Kenneth Wayne Jennings, Jr.

Kenneth Wayne Jennings, Jr. is the third child of Georgia Lee Powers and Kenneth Wayne Jennings born on August 19, 1949, in Washington.
​He married Catherine Colton on August 9, 1972, in Salt Lake City, Utah. They had two children Kenneth and Nathan.

​Name: Kenneth Wayne Jennings, Jr.
Birth: August 19, 1949  Richland, Benton, Washington USA
Death:
Buried:
 
Father: Kenneth Wayne Jennings

Mother: Georgia Lee Powers

Other:
Married: August 9, 1972  Salt Lake City, Utah USA

Spouse: Catherine Elizabeth Colton
Birth: February 25, 1952 Fort Ord, Monterey, California USA
Death:
 Buried:
 
Father: Byron Colton
Mother: Betty Elcock Colton

Other:
 

Children: Kenneth Wayne Jennings, III (1974 -  ); Nathan Richard Jennings (1976 -   ); Gwyneth Arwin Jennings (1980 -   ); Miranda Songhwa Jennings (1985 -   )

KENNETH WAYNE JENNINGS, JR
I have few memories of Richland, Washington, where I was born (19 August 1949), but I understand we were living “downwind” form the Hanford Atomic Works, which some say (in jest, I hope) explains my personality.  We moved to the Seattle area when I was about three and I grew up in the rain and green of the Puget Sound area.  I will always consider this beautiful part of the country to be my permanent home.  Growing up in the 50’s and 60’s, I had the good fortune to experience the great era of the American Dream, Mickey Mouse Club, Suburban Sprawl, the Space Race, Race Rios, Student Protests, and the Gold Era of Rock & Roll.  These were exciting times and I savor the memories.  We had a happy and busy some that centered around school and church activities, and I was a Cub Scout and Boy Scout in due course.  In high school and my first year of college I dusted off early piano lessons and played keyboards in a rock band.
My great love was science.  I built short wave radios, collected insects, and grew crystals in the Kitchen.  My most prized possessions were an Erector Set and telescope. I was destined (I thought) to become a scientist or an engineer.  I was fortunate to have close friends that stayed with me from grade school through high school.  We took physics and calculus together and were all aimed at a high-tech vocation – but fate intervened.  While in high school, I attended an early morning Seminary class which I enjoyed immensely, and which rounded out my secular education with spiritual training.  I had always planned to serve a mission for the Church and, at age 19, put in my application after my first year of college.  As we often sin in the well-known hymn “I’ll go where you want me to go, dear Lord.” You don’t get to choose.  I remember well the excitement of opening my letter and finding that I had been called to serve in the Korea Mission.
In October 1968, I left for Korea.  The Church did not maintain a language training facility in those days, so the young missionaries had to soak up the language and customs by osmosis.  I never worked so hard in my life, but we were on the Lord’s errand and our joy was in proportion to our service.  I could fill volumes with my experiences there, but it is sufficient to say that I came to understand and love Korea and its people – not an easy task for a nineteen-year-old boy from Seattle. All too soon, my time in Korea ended and I returned to the States to take up where I had left off, only to find that my life had been changed forever.
While I was in Korea, the “digital revolution” had taken place and I missed it.  My slide rule was an antique.  I was so far removed from the new science that I decided to change my major from engineering to Asian Studies, doing advanced work in Korean and Chinese at the University of Washington.  It was during these years that I met Cathi (Catherine Coltrin).  Within days of our first meeting, we knew that we would be spending our lives together.  We married during our Junior year at US.  Cathi and I graduated from the UW with degrees in Asian Studies and – surprise! – Kenneth III who was born just in time for Cathi to attend commencement.  I was aimed at graduate school but was uncertain of what I wanted to do.  I often regretted that I had not stated in the hard science.  I came close to taking a position with the National Security Agency, but decided to attend law school instead, with the intention of pursuing a career in international law.  I was offered a generous scholarship to attend the ne4w law school at Brigham Young University.  Three years later we emerged with a law degree and two sons (Nathan was born during my first year in law school), and headed back to Seattle where I had landed a job with a blue chip Seattle law firm.  Gwyneth was born in 1979, the year after I graduated.
I wanted to take advantage of my experience in Korea, so after three years with my Seattle firm, I asked for a two-year leave of absence to work with the largest law firm in Seoul, Korea.  In 1981, we rented out our new house that we had lived in for only eight weeks, packed up just the essentials and moved to Seoul.  Life in Korea was not easy, but the church proved a ready-made support network and was the focus of our lives.  I discovered that I liked the international practice in Seoul, where I was representing large multinational companies in major joint ventures and technology licenses. There was a downside to this exciting practice, we worked long hours six days a week. There was not much time for recreation, but we managed to get the whole family involved in community theatre where Cathi became quite the local star in musicals.  My own stage career peaked when I was able to play my favorite theatrical role – Professor Harold Hill in The Music Man. During the Korea years I discovered computers, and the computer industry became one of my avid interests both in business and in my personal life.  We also added a new daughter to the family, rather by accident. We visited an orphanage with some friends one Sunday and felt inspired that this little girl was part of our eternal family.  We kept her Korean name as her middle name after her adoption – Miranda Songhwa Jennings.
After the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, things seemed to get stale in Korea, and I looked for an opportunity to return to the States or at least to work for a U.S. company.  In 1992 I was recruited for the Asia/Pacific Regional Legal Counsel position for Oracle, the second largest software company in the world.  We moved to Singapore where we lived for four years.  I traveled all over Asia for my company and had numerous adventures, including establishing the company’s presence in Vietnam where we were one of the first US companies to start operations after the embargo ended.  I racked up so many frequent flyer miles that I was able to take Cathi with me on several trips around Asia and to Europe.  But the jet-set mentality was not entirely to our liking.  We had been away from home for 15 years and the boys were going, going, gone.  Kenneth had finished a year of college and then a two-year mission in Madrid, Spain.  Nathan had just finished a year at BYU and was departing to serve his mission in Ontario, Canada.  What was I doing in Singapore if my family was going to be in the US?
While we were delivering Nathan to the Mission Training Center in Provo, Utah, I stopped to see one of the lawyers I had worked with in Korea.  He was working at Novell, the large networking software company which is headquartered there. When the dust had settled, Novell had offered me the position of Associate General Counsel for their Technology Law Group.  This was quite a change from international law, but I eagerly accepted.  Now I am dealing with patents, copyrights and trade secrets as my daily fare – almost as good as the engineering career I had wanted all along.  We settled in Alpine, Utah, a beautiful little town nestled in a crook of the Wasatch Range and have final put down some root (1996).  The years in Asia seem like a dream at times, but the memories are all fond ones.  The global adventure was marvelous but coming home is equally wonderful.  Being close to family and friends is an adventure in tis own right – and one that we look forward to.
 
Kenneth W. Jennings, Jr.
(From Powers Family Book compiled by Georgia Powers Jennings)