Assistant Director of Campus Life finds Crowder in a creek

Isabelle Bryson
Reporter

Kenny Newman was floating down the creek with his family from Neosho during a weekend away from his home in Iowa and was wishing he could be down in the Neosho area permanently, his wish would come true a lot sooner that expected.

Newman was born and raised in in southeast Kansas, and he lived there until his junior year in high school. He moved to southwest Missouri to move in with his mom and finished high school in Diamond, Missouri.

After the Joplin tornado, he decided not to pursue a football scholarship so he could stay closer to home. However, Graceland University sent Newman clothes and things to help after the tornado. The coach from Graceland then reached out to Newman and told him that nothing was holding him back and asked him to come play football for them. Newman decided to pursue his dream of playing football and that is where he met Dave Shaw and Stan Rupe.

Dave Shaw was the Dean of Students at Graceland and was and still is a huge mentor to Newman and they both still talk to each other quite a bit. His coach, Stan Rupe, or as Newman calls him, “Papa Bear,” is another huge mentor in Newman’s life. Both men taught him about relationships with people, and how being yourself, no matter what, is the best version you can be. They both helped Newman through a vulnerable time as a teenager and taught him that you won’t always fit in every one of society’s “molds” and that not everybody is going to like you and that is okay.

“If I could change one thing about my past, I would focus less on being so cool and just be myself and build relationships with people and not with just my close friends, but with everybody because as I get older, I realize that’s all it is, that’s all life is about, is relationships, who you know, what they know. I would focus on that. I had a good close group of friends, but I could’ve made more friends. I could’ve put myself out there a little more than I did.”

 After graduating from Graceland, Newman moved to Washington University but quickly found himself back at Graceland when Covid hit. Upon his return to Graceland, he was hired as the football coach and additionally took on a residence life position. In total he coached six years of high school level football and four years of college football. The relationships and experience that he built at Graceland are what drove him into the career field he is in today.

From the creek to Crowder

Back to the creek, Newman pulled out his phone and opened Indeed and the first thing that popped up when he typed in higher ed was Crowder College Campus life and saw the job description and he said, “I do that now.” He applied on a Sunday within a few days they offered him the job. “It all just kind of happened on a whim. Literally from the creek I submitted my resume from indeed, and I just hoped for the best,” he explained. He had no intention of leaving his other job, but he wanted to be closer to family and everything just fell into place.

Now as Assistant Director of Campus Life at Crowder College he provides safety and structure to campus. But primarily he trains the Resident Assistants (RAs) and makes sure that the RAs are taken care of. He also helps plan fun and safe campus events for everybody and loves staying in touch with Crowder students. His goal in this position is to be able to help the RAs be successful during and after they leave Crowder. Knowing that they are using something he taught them, or they learned while being an RA is all he wishes.

Many people see Newman as the football guy, or the campus life guy, but many do not know that he also has many other interests. He loves video games, comic books, cartoons, anime and is a huge Pokémon and World of Warcraft fan. “Looking at me and talking to me you probably wouldn’t get that vibe but if you saw my apartment, you would get it.”  

In closing remarks Newman had this to say to students navigating through college right now, “Just live. It is easy, when you are in college, to take things way too serious. It is good to be hyper-focused, but remember to have fun, because time is very fleeting and when it is gone its gone. You have this very small window in your life where you can experiment and are able to do things relatively consequence free. So, take that time and have fun as a kid. Be yourself and love yourself. People will love you no matter what and if they don’t, they weren’t meant to be there anyways, so don’t let them effect you.”