��“Getting to Know You…’

�

Resident Profiles By Dave Baad

Ken and Gale Van Der Sloot came to Parkview ten months ago after almost 27 years in Arizona. They were first in Yuma where Ken was in retirement and Gale taught school in nearby Somerton, then in Phoenix where Gale had a senior position with the Department of Education for the state of Arizona, and then after Gale retired, in Kingman, where the two played golf, as Ken says, “eight days a week.”

Gale was born on the White Earth Indian Reservation in northwestern Minnesota. Orphaned at four, she was adopted a few years

later by Harvey and June Peterson ‘who took great pride in raising her as their own.” in Bagley, Minnesota, a little town a few miles from the headwaters of the Mississippi River.. She went to college at Iowa Lakes Community College as a music education major but after a year she switched to early childhood education at Buena Vista college in Storm Lake, Iowa where she obtained her B.A. Later Gale obtained two M.A.s.

Ken grew up in Cleghorn, Iowa. He graduated from high school in a class of 13. He went on to Morningside College in Sioux City with a basketball scholarship and also played a freshman year of football under George Allen who was there for a year, on the way to his career as a coach in the NFL. Ken’s major in music education, including a B.A. from Morningside and later an M.A. from the University of Colorado, led to seven years as a high school teacher and 28 years as a professor in music at Iowa Lakes Community College. On the side, Ken has been a performer for years, playing piano in combos, a Dixieland band, in duos in the Lakes region of northwestern Iowa and in Yuma and elsewhere in Arizona. For several years Ken and Dean, as his duo at that time was known, performed in casinos in Laughlin, Nevada not far from Kingman. Another duo, Ken and Ben, performed 110 nights a year for 22 years at what was considered the finest club in the Iowa Lakes region.

Ken and Gale, each with two kids from first marriages, came together in the 1970s with a first date on a golf course. Gale won the round and Ken’s interest was further enhanced. In their 43 years of marriage, golf has been central. Gale has been a club champion three different times, at Lake Okoboji in Iowa, in Yuma and in Kingman. Ken once carried a five handicap, has numerous eagles and a double eagle on a 507 yard par five, holing out with a seven iron from 170 yards. He once had a 65, one shot off the course record at Emerald Hills in Arnold Park, Iowa. Gale has two holes in one, Ken one.

One of their two sons lives in Frisco. Until recently he was a golf instructor at Lake Park in Lewisville. Ken and Gale have 10 grandchildren and five great grandchildren. Ken and Gale are extremely pleased with the move here. It may be a surprise to Parkview but Gale has only sung with Ken in the last couple years, doing it for the first time while they were at a senior home in Peoria, Arizona in 2016. Now the two of them, Ken at the piano and Gale with her beautiful voice, are a fixture at Parkview. It is a great pleasure for co-residents to have them here.

March 2019