Part #1: The Early Years

Kenneth Howard Tipton Jr. was born in El Paso, Texas in 1952, the son of motorcycle patrolman Ken Tipton Sr. and high school class valedictorian Zelda Mae Rankins.

Zelda had to turn down full-ride scholarships to many prestigious colleges due to her before-marriage pregnancy with her son Kenny. This never set well with Zelda’s parents, especially with Grandma Alice Rankins. Alice was a Cajun from the back bayous of Louisiana with only a third-grade education. She had worked in the brothel attached to a speak-easy owned by Al Capone in Galveston, Texas. There she met Stanford Rankins, who worked as a night-time bouncer at the club and as a railroad switchman during the day. Al Capone bought their first home as a wedding gift and Alice quit the brothel to become a housewife. After the loss of their first daughter due to pneumonia, the Rankins moved to El Paso, Texas where Stanford worked as a train engineer for the Santa Fe railroad, driving his train back and forth between El Paso and Albuquerque. The Rankins had two sons before Zelda; one became a judge in San Bernardino, CA. When Zelda was born Grandma Rankins made it her mission to make sure her daughter had opportunities she never had.

Officer Tipton was a well-respected cop by the community, but had the bad habit of chasing criminals into Mexico and bringing them back to face Texas justice. His issues with authority figures eventually lead to his firing. Ken Sr. had a great personality and was loved by many, especially women. However, his habitual womanizing was not tolerated by Grandma Alice who persuaded Zelda to divorce him. Zelda and Kenny then moved into her parents’ modest home. Grandpa Stan Rankins remained close to Ken Sr. his entire life and even moved into his former son-in-law’s home after his wife Alice died. Sadly, Tipton Sr. never lived up to his potential and went from job to job as a construction worker, car salesman, casket salesman, and eventually as a long haul trucker. He died of a heart attack at the age of 54 in 1979.

After his divorce from Zelda, Ken Sr. married Molly Butterworth in El Paso and had three sons, Kyle, Kevin, and Kelly. Ken Tipton Jr. met his three half-brothers in 1971 after he graduated high school. He used to fantasize about having brothers instead of the three half-sisters he grew up with and was extremely happy to find that not only did he have three younger brothers, but he also had an older sister, Vicki, and brother, Ronny. Ken has met Vicki but Ronny died before they could meet. Coincidentally, Ken Jr. and his half-brother Ronny were in the Air Force at the same time.

Molly Butterworth Tipton was a fantastic step-mother. From the moment she met Ken Tipton Jr. she accepted him as her own son. Their relationship was as close as Ken’s mom Zelda until Molly died of cancer in 2002. (Ken’s mother Zelda died in 1977 when he was able to get control of her legal affairs from his step-father and had her removed from life support.) Ken dedicated the movie he wrote and directed, “Heart of the Beholder”, to his much beloved Molly in the closing credits.

Zelda then married St. Louis native Air Force Staff Sargent William “Bill” Steckenrider in 1953. Bill was a military courier during the Korean war and stationed at Biggs Air Force base in El Paso. Upon discharge from the Air Force, Bill moved the family to Columbia, MO to attend the University of Missouri “Mizzou” on the GI bill. Coincidentally, Columbia was the hometown of Kenny’s father but he had little contact with his grandmother, aunts, and uncles because Bill forbade it due to Ken Sr. not paying any child support. Grandma Tipton was allowed to visit Kenny only when she paid $20 to Bill.

The Steckenriders lived on-campus in old military barracks left over from World War II that had been converted into student housing for returning Korean War veterans. Bill attended Mizzou full-time and worked as a waiter at the Italian Village restaurant earning $1 dollar per hour plus tips. On a good night he would bring home between $10 and $15. Zelda worked part-time as a telephone switchboard operator at the hospital a few hundred yards away on campus for $0.60 an hour. Times were tough and became worse when the birth of Kenny’s sister, Cheryl, put a financial strain on the family. Both Kenny’s local relatives and Bill’s parents in St. Louis offered help, even a car, but were all turned down because of Bill’s insistence that he was the “man” of the family and only he would provide. This attitude would later turn to hatred toward his step-son Kenny.

One of Kenny Tipton’s first memories is lying in bed one hot night and hearing what sounded like cowboys and Indians coming from outside. He looked out his window to see nothing but pitch black except a billboard about fifty yards away that was all white during the day. But tonight was very different. The billboard was alive with sound and action. It was magic to the young boy who had only seen a TV once at the hospital where his Mom worked. What was magic to Kenny was actually students enjoying an outdoor movie projected onto the normally white billboard. During the day Kenny would checkout the blank billboard trying to figure out how to make the magic happen again. Night after night he prayed for his family and for God to show him more movies. Depending on the weather the magic movies came back. Kenny and his mom watched many movies until he fell asleep curled up on the bed next to the window.

