After inspiring Lou Gehrig's fight, Kenny Stork passes

By DOUGLAS BURNS
Staff Writer

BREDA - Kenny Stork, a successful restaurateur who became a beloved presence as manager of the Carroll Municipal Golf Course, died Saturday following a community-inspiring fight with Lou Gehrig's disease.

He was 49.

Only days ago, Stork, who had worked at the course, running tournaments and handling daily duties in spite of the degenerative muscular disease, received a pay increase from the Carroll City Council based on the strong recommendation of Parks and Recreation director Jack Wardell, who said Stork remained an outstanding businessman until the end.

"Kenny, he's a wonderful individual, and he'll truly based be missed," Wardell said. "The golfers enjoyed his company. He did a great job business-wise, too. Knowing that he had this illness, Kenny still had a positive upbeat attitude."

Mr. Stork was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, in November 2002. ALS eats away nerves and eventually leads to paralysis and death.

The average life expectancy is two to five years following diagnosis, but national ALS Association experts say there is really no way of knowing when the disease will claim one's life and that some people have had it for 15 to 20 years before dying. Other Lou Gehrig's victims die in less than two years.

Mr. Stork's first sign that he had the disease came when he couldn't cut his fingernails.

"Anything that comes second nature to you is missing with me," Kenny Stork said in an interview in early 2006 at his home in Breda, near the local swimming pool. "I started to notice some stuff in April or May, probably May of '02. And the doctors will tell you if you noticed it in May, you've probably had it for six months to a year before that."

In his final days, Stork, who passed at St. Anthony Regional Hospital, wore a mask on his face but was still able to communicate with family by pantomiming words with his foot on the bed.

Mr. Stork's daughter, Cortney Young of Memphis, Mo., said her father's optimism in the face of the horror that is Lou Gehrig's has taught their large family powerful life's lessons.

"I think it taught us not to give up because he didn't," Young said. "He worked as long as he could. The last day they closed the coolers he was out there."

Young, who along with her husband T.J., recently had identical twin girls, Zoe and Mya, said she kept in almost daily contact with her father in Breda over the Internet. Mr. Stork was able to use MSN Messenger until near the end of his life, she said.

Mr. Stork's wife of 24 years, Michelle, said the couple were set to celebrate that anniversary on Dec. 29.

Michelle Stork said she's already living to honor her husband, by maximizing each moment of life, with friends and family and in the workplace.

"Through my husband Ken I learned to live each day to the fullest and appreciate what I have," she said.

Added daughter Cortney, "He taught us about smiling and humor."

The Storks have established a memorial in lieu of flowers and plan as a family to remain active in the effort to find a cure for Lou Gehrig's.

"I would never want to watch someone go through this," Michelle Stork said. "I think the hardest thing was to see his muscles die - and his ability to control his hands."

Michelle assisted her husband with day-to-day activities in the last two years.

"It was hard for Ken," she said. "He never needed help with anything before."

But in those intimate moments, as she helped to feed and otherwise care for him, the Storks were able to have moments of reflection about a quarter century of shared experiences, and news about members of what has to be one of the largest extended families in western Iowa.

(For a list of survivors see Mr. Stork's obituary on Page 3 today.)

"I definitely did realize how much I did love him," Michelle (Warnke) Stork said.

A son of Matt H. and Marry Ann (Grabner) Stork, he was born June 12, 1959, at Carroll. He grew up in the Breda community and attended St. Bernard Catholic School. After his family moved to Carroll, he attended St. Lawrence School and then graduated from Kuemper High School in 1977.

After graduation in 1977, he entered the U.S. Air Force and was honorably discharged in January 1983, at the rank of sergeant.

Following his military service, he was employed at Pella Corp. in Carroll.

On Dec. 29, 1984, he married Michelle Warnke at St. Lawrence Church in Carroll. The couple moved to Breda in 1988, where Mr. Stork and his brother, Henry Stork, purchased Zeke's Place in Breda. They operated the business until 2002, when he became manager of the Carroll Municipal Golf Course, a position he held until his death.

More than 60 years ago, Lou Gehrig of the New York Yankees made ALS a household name by dying from it. The popular pinstriped athlete then bequeathed his name to the disease, giving it a visibility in fund-raising and political circles that has been crucial to what progress has been made.

"Lou Gehrig made the disease famous, but he can't do a lot for me," Kenny Stork joked to the Daily Times Herald at one point during the newspaper's coverage of his fight against the disease.

The Stork family says such a one-liner wasn't uncommon from Ken.

"He always made everybody laugh," Michelle Stork said. "Ken loved life so much. He loved our family. He just loved everything. He was a very, very happy person."

Carroll Mayor Jim Pedelty said that because Stork was such a well-liked, visible presence in the city, he raised awareness about ALS and had the collective goodwill of the Carroll area behind him.

"Everybody in the city lived through and prayed for Kenny during his battle," Pedelty said. "We all hoped for a miracle. He was an institution in this town and made the golf course a much friendlier place to be."

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