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Today's Featured Biography

Jeffrey Hemenway

I lived on 125th St. in Grandview Missouri from the time I was born until I graduated from college. I attended High Grove Elementary, Grandview East Junior High and I barely graduated from Grandview High School in 1990.

I wasn't too interested in school back then, but I do remember having a lot of fun with friends from Grandview outside of school. ; )

I suppose I got my first real job in 1991 working for Vance Brothers Asphalt in KC MO. After a couple of years in the hot sun, I started to think that there had to be a better way to earn a living.

In 1993, I began taking classes at a Longview Community College, mostly to avoid having to work asphalt year around. I managed to only have to work for about 3 months out of the year and show up for class around noon the rest of the time. That worked out great for a while. Eventually I got a degree and had to leave.

Well, I just transferred over to UMKC kept taking afternoon classes during most of the year. I continued to work asphalt during summers, except the summer of 1995, I got to spend the summer going to school in Germany. That was a fun summer.

My son Austin was born in 1994. His mother, Lisa O'Dell (now Jimenez), also went to Grandview (class of 89). She emailed me this link and asked me write something here so folks wouldn't think I was locked up or dead (who would think that?). Lisa and I were never married, but we did have a lot of good times together and we now share this great kid.

Things were going great until I got my BS in Chemistry from UMKC in 1998. The worst part was I had to move out of my Mom's house in Grandview.... I was 26 and had lived there my whole life. When I dream at night, even now, I'm always in or around that house I grew up in.

I moved to Lawrence KS to go to graduate school at KU in the Chemistry Department. It was pretty cool though, I was getting paid to go to school and an air conditioned lab beats the hell out of a hot sheet of Asphalt in the Kansas summer. I switched to Pharmaceutical Chemistry in 2000 (a clever ploy to remain in school another year or so). It was only a matter of time though. I received my MS in pharmaceutics in 2002 and finished my Ph. D. in December 2005. When I was finally finishing up, my Dad said "son, you're 33 years old. You've been in school your whole life" I said "Yeah, ain't it great" It was too. We still laugh about that.

Lawrence and the time we spent at KU were great. I really didn't ever want to leave and I will likely go back there to retire. My mom moved from that house we grew up in to Olathe around 2001. My brother Lance and his family moved out to LA for a few years, but came back and bought a house right around the corner from my Mom's in Olathe. My wife Kerry and I got married in Vegas in May of 2003. My son came to live with us shortly thereafter. Kerry got her degree in child development from KU got a job working for the KU child development center. Some colleagues and I even got to go to Kyoto Japan for a couple of meetings and on to Tokyo for a week after. We ate and drank some pretty interesting stuff, and yeah, I sang karaoke.

I accepted a position in R&D at Bristol-Myers Squibb in 2006 and they packed us up and moved us out here to New Brunswick NJ. I now officially make drugs for a living (some of you may find that especially funny.... you know who you are). We bought a house in South Brunswick almost two years ago and my son Austin just started high school this year. The schools here are great and he couldn't be doing better. Kerry is teaching 3rd grade in North Brunswick and we have a lot of friends from KU that work for the who's who of pharma companies here. We're about 45 minutes from New York City, about the same from the Jersey Shore, an hour from Philly and a couple hours from the mountains. There is a lot of fun stuff to do here, but we do miss our family and friends back in the midwest.

We come back to KC to visit our peeps at least twice a year. Usually around 4th of July and Christmas. I run into folks from High School now and then. I hope to again soon. Drop me a line and I'll look you up next time I'm in town.

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