Jeff Kirk

After spending most of my high school years playing in clubs like the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach and the Ice House in Pasadena--oh, and I can't forget Shakey's Pizza on Azusa--with my band (The Versatiles), I thought I would be doing that type of work for the rest of my life--easy money. When I got into my twenties I began to think that I needed a change. I did change to a totally different lifestyle and that was the best thing I could have done for myself. The way I was going I would have probably been dead by 35.

My new life started when I dropped everything and moved up to Idaho in 1975. I ended up meeting and marrying my true love--Joyce, Japanese and a Mormon farm girl--and I did a 360 in life. How thankful I am for that.

Over the past 31 years since I married Joyce we have had 4 children:

• Nathan, 29 (lower right), lives in our home town Burley and will be getting married in August (finally)
• Maegan, 26 (at Jeff's right elbow), married with 2 boys (Aidan and Brecken) and lives with her husband in Westwood, CA
• Aaron, 20 (upper left), lives in Tokyo, Japan, and
• Steven, 16 (upper right), lives at home.

My work for the last 20 years has been in the farm equipment manufacturing field and I love it. I started with the company (Pickett Equipment) from ground zero. I mean farmer Paul Pickett had a good idea how to do a job better with a new piece of equipment and away we went for the ride of a lifetime. Now I'm the Foreign Marketing & Customer Relations Manager.

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With this job I have to be very versatile (where have I heard that before?) and wear many different hats. What I love most is the chance to go all over the world and set up distributors and dealers for our products. I also write the operator's manuals and design our web page. If you get a chance, check out www.pickettequipment.com or www.rvmi.com.

Everyone take care, and I hope to see you for the 40th.