The following profile was written by Ken for himself and his wife, class member Sheryl Dale Storm.
Sheryl and I raised our four children in Texas. I retired from the Del Valle ISD as a principal of a recognized Texas middle school in 2009 after working 39 years in education. I taught for 22 years and worked 17 years as an administrator. Sheryl retired in 2010 after working 31 years as an RN in hospitals, clinics, and public schools.
We lost our beautiful home in Texas in a Labor Day forest fire in 2011. The fire burned out of control for a week destroying 1600 homes and 200 businesses. We had already been selected by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to serve a humanitarian mission in Russia so losing our home and all of our temporal belongings gave us the freedom we needed to leave on our mission.
January 31, 2012 Sheryl and I landed in Moscow, Russia. We lived in Moscow and Ryzan for the next 23 months. While in Russia we traveled over 55,000 miles developing humanitarian projects across the whole of the Russian Federation. We helped organize neonatal resuscitation training for doctors, nurses, and midwives to save thousands of babies at birth. We trained people in care centers to measure and order wheelchairs that fit people properly and provided over 1,300 wheelchairs for disabled people. We helped provide needed equipment and furnishings for drug rehab centers, baby homes and orphanages. We provided equipment for schools of disabled children and bought equipment and bedding for hospitals where patients slept on bed springs unless family members brought bedding from home. We were the Lord's hands in doing this work. He always led us where we needed to be and helped us connect with the people who helped the projects move forward to improve the lives of thousands of people.
The Russian people were wonderful to us and we left many good friends when we came home. One of our best friends was our translator Irina Golobkova who traveled with us on our major projects. She kept us out of trouble and opened the doors that helped us develop 62 projects while we were in Russia.
April of 2013 Sheryl and I flew back to Michigan to be present when Sheryl's mother had open heart surgery to repair her aortic heart valve and also a bypass. We spent a month with her until she was able to care for her basic needs and then we flew back to Russia to complete our mission. While in Charlevoix, we promised Sheryl's mother we would move to Charlevoix so we could assist her until she goes home on the other side of the veil.
Sheryl and I returned from Russia in time to celebrate Thanksgiving with our daughter's family in Utah in 2013. We then flew to Texas to visit our other children and grandchildren over the Christmas holiday. Then we filled our new/used Explorer with everything we owned and drove to our new home in Michigan.
Back in Texas and Utah we now have eighteen wonderful grandchildren. Eleven are girls and seven are boys. Our three living children have provided us with 17 and our son who died of cancer gave us a wonderful grand daughter that is now a junior at BYU.
We are still very busy serving in church callings, working on service projects, swimming, doing family history, Sheryl quilts and we are thankful for every new day we are given to enjoy.
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