THROUGH TEARS AND DEEP SORROW let me tell you about Kenny Stevens my dear friend of 33 years. I was the senior photo editor at his college paper CMLife in 1981 and Kenny was just a freshman when our paths first crossed. He came into the office looking for work, bursting with enthusiasm. He was already a talented photographer having shot for his high school paper. Yet there was not a single shred of arrogance in him. Just a fresh faced kid, with rosy cheeks, eyes that sparkled and that endearing smile. He was completely naive in a charming way. Think Forrest Gump with a camera, only really smart.
All through that year, and my second senior year as well, we hung together like two peas in a pod. We shot together, edited together, printed together and laughed long and hard. We exchanged many a high five watching our prints come to life in the darkroom developing trays. When I finally graduated he took over the reins on the photo desk at CMLife.
I watched Ken grow up from afar absorbed in my own fledgeling career. Sometimes years passed without even a word between us. Yet when we met again it seemed like no time had passed at all. Kenny and the Muskegon Chronicle where a match made in heaven. I appeared one night at the door of his home needing a place to crash. Of course I was welcome even though his daughter had just been born one day earlier. The next morning Kenny had to go to work so I got to babysit while Theresa got some rest. Cradling Faith in my arms I walked from window to window putting her in the “good light” so I could shoot portraits of her with the camera in my free hand. That evening we set up a photo studio in the living room and I shot pictures of 5-year-old Jeffrey slam dunking on his mini basketball hoop. Seeing young parents so in love with their kids was a joyous site to behold.
Kenny’s star was on the rise in the Chronicle photo department. Consistently excellent was the way he rolled. But his greatest legacy may be the huge number of interns he mentored year after year. He loved his family at home most of all, but his extended Chronicle family was a very close second.
The last time I saw Kenny a few years back he was still that fresh faced freshman I had met so many years earlier. There was just a touch of gray in his bad hair cut, but his eyes still sparkler and that smile still shined.