Born into a very conservative religious family in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1944, Ken entered professional ministry at an early age. His professional career consisted of serving churches for more than 50 years, with the last several years focused on the growth and health of churches throughout Asia. As a teacher and preacher, he has conducted retreats and seminars in 11 countries and 41 states.

His personal life includes marriage at age 21 and the birth of a son one year after returning from serving in the United States Army in Thailand. That marriage ended in divorce in 1974. Ken entered a second relationship in 1975, which has lasted 51 years.

Today (2026), at age 82, he is a proud father, grandfather, and husband, living happily with his husband, Tom Cole, and two dogs, Governor and Mollie, in the country outside Austin, Texas.

A PROMISE TO THE WHIPPOORWILL
From the whispers about the crazy uncle living in the attic and the monster who lives in the swamp just outside of town, to the terror at the sound of the word "polio," and the fear that the "World-Wide UFO Panic" might be true, Ken takes us into his world growing up in rural southern Mississippi.

His stories take us from the glamorous runways of international beauty pageants to the equally flamboyant stages of the fundamentalist revivals of the Christian culture all around him.

From Mama Ree's living room to the banks of Snake Creek, he explores the depths of friendship and love possible when two people dare to violate the rigid, racial barriers meant to separate them, and the horrors human beings are capable of when they decide to enforce those barriers with violence.

All the people we meet along the way are so authentic that we can never be quite sure who is real and who is a product of his prodigious imagination.

He shares the experiences that quickened his nascent sexual curiosity, and then the one vivid and dramatic event that occasioned his sexual awakening...and how his sexual awakening is followed by a spiritual event just as profound and dramatic, leading him for the rest of his life to believe his sexuality and spirituality come from the same positive and indefatigable source.

Finally, he opens his heart to reveal what it is like to be different in a world where nothing is more important than conformity, and what it meant to break his promise to the whippoorwill.