November 2, 2000

Ken was a young man on the verge of becoming someone great. He had many talents and a relentless outlook on his goals. There wasn't anything he didn't think he could accomplish without his effort. He was looking forward to entering the medical field. All his life he struggled with his grades as average C's. He was diagnosed with ADD. Last year he decided it was time to get serious about college and he ended up with 6 A's and a B. 

He had a passion for life and had talked 2 friends out of suicide. He was the leader of the pack. He was not ashamed of his faith in God and spoke often of his beliefs. He was not too proud to carry his Bible to school occasionally and stand up for his faith.

He had strong family roots and was loyal to his friends. He loved music of all types from classical to rock. His passion for it was so strong he had taught himself to play guitar, drums, piano, and trumpet. He had a great sense of humor and never got angry at us for our pranks on him.

He had decided to play football even though he had never played before because he wanted to earn a scholarship and went out for the team with full force. They had a 2 week minicamp at the end of the school year to introduce a new coach. He collapsed on the last day of practice on 6/7/00 while doing jumping jacks. He had a cardiac arrest brought on by the undetected hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. 

We miss him. Ken, we miss your smile. We miss you clowning around and mooning us while we watched TV. We miss telling you to stop picking on your sisters. We miss waiting for you to come home with your stereo full blast. We miss you telling us how simple we were for not knowing how to operate new gadgets. Most of all I miss looking into those beautiful big brown eyes and knowing what we and the rest of the world have been robbed of. You!!