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Getting to know Kay-Part 2
June 24th, 2010
Dear Friends,
This week I will share a little about my family and growing up. Much of who I am and how I ended up here as your interim rector begins there. I grew up on California’s north coast in Eureka, California with ocean, beaches, groves of Coast Redwoods (Sequioa Sempervirens) and lots of drippy fog is still home. I am the oldest of four kids. My brother Bill is the District Ranger for the whole west side of Olympic National Park. My sister Meredith lives in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico where she is currently a teacher’s aide, and my youngest brother John lives in Centennial, Colorado and is a hydrologist. Between us all there are 12 grandchildren, the last one just graduated from high school. I have a 23-year-old son, Alex, who is a seasonal park ranger at Yosemite National Park.
Weekends were spent camping, or staying at the family cabin at Big Lagoon where we spent hours on the beach, hunting agates or swimming in the lagoon. If we tired of the fog, we headed south to picnic in the sunny redwood state parks and set up forts in the giant redwood stumps and walked huge fallen logs. With the sun streaming through those tall trees, it was like being in a cathedral.
We were active in the Episcopal Church and to us kids it seemed that we lived at church. Girls couldn’t be acolytes, but I sang in the Junior Choir and later when we had a GFS group (Girls Friendly Society) we formed a junior altar guild. Both activities were wonderful ways to learn about the liturgy and the rhythms of the church year.
I went to a camp (St. Dorothy’s Rest) that was run by the Sisters of the Transfiguration – an Episcopal order. St. Dorothy’s was a defining experience during my teens because as soon as I was old enough, I started working there during the summers. I worked my way from kitchen staff to Program director over 9 years. This was a time of change in the church, many of the staff and clergy were from the San Francisco area and shared the emerging folk masses, music and liturgies at camp.
I was a music major at Humboldt State University and then transferred to Cal Poly Pomona, graduating in Recreation Administration. After a summer working as a California State Park Ranger, I headed to Colorado to begin the pursuit of my dream of being a National Park Ranger.
Next time – Who me?
Peace, Kay
