Julia graduated from Georgetown
University in December 2011 with a degree in Nursing and works at the
Washington, D.C. Health Center.
Previously she graduated from BYU in April 2008 with a degree in English
and minor in Spanish. She had been
invited to participate in Teach For America in Los Angeles but pursued other
options. She spent summer 2008 in
Laie, Hawai’i. Previously she had
spent summer semester 2007 with BYU in Spain and later worked in Hilton Head,
South Carolina, after taking her family to El Salvador and Guatemala at
Christmas 2006. At the end of the
summer 2009, she swam from Alcatraz to San Francisco with her brother Keith.
Julie answered the call to serve as a missionary of The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints in the El Salvador San Salvador East Mission
effective October 20, 2004. She took a leave of absence from the sports
training program at San Diego State University.
Her major was Kinesiology and
interned as a sports trainer with several San Diego State teams. She is also an
All Mountain West Conference Scholar Athlete (2001-2002) from her seasons as a
member of the SDSU
women's crew team. She
helped win the 2002 Novice 8 Western Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championship.
As a sophomore, she rowed in both
the Varsity A boat and the Varsity 4 boat during the autumn season. In 2004 she
served as president of the LDS Institute Women's Association at San Diego
State. When Julie returned from
her mission to El Salvador, she transferred from San Diego State to BYU and
changed her major from Sports Medicine to English.
Julie graduated from Palo Alto
High School in 2001, where she played women’s varsity water polo and was on
the women’s varsity swim team. She
was named the JV Outstanding Swimmer for 2000 and set the school record for 200
yard Freestyle (JV Individual). For
many years she skated with the Ice-ettes drill team and Advanced Jazz at the Winter Lodge and was a lifeguard at the
University Club in Palo Alto.
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Keith graduated from BYU in Manufacturing Engineering in 2010 and works at
Lockheed-Martin in Fort Worth, Texas. He served as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints in Bolivia 2004-2006 and returned to BYU from Bolivia in time to start
second semester (January 2007).
While awaiting admission, he worked at the call center for McAfee
security software. The following
summer, he starred in the Alpine Theater Summer 2007 production of “Beauty and
the Beast” as Gaston’s sidekick Le Feu.
In the summer of 2008 he landed the lead role as the Cat in the Hat in
“Seussical the Musical.” Summer
2009 found him supervising lifeguards at Seven Peaks and interning at a circuit
board manufacturer, and he swam from Alcatraz to San Francisco with his sister
Julie.
School activity kept him busy, as for 2-1/2 years he served as Cosmo, the
Cougar, the BYU mascot. And he
worked on his senior project, a hybrid Formula One racer for a national contest,
which placed fourth internationally.
His patent on a cat exerciser that he invented as a fifteen-year-old has
become somewhat famous and was even cited to the U.S. Supreme Court in
2009. And he occasionally rides
his unicycle for fun and exercise.
On September 8, 2004, he answered a call to serve a mission for The Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Bolivia Santa Cruz Mission.
He served two years on the eastern slopes of the Andes in the Amazon Basin. His training included six weeks in Peru
in intensive language training. South America is the sixth continent he has visited in his
life. Prior to his mission he had
attended BYU and had worked at Disney World in Florida.
Keith cruised into his second semester senior year with four years perfect
attendance in early morning LDS Seminary (except for two days missed for his
brother's wedding) and a weighted GPA of 4.0 for the quarter. He was voted the friendliest senior
boy, attended four proms, and then toured Australia with the Gunn High School
Choir. He began his college career at BYU in June 2003 majoring in Astronomy
and Physics. However, he finished his freshman year at BYU in December 2003 and
promptly won an internship at Disney World as a character performer. You might
have heard a friendly impish voice and a familiar smile on the face of The Mad
Hatter.
In 2003 Keith starred as the Pharaoh
(performing an Elvis impersonation) in a production of "Joseph and the
Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat." In his secret identity he starred in
"The Story of Timmy the Titan," an Emmy-award-winning mockumentary
produced by KICU-TV’s Alforde Joaquin and Cliff Alameda shown May 2, 2003 on
High School Sports Focus. (The Gunn "Timmy the Titan" story is on YouTube.)
In Autumn 2002 Keith was Gunn High
School's Homecoming King 2002 (pictured here with Homecoming Queen Kate
Cherry). In typical Keith style, he broke down in faux tears of surprise as
his name was announced before the crowd at Gunn's halftime, accepting the
scepter with grace. He was carried off in style,
along with Homecoming Queen Kate Cherry, in his mom's 1956 T-Bird, driven by
his homecoming date, Kimber Giles. Congratulations Keith! Then he returned
to the field for the rest of the game in his secret identity.
