Kent Crane:
CLASS OF 1981
Winnetonka High SchoolClass of 1981
Kansas city, MO
Kent's Story
Life
Wow 32 years! Where do I begin? After graduating from Winnetonka I went on to college at the University of Missouri Rolla where I attained my Engineering Degree. While attending UMR I married my beautiful childhood sweetheart 1983 Winnetonka graduate Cathy Rickett. We dated since I was 16 and have been happily married 28 years now. Cathy is a second grade teacher at Cler-Mont Elementary in Independence. After graduating from UMR I took a job with Caterpillar just outside Chicago, IL. During this time Cathy and I had a son, Billy who is now 23. Knowing that the Chicago area wasn't what we wanted for our family life we moved back to the Kansas City area where I acquired a job with Tiger Corporation designing ground support equipment. If you have ever flown, chances are your luggage or packages have been moved around the airport by one of my designed tractors. These tractors are practically on every continent. It was at this time that we were blessed with son number two, Jeremy who is now 20. Working with Tiger Corporation I had many contacts with outside vendors, one being Ford Motor Company. I was hired on by Ford as a Supervisor based on a tractor design I did for them. This is a position I have held with them for almost 20 years now. Throughout all of this I have been actively involved in asphalt stock car racing. I started my own racing career in 1995, though before this I was invol...Expand for more
ved in the pit crew side of things. I raced a modified and late model at I-70 Speedway until 2003. I have enjoyed making TV commercials at Kansas Speedway; however, the highlight of my racing career came in 1998 while surrounded by my family and friends I won the Track Championship. In 2004 I made the decision to hang up my helmet and turn the wheel over to my then 14-year-old son Billy. Billy started his racing career by continuing the tradition of racing both a modified and late model at I-70 Speedway. His interest then turned exclusively to racing a super late model in the traveling Champion Racing Association Super Series. In 2005 Billy finished 11th in overall series points, runner-up for CRA Rookie of the Year, and won the Most Committed Team Award. Our son Jeremy who attends NorthWest helps on the pit crew for his older brother but also is quite proficient at basketball and outdoor sports such as hunting and fishing. Jeremy, along with his mother Cathy, has shot trophy deer, which are on display in our race shop. As a family we enjoy hunting, fishing, working our two dogs Winnie and Brock, movies, eating out, landscaping, and flower gardening to relax. On our off weekends not racing we either head south to our Truman Lake lot to camp and fish or north to our farm to hunt and ride quad-runners as a family. A lot has happened since Winnetonka graduation and yet the time has flown by fast!
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