Federal Way Public Schools Alumni of Note
Kent Klingman
Project Manager/Fundraiser
Thomas Jefferson High School
Graduate, Class of 1981
Kent Klingman learned persistence as a student in Federal Way schools. He learned how to focus on a goal and continue working forward until he succeeded. He didn't know at the time how important that lesson would be.
Klingman, a 1981 Thomas Jefferson High School graduate, was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia in December, 1996. He was told he had just four to six weeks to live if he didn't receive a bone marrow transplant. He immediately began chemotherapy and doctors began looking for a donor. "Nobody in my family matched. Then they did a search in the U.S. and it came up empty," Klingman said. The search spread to Canada and still no matches came up.
With traditional treatment options running out, Klingman decided to participate in a clinical trial at Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center. He received a blood stem cell transplant from a donor in Germany, becoming only the second person at Fred Hutchison to receive such a transplant. It was a success. These days, stem cell transplants are much more common and successful, partly because of the contributions and bravery of early patients like Klingman.
Today Klingman is healthy and the proud father of three children. He is also the organizer or the Klingman Open Golf Tournament, a fundraiser that has grown to become the largest contributor to the Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center's family assistance fund. Since its first year in 1997, the Klingman Open has raised nearly $265,000 for the family assistance fund. The program provides money for patients, families and caregivers to help with non-medical expenses incurred while receiving cancer treatment. Groceries, diapers, child-care costs, bus fares and long distance phone bills are among the costs the program funds.
Klingman was a student at Sunnycrest Elementary, Totem Middle School and Thomas Jefferson High School. He went on to earn a Bachelor's Degree in graphic design from Washington State University in 1986. Later, he changed careers and graduated from an electrical trade school in 1991. In 2006, Klingman earned a certificate in project management from the University of Washington.
Both of Klingman's daughters also attended Federal Way schools and his youngest daughter will graduate from Decatur in 2010. "I still think highly of the instructors there," Klingman said of the district. "They do an exceptional job, they really do."
"What school prepared me for was just continuing to work for something, having a goal and staying focused for it," Klingman said. "Even when I was sick it rang truer and truer every day I was in the hospital was taking that simple phrase of one day at a time."
Among the teachers that Klingman recalls as his most influential are Mr. Mosebach at Sunnycrest, Mrs. Gotchy at Thomas Jefferson and Mr. Records at Thomas Jefferson. Still today Klingman thinks about the day that Mr. Mosebach pulled him aside near the baseball field and encouraged him to work harder in class. "In the sixth grade I was getting a little out of hand in the classroom and not really taking school serious anymore and one day we were out in P.E. and he just kind of told me, in a nutshell, 'you need to think about stuff that you're doing. There are a lot of your friends that look up to you,'" Klingman said.
Mrs. Gotchy and Mr. Records made an impact because they built relationships with students and taught life lessons outside of just the textbook, Klingman said. Mr. Records used examples from his own family to relate to his students. "He had a great sense of humor with the class," Klingman said. "He had small kids and he always gave us examples of what his kids were doing to get his point across in the classroom, which was very effective."
Klingman encourages students to be persistent. "Set a goal and stay focused on it. Don't get discouraged if it doesn't happen right away you've just got to keep plugging away," he said. "It's not the smartest people in the class that are the measure of success, it's the ones that keep working hard and plugging away that achieve the goals. It's just through hard work and consistency. That seems to be the common denominator for success stories is it's just those that stay focused."