Mark "ANIMAL" Turner  showing his USA pride        at the '99 World DisAbled WaterSki Championships. Mark brought home an individual Gold in Slalom MP3!
Mark was the only single event skier ever selected to the team - he's added tricks and jump for the next Worlds - March of 2001 in Australia.

"Be careful what you ask for . . . you just might get it!" is one of our mantras.  When you add that to our famous belief that Together Everyone Achieves More (TEAM KeNevA) you end up supporting a club skier and the USofA like you'd never imagined possible.  Supporting our ANIMAL skier and our country we did what our family considered unthinkable, well it was unthinkable for us too!  I mean sure the Coach (Kent) should do what his skier asked of him, but come on, I had a real job, KeNyA had 7th grade at a brand new school . . . and yet this we did for the TEAM......  whew, it was tough coming home; we were NOT received well at all.

That's our KeNyA, taking care of Meredith Furbish who traveled to the '99 World Championships with her parents (she was 6 weeks old).  Meredith's daddy, Bill, (MP1) set a World Record, earned Gold Overall, Gold in Jump, Silver in Tricks and a Bronze in Slalom.  [Bill's nickname is "Turbo" . . . he's a quadriplegic, meaning paralysis has not only affected his lower body, but his arm function as well.  Bill actually holds the handle with his wrists, he is VERY strong.  The MP (multi plegic) division is divided into 3 levels, with MP1 being greatest extent of injury (arms affected) MP2  is typically  mid chest, full use of arms, MP3 is lower trunk (the lowest level of injury)].  Upon our return to America, particularly Los Banos, CA, we met with considerable negativity regarding our All American hair.  They weren't going to let KeNyA in school with her hair, she had to hide it in a bun until the color faded.  She cried and vowed never to use permanent hair dye again. . . next time she'll just use the temporary spray paint for the event.
 

It seemed a great idea for Coach Kent to dye his hair, but Neva . . . who'd buy real estate in Los Banos, CA from that woman? (By the way that's the River Thames in the background of her photo.)  We convinced Coach Kent  to dye his hair, he was insistent we traveled as a TEAM and that we were all for one and one for all.  And so we were.  It was a great experience, even the negativity we received upon our return, I suppose everyone should feel prejudism at one time or another.  Folks had no clue why our hair was colored, they just resented us because we were different, because we weren't main stream. FYI - we look "mainstream" now (check out our C21 page), I mean we had to go back to our RJ's (real jobs).
 
 

That's Dennis Currin's hair.  We dyed it too.  He's from Alabama, he went all over Ireland and England barefoot, when asked why he'd say because he was from Alabama.  He is an awesome mechanic, US Team Mechanic.  This journey with the Team was his first plane trip.  On the way home from England (about an hour over the ocean) the plane had a problem, they had to dump fuel and return to Heathrow . . . we had a full emergency landing!
It was very exciting to say the least; Dennis is planning to go to Australia so I guess he wasn't too scared:)

Craig Timm, there on the left receiving his Silver medal in Jump (he also won Gold in Slalom & Bronze Overall), is very quick witted. An hour after our plane left Heathrow (England) headed for JFK (New York) the pilot announced we had a problem, to ignore the smoke coming off the wings, we were dumping fuel and heading back to Heathrow.  A nano second later Craig said "It's the Brit's; they want their medals back!"  He was of course referring to the rivalry between the US and Great Britain.  They won the Worlds in '97, the US in '99.  The British ski team wasn't really behind our plane problem, he was just funnin':) [Craig's in the Men's Arm Amputee division - for you slalom folks - he skis 36 mph, into 22 off . . .with ONE arm - disabled?]

These two on the left gave one of the most exciting jump contests ever witnessed . . . they tied 3 times, which means they jumped again, and again and again.  Ultimately Allan Golabek (in the middle) earned the Gold, and Mark Hieftje (the far left) the Silver.  This jump event is called the leap of faith . . . these men are totally blind:)  They ski towards the jump ramp with a guide (their Coach, Joel Zeisler, who like Coach Kent (& family) paid his own way to accompany his skiers).  The guide calls out the distances, 100, 50, 30, 10, 9, 8 at last stating FREEZE as he (the guide) skis around the jump to meet the skier on the other side. Whew, I don't think so.  But you know as we were dying our hair (we had a party in England) the ANIMAL warned us, "If this gets in someone's eyes it could blind them"  Briana Glassing whose Mom is a sit skier immediately quipped "So what, they can still ski!"  That girl knows what's important in life:)   Living!  (Alan earned Overall Bronze & 6th in Wake Slalom; Mark  was Overall Silver and Bronze in Wake Slalom. Since they can't see the buoys they count the # of wake crossings in 20 seconds.) These two are real wise guys, Alan kept yelling out to US skiers on the water that he had his eyes on them (LOL).

Is this amazing or what . . . who could imagine that something as fun as waterSkiing could take you to Stongehenge? 

(That's Kent and Mark by the way.) 

WaterSkiing also took us to this abandoned 14th Century Castle (Castle Freke) in Ireland.  No tour guides, we explored the castle & grounds for 2 hours.  It felt like we  were in the home of Sleeping Beauty awaiting the handsome Prince.  (Interestingly enough KeNyA wanted to change her name to Sleeping Beauty when she was 5 - she looks like she's waiting for her Prince . . . a little impatiently perhaps.  Kent and Mark are handsome . . . but Princes?  Maybe, sometimes:)