In 2002, Keith won the SCVAL high school men's diving championship as a junior, was honored as the diving team's MVP, was awarded his Eagle Scout, began his secret career as the school mascot "Timmy the Titan," won National Spirit awards at the summer USA Spirit Camp, sang in the school Chamber Choir that recorded a popular CD, and attended summer diving camp at BYU. (His coach/counselor competed in the Summer 2004 Athens Olympics.) He had fun making a claymation movie, a projectile transport for science classes and a Pinewood Derby racer that placed second in the first Palo Alto Second Ward Pinewood Derby Open drag races (losing only to a Ph.D. physicist). He is writing a fantasy novel and dreams of a film acting role someday. And he applied for and was awarded a U.S. Patent on a laser device for exercising a cat.
Keith's remarkable career at Gunn
High School (Class of 2003) has included the men's varsity water polo and
varsity diving teams. Although as a sophomore, when diminutive Keith
played JV water polo, swam and dove for the Gunn JV, he gave up
competitive swimming and passed up on club lacrosse to concentrate on
diving. As a result, he inspired the Gunn Varsity swimmers and divers to
their first ever Varsity Men's League Swimming Championship in memory and led
wins over arch rival powerhouse Palo Alto High School (Julie's school), when he
won the 2002 Santa Clara Athletic League Varsity Men Diving Championship. As
the team MVP, his citation for the "2002 Varsity Men Outstanding
Performance Award" read as follows:
"Keith Allen could just have easily won the Most Improved Award,
having accomplished the nearly unheard of feat of winning a Varsity league
title one season after competing with the Junior Varsity. He also could
have won the Most Inspirational award, given his status as a leader by example
and a young man everyone roots for. In the end, he wins an award which
recognizes his consistently excellent performance, an award which only tells
half the story of this wonderful young man."
Keith sang baritone and bass in the Gunn choirs that performed a marvelous
spring 2004 production of "Totally Gone with the Wind" in which he
also performed a juggling act, and the Spring 2003 production of
"Braveheart and Soul," where he was a court jester.
Keith is an avid outdoorsman. He camps and hikes every chance he gets. He
has swum hundreds of yards in a glacier-fed lake, hiked to the top of Mt.
Shasta, parasailed over the Pacific Ocean at Mazatlan, Mexico, hiked to Spirit
Falls on Oahu, surfed the beaches of Santa Cruz and Kauai, climbed rock walls
in The Pinnacles of California and in Big Cottonwood Canyon in Utah, snow
boarded in the Sierra Nevada, snow-camped in Yosemite and spent summers riding
the range and wrangling horses at Bennion Teton Boys Ranch in Victor in
Southeastern Idaho and hiking the Grand Tetons, and he has hiked to the base
and back to the rim of the Grand Canyon in one day.
Keith is an avid computer gamer and a budding performer. His
activities include High School Theater, the Juggling Club, the Diplomacy Club
and the Ultimate Frisbee Club. He is an accomplished juggler and unicyclist. He
has starred in several school plays over the years, he even plays a little
piano, electric guitar and recorder flute. He was featured in the nationwide
"Run with the Fast Crowd" television advertising campaign for the ISP
Channel. After his sophomore year, he was recognized as one of the most
improved scholars at Gunn High School.
Keith has always liked to dabble with engineering projects, from Legos to RC
cars, and dreams of designing roller coasters. While at Jane Lathrop Stanford
Middle School, he was in the Electric
Moose Club. He has built his own custom electric scooter. He
swam for the Eichler Club Gators and played AYSO
Soccer. So much so far in such a short life.
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In April 2008, Julie graduated in English from BYU, having switched schools
and majors after returning from El Salvador.
At Christmas 2006, Julie took Mom and Dad and Keith to tour El Salvador and
Guatemala and visit many of her mission friends. They toured from the ocean beaches to the tops of active
volcanoes, visiting mountains and lake villages. And of course took lots of photos.
In January 2005, Ken & Sue traveled to Europe to serve a mission for the
LDS Church at the Institute Outreach Center in Hamburg, Germany. They returned
home in August 2006. At that time, Keith was serving a two-year mission in the
Bolivia Santa Cruz Mission and Julie was serving 18 months in the El Salvador
San Salvador East Mission.
In March 2004, the WHOLE family, including Tim, Shelby and Eve Schmalbeck,
visited Keith at Disney World, where Keith spent seven months as a cast member.
Reed and Jen moved to Michigan where they bought a newly minted home for
themselves and their new dog, Cyrus, a red-boned coon hound. Reed entered
Ave Maria Law School in Ann Arbor, and Jen entered University of Michigan's
Nurse Practitioner program. Both
graduated in June 2006. Jen was
valedictorian. In September, Keith
was called to serve a mission in eastern Bolivia. In October, Julia was called
to serve a mission in eastern El Salvador, and Ken and Sue prepared for a
mission beginning in early 2005.
In 2003, Keith was off to BYU, completing his freshman year by Christmas. Reed
graduated from BYU, and then he and Jen moved to Palo Alto to live in the newly
remodeled family cottage, and to teach elementary school and to work at
Stanford Hospital, respectively.
In August 2002, Jen graduated from teh BYU School of Nursing as valedictorian.
At the end of August 2002, all the Allens, including Rachel and Brandon, plus
all of the Wayments, spent a wonderful week together at beach houses at LaSelva
Beach near Santa Cruz. Then they spent New Year's 2003 in Idaho skiing
and hanging out together.
