philosophy, and was nearly done with another book, this time on Kant’s philosophy of religion, when she died. She will be sorely missed not only by her family, friends, and students, but by professionals in philosophy worldwide, among whom she had earned a respected name for herself.
Surviving family members include her husband, Jeff Drees (Hill City); mother, Kim Trexler (Hill City); mother-in-law, Jean (Larry) Buyse (Salina); grandfather, Allen Trexler (Hill City); sister, Brittney (Jerad) Johnson (Colby); sister-in-law, Bethany Hodges (Salina); aunts, Lynn (Ty) Bruton (Norton), Stacey Bradley (Amarillo, TX), Shelley McLeod (Ulysses), Jolene Wentz (St. Louis, MO); uncle Kirby (Sue) Bradley (Manhattan); many cousins; nieces, Blakeli Johnson, Marli Johnson and Laiklyn Hodges; nephews Briggs Johnson, Myles Johnson and Axtyn Hodges.
She was preceded in death by her father, Bradley Trexler; father-in-law, Bob Drees; grandmothers Carol Trexler and Patricia Borthwick and grandfather Don Bradley.
A celebration of her life will be held at 10:30 AM, April 2, 2026, at the Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church in Hill City, Kansas.
Written by Dr. Stephen Tramel
Memorial to the horse rescue program in care of Stinemetz Funeral Home, 522 N. Pomeroy, Hill City, Kansas 67642.