{"id":10560,"date":"2025-04-01T10:00:29","date_gmt":"2025-04-01T10:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/?p=10560"},"modified":"2025-03-31T20:25:26","modified_gmt":"2025-03-31T20:25:26","slug":"april-2025-newsletter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/?p=10560","title":{"rendered":"April 2025 Newsletter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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The Unretired<\/h1>\n

A Visit with Tireless Historian, Ken Sorensen<\/h3>\n

By Dale Dauten<\/h4>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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If you\u2019ve heard historian Ken Sorensen speak on multiple topics, you probably wonder when he\u2019ll run out of stories. We recently got to visit with Ken and we now have an answer: Never. He has built presentations on 115 topics, and he\u2019s always adding more, including six new ones in the past year.<\/p>\n

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Just this March, Ken spoke at Silveridge on \u201cThe Irish in America\u201d and then about \u201cEllis Island and the Statue of Liberty.\u201d Further, Activities Director Lu Way has just published her lecture series for next season and Ken is up eight times.<\/p>\n

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(Lu\u2019s list shown at the end. Photos below of Ken at Silveridge and other venues.)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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We wondered how he remembers all the details that go along with all those subjects. While Ken doesn\u2019t think of himself as having a prodigious memory, he does have a special love of a good story. And that takes us back to his career in traditional classrooms, and with it to some additional background:<\/p>\n

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Ken grew up in the Phoenix area with a dream of being a teacher. After getting bachelor\u2019s and master\u2019s degrees, he devoted 30 years to teaching History and English in high schools and at Mesa and Gilbert-Chandler Community Colleges. He likes to tell his audiences that he \u201cretired for 30 minutes\u201d; but we wanted to know more. When Ken retired, he knew he wanted to keep busy and thought he\u2019d devote himself to woodworking; and he did, for a while. But then the Southwest Shakespeare Company asked him to do presentations on Shakespeare as part of their community outreach. His love of teaching being unmistakable, one day after talking about Shakespeare at a retirement center, one of the organizers asked if he\u2019d present for them. So he put together a talk on JFK, and he soon became one of the unretired, now presenting multiple times a day.\u00a0He had just done four in one day when we talked and we asked if he made sure that all four were the same subject to avoid confusion. \u201cI prefer multiple topics,\u201d he said. \u201cIf there aren\u2019t at least two, I get bored.\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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Ken explained that he builds his talks around stories, and uses the photos in his presentation to guide his retelling of those stories. And that takes him back to his early days in the classroom: \u201cEarly on,\u201d he recalled, \u201cI realized that if I was going to keep the attention of high school kids, I had to make them feel like they are there, like the events are\u00a0real.\u00a0I needed to make the history come alive and to do that I had to really know the stories.\u201d Ken chuckled at one recollection, \u201cI\u2019d tell a story — say, Lincoln\u2019s assassination — and one of the students would ask, \u2018Were you there?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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That drive to hold the attention of students grew out of Ken\u2019s philosophy of teaching. \u201cI never sent a single student off to the office,\u201d he explained. \u201cThey hired me to solve problems not send them away. So at the start of every year, I\u2019d tell the class, \u2018This is the way it\u2019s going to be. I am going to make it worth your time to be here. I want you to walk out here a better student and a better person. If that\u2019s not what you want, then I\u2019ll walk up to the office with you and get you transferred to another class.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The will to make a difference still shows up in his choice of subjects for his lectures. Using one of his newest topics as an example, Ken said, \u201cI look for a compelling back story. With Elvis, everyone knows his music, but I talk about the other sides of him, about what made him really, really different.\u201d That thought led Ken to this: \u201cIn 1960, in Memphis, Elvis needed to make a phone call. This was back when there were phone booths on street corners. And to make a call you needed a dime, or whatever it cost at the time, and Elvis didn\u2019t have any change on him. A man walked randomly by, and Elvis asked if he could borrow a dime. The man agreed. Elvis got the man\u2019s name and address. He later sent him a thank you note, and with it, a document showing that Elvis had paid off the man\u2019s mortgage. That speaks of character and another side of the man.\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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It seems fitting to end with another story, this one a quick backstory to Ken\u2019s favorite topic, Abe Lincoln:<\/p>\n

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\u201cHe came from nothing. His mother died with he was nine. And his relationship with his father was so contentious that when the day came that he was told that his father had just died, Lincoln said, \u2018Don\u2019t say my father\u2019s name to me.\u2019 He came from nothing and yet, despite his problems, he made a difference in the world.\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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Download Print Version of the Newsletter<\/p>\n

Including calendars & photos of recent events<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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Download Newsletter<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  The Unretired A Visit with Tireless Historian, Ken Sorensen By Dale Dauten If you\u2019ve heard historian Ken Sorensen speak […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[24],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10560"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10560"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10561,"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10560\/revisions\/10561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}