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Today's Featured Biography

Mike Kennedy

First of all, I’ve got a couple of things to say to my friends. So if you are reading this and wondering ‘who in the hell is Mike Kennedy’, I would suggest you just skip on to the part where I describe how I ‘went to college, got a job, got married, had a kid, yada yada yada’. I’ll even mark the sections for you so you’ll know what to skip. If you do remember me, however, read on…

MESSAGE TO MY FRIENDS FROM HIGH SCHOOL:

First of all, I want to apologize.

.It’s been 25 to 30 years or more since I’ve seen most of you and I apologize for letting that much time pass without having any contact (although some of you may say that’s fine – stretch it out a little longer if you want, we won’t mind). The reason why I feel the need to apologize is that you were all very special to me but I never was comfortable letting any of you know and it’s taken nearly 30 years to finally do it.

Secondly, I want to thank you for a couple of things.

I want to thank you for the ‘opportunities’ you helped me experience while I was there. (I promise not to name names to protect the innocent and the guilty – you should know into which category you fall).

Some of these included (a) the opportunity to drink my first beer, (b) the opportunity to experience a hangover from drinking too much beer, (c) the opportunity to ride in a car going over 100 miles an hour on I-435 so we could get to Kansas and buy beer before the 7-11 closed and (d) the opportunity to attend our Senior Graduation party at King Louie after drinking just enough beer to think I could ice skate but not enough to actually do it.

Before you get the idea that my entire high school experience revolved around beer (and you start wondering how in the hell does he remember anything about high school?), let me just say there are other things I’d like to thank you for, I just can’t remember them right now.


In addition, I want to thank you for allowing me to be your friend.

I wasn’t a life-long Consolidated School District # 1/ Hickman Mills student. I didn’t attend elementary school there. I missed middle school there. Shoot, I didn’t even go to Ruskin my first year of high school. We moved into the district during the summer before my junior year. From the moment I arrived, though, I was welcomed and accepted as if I’d lived there all of my life and that was a new experience for me.

Before coming to Ruskin, I went to school in an environment where everyone was divided into strictly defined groups (jocks, greasers, dopers, etc). These groups were very, very ‘exclusive’ with limited membership opportunities. Actually, I did belong to a group there. It was the ‘he doesn’t belong with us so let’s use him as entertainment’ group. It was not fun.

Once at Ruskin, that changed. Instead of many distinct groups, there was one – the Ruskin one. It had many, many sides when you looked at it but it was still just a big group. That meant a guy like me could become part of it very easily.

I will forever be grateful for that.

Now let’s move on to the more mundane section of this biography.

WHAT I DID AFTER HIGH SCHOOL:

Right after high school, I went to Westminster College in Fulton, MO and earned a degree in English. English is the degree you get when you don’t know what else you want to do with your life.

After getting out of college, I spent a few months working for a personal finance company in Topeka. That didn't really work out -- I was hired to be a delinquent loan collector and that didn't really fit with my personality. I came back to KC for a new job at Suburban Medical Center (now Overland Park Regional) and ended up rooming with Harley Metcalfe for about 18 months before getting married to a gal who worked at the hospital too. We'll be celebrating our 26th anniversary this coming July. We had one son, Christopher, who is currently studying down at Emporia State in Emporia, KS. He wants to be a social studies teacher (or a lawyer -- he can't decide). I just want him to be a graduate.

After a while at the hospital, I changed career paths and went back to school to learn computer programming and I've been involved with computers ever since (well except for a couple of years here recently when I was involved in finding a job). I programmed, installed, supported and managed computer systems during that time. I’m currently working for the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Health Systems and enjoying every minute of it.

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