Some people move through the world without making much noise, and yet when they are gone, the silence they leave behind is deafening.
Landon Arthur Sexton was one of those people. He was thirty years old when he passed away on May 6th, 2026, in Titonka, Iowa, leaving behind a wife, two young sons, and a community still struggling to find the words.
Landon was born on August 5th, 1995, in Colorado Springs, Colorado, to Larry and Rhonda Sexton. His early years were shaped by the mountains around him.
He camped, four-wheeled through rocky terrain, sold popcorn as a Boy Scout with competitive enthusiasm, and raced boxcars with the kind of focus only a child who truly wants to win can muster.
He played roller hockey with enough intensity to earn a scar on his forehead from a wayward stick, a mark he wore like a quiet badge of honor.
In 2007, his family relocated to Iowa, and Landon adapted the way he always did, by finding new land to love. He took to farming alongside his family, joined 4-H, and set his sights on dethroning a certain Eichenberger girl in the poultry show each summer.
He never quite managed it, but he tried every year. That persistence, paired with a complete lack of urgency about almost everything else in life, was purely and entirely Landon.
He graduated from Algona High School in 2013 and went on to earn a degree in Agronomy from Iowa State University in 2017.
Those who knew him during those years will tell you he was far more likely to be found at the Iowa State Dairy than in a lecture hall, and nobody who knew Landon was particularly surprised by that.
It was also during his time in Ames that he began dating Maranda Eichenberger, the same family whose daughter had been beating him at poultry shows for years.
They married in August 2019 on the shores of Clear Lake, and on July 1st, 2022, they welcomed twin boys, Emmett and Everett, into the world.
Those who spent time with Landon describe a man who was never in a rush. He had a dry sense of humor that crept up on you slowly, a smirk that made you wonder what he knew that you did not, and eyes that carried a warmth people noticed immediately.
He loved his dogs deeply, golfed with whoever would have him, fished and hunted regularly, and became an accomplished trapshooter.
He was also, by his own admission and everyone else’s gentle agreement, not particularly interested in eating anything he caught or harvested.
To his nieces and nephews, he was simply Big Landon, a title that carried tremendous weight and even more affection.
His wife, Maranda, wrote after his passing that no words can explain the hole he has left. She is right. Some losses do not shrink with time. They simply become something you learn to carry.
A Celebration of Life Visitation will be held on Friday, May 15th, 2026, from 5 to 7 PM at Oakcrest Funeral Services in Bancroft, Iowa.
Instead of flowers, the family asks that memorials be directed toward the future care of Emmett and Everett, the two little boys who will grow up carrying their father’s name, his humor, and his heart.