On August 8, 2002, Tim Schmalbeck married Shelby Foote in the Oakland
Temple, then honeymooned in England, where Shelby lived. Tim graduated
from BYU in the winter and has taken a job in Idaho Falls, Idaho as director of
promotins for Melaleuca. Shelby plans to continue her schooling at BYU
Idaho in nearby Rexburg.
In March of 2002, Sue won NPR's national news quiz "Wait, Wait ...
Don't Tell Me." The Allen family now has Carl Kasell's sonorous
voice on the home answering machine.
New Year's Holiday 2002 found the Allens (except for Rachel and her family)
at Elvis's graveside at Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee and fans at the Liberty
Bowl, where BYU was beaten by Louisville in unusually cold weather.
On December 5, 2001 Rachel gave birth to her third child, Spencer Klein
Mills, at Davis County Medical Center in Layton, Utah.
On October 5, 2001, Reed married Jennifer Elaine Wayment of Burley, Idaho,
in the Logan, Utah Temple. Jen and Reed met on the remarkable Christmas 1997
family trip to Israel. They now live in Provo, Utah where they are attending
Brigham Young University. Jennifer is the valedictorian of the Class of
2002 School of Nursing at BYU.
On New Years Day 2001, all the boys played in the annual Palo Alto Second
Ward flag football classic, often called the Mud Bowl. Here are photos.
On September 23, 2000, high school senior Andrea
Teal Pfeifer was
welcomed into our home. Teal is from St. Helena,
California, and participated
in the Quest
program at Stanford University, an intensive experience in medicine and
environmental law for promising students. She lived with us for the
2000-2001 school year while she completed courses at Foothill Junior College
instead of high school classes. She moved on to Stanford University as a
member of the Class of 2005, winning a music scholarship on the strength of her
interest in opera singing. She spent the summer months of 2001 in Brazil,
where she polished up on the Portuguese she had learned while living and
working as a nanny in the Cape Verde Islands.
On July 8, 2000, Sue took delivery
of a truly new vehicle, a "Personal Transit Module" called the Sparrow from Corbin Motors
of nearby Hollister. It is a three-wheeled enclosed electric
motorcycle. Sue's Sparrow was No. 96, the last of the bobtailed
model. On July 12, we
returned the Sparrow, slightly worse for wear, and got our money back. We
discovered that the vehicle had a motor control problem and a stability
problem. As Ken was driving it that morning along a deserted side street,
it suddenly sped up uncontrollably, spun out and tumbled. Ken escaped
unhurt. There was no damage except to the vehicle. The body was
pretty badly scratched up, but it held together enough to protect the
driver. We returned the vehicle for a full refund. In
short, the Sparrow is Dead. See Ken's articles about the Sparrow.
In May 2000, Ken and Sue visited Victoria, British Columbia, to attend a
conference of Intellectual Property lawyers at the picturesque Empress Hotel.
They enjoyed the beautiful gardens and proud Victorian estates of the temperate
south island region of Vancouver Island. As a side treat they watched the start
of the SwiftSure Regatta 2000 from a ketch in the Straits of Juan de Fuca.
In March 2000, the family spent the spring vacation in Mazatlan, Mexico with
Grandma Mary Grace Wade and Aunt Kathy Bright. Highlights were parasail rides
over the ocean, a bullfight, a wild night at Señor Frogs, a bike ride to
Witch's Beach and a boat tour to Stone Island.
On January 14, 2000, Ken's stepfather Daniel Leigh Wade, 88, of Washington,
Utah, died peacefully at the St. George Regional Medical Center after a brief
illness. The family gathered for the funeral from all parts of the
country to comfort Mary Grace, Ken's mother. This is the Life Story of Dan Wade.
In November 1999, we welcomed into our home Alessandro Ferreira de Silva
from Campinas, Sao Paulo, Brazil. Alex had been a student the Pacific
Language Institute in Palo Alto. In June 2000, Alex received a call to
serve a two-year mission for the LDS Church in Boston. He left us to begin
his service on August 23, 2000, and he returned to Brazil in August 2002.
He came back to California to study in September 2002.
In Summer 1999 and 2000 the family visited Bennion Teton Boys Ranch in
Victor, Idaho, to see Keith in a rodeo, and then we all came home.
Summer 1998 was a family reunion in Hawaii. Here is Ken's memorable
photo of the spectacular Napali
Coast of Northern Kauai from a hovering helicopter over the start of the
annual coastal kayak race.
At Christmas in 1997, Ken and Sue took Reed, Julia and Keith to Israel and
Egypt on a Family Travel Study Tour through Brigham Young University.
Reed met Jennifer Wayment on that tour. Here is a photo of the family in Jerusalem.
|
Here are many family heritage
paintings. |
Life is Beautiful! Here is our story of the Year 1999, complete with pictures. Return with Honor! Here is our story of the
Year 2000, complete with pictures. |
BACK TO THE SUE & KEN ALLEN FAMILY HOME PAGE
Updated 5 May 2003