It was during this time that Kenny got his first taste of entrepreneurial excitement when he discovered at age four that he could earn money by entertaining people. Just past the outdoor movie screen was the giant Mizzou football stadium. The roar of the crowds used to drown out even the loudest of conversations at home. The dirt and gravel walking path from the main campus to the stadium went past the barracks where Kenny lived and through a tunnel. One game day Zelda took Kenny to support the Tiger football fans passing through the barracks while wearing a cute tiger costume complete with tail and “Tiger Cub” across the chest in honor of the hometown football team. Many times the crowds would sing the Tiger fight song as they walked by and Kenny knew it well. On this day Kenny sang his heart out and high-stepped around in his Tiger Cub costume like the drum major that lead the marching band to the stadium. Kenny was rewarded by the crowd when all manner of coins were tossed his way. Kenny’s Mom had to fight off other kids and their parents to scoop up as much of the monetary bonanza as possible. Later at home his mother gleefully counted the coins which totaled over $5.

Kenny and his mother had a very tight bond, and it became stronger as they became business partners. To take advantage of the crowd returning from the football game, usually drunk, she rolled two empty 55-gallon fuel oil drums to the stadium walking path and hoisted her singing and dancing tiger cub on top. Kenny would straddle the two drums which made loud booms whenever he shifted his weight back and forth as he sang the football fight song. His mother used a butterfly net to capture most of the many coins tossed toward Kenny. At the end of the day the total amount earned was just over $25 which thankfully supplemented his family's income.

Kenny’s step-father, Bill, came home from work and was shocked to see all of the coins stacked neatly on the table. When Bill was told how the money was earned, Kenny witnessed his step-father slap his mother hard to the floor where he berated her for embarrassing their family in such a vulgar way to make money. He then grabbed Kenny by one arm, spanking him hard as the young boy was thrown onto his bedroom floor. The door was slammed shut which did nothing to drown out the yelling and screams of pain being inflicted upon Kenny’s mother. From that point the relationship between Kenny and his step-father just got worse. Bill would rarely miss an opportunity to verbally abuse Kenny with comments that he was born a failure and would always be a failure. Zelda and Kenny made a pact to keep their entrepreneurial projects a secret and would continue earning extra money performing for the crowds going to football games as well as making popcorn and selling it to students when they came to watch the outdoor movies.

Bill Steckenrider graduated with a degree in Chemical Engineering and was recruited by Allied Chemical in St. Louis, one of the largest chemical companies in the world at the time. The last thing Kenny’s mother did before going to St. Louis was to give Bill all the money Kenny and she had secretly made over the years. As usual, Bill was not happy with what Zelda had hidden from him but bought his first car with the money. The family then moved to St. Charles, MO a suburb of St. Louis. Every New Year’s Eve Bill took drunken pride in having the family watch the ball drop in Times Square because it was sponsored by Allied Chemical, which was written in lights on the big ball. Bill would make Kenny sit on the floor between his legs watching the ball drop on TV while he would make the same pronouncements year after year: “You see, I’m a success. Something you will never be.”  Kenny believed this because his mother had long ago realized it wasn’t worth the verbal and physical abuse to contradict her husband. Kenny withdrew into a world of his own and became a skinny, socially awkward little boy lacking in any positive self-esteem.

All wasn’t bad growing up at Mizzou. In Kindergarten, Kenny met Greg Connor who became his best friend and protector after an incident when an older kid tried to force Kenny to jump over a mud puddle that was too big. The bigger kid pushed Kenny into the mud while all of the witnesses cheered and laughed except Greg who pulled a crying Kenny from the muck. In quick fashion Greg kicked the older boy hard in the nuts. When the boy opened his mouth to scream, Greg spit directly into his mouth and then pushed him backward into the mud. The older boy floundered in the mud while puking his guts out. If anyone messed with Kenny, or anyone else on the playground, they answered to Greg.

Greg’s parents became close friends to the Steckenriders and when Kenny’s family moved to St. Charles, MO the Connors followed. Greg and Kenny did everything together from serving as altar boys to Cub and Boy Scouts. Greg was the Lone Ranger to Kenny’s Tonto. However, it was also Greg who recruited Kenny into a six-city pedophile ring run by Scoutmasters, Assistant Scout Masters, and Scout volunteers before Greg fried his brain with drugs given to him by the pedophiles he was sexually active with. His parents had to take care of him for the rest of his life until he died at age 66 in 2018. (See Part #2 for more info)

St. Charles, MO, is located 23 miles from downtown St. Louis on the western bank of the Missouri River. St. Charles was the starting point for the Lewis and Clark expedition and the first capitol of Missouri before it was moved to the more centrally-located Jefferson City. St. Charles was a great place to grow up, a mixture of Mark Twain’s Hannibal, MO, and TV’s “Mayberry” where Andy Griffith and his TV son Opie lived. No one locked their doors and going next door to borrow a cup of sugar was ordinary life. None of the mothers worked outside the home even though work was plentiful in the St. Louis area due to the Ford and GM auto plants as well as McDonnell Aircraft and other large corporations. Bill Steckenrider worked as a salesman for Allied Chemical but had an immense obsession to work for the one of the largest companies in the world at that time – IBM. To him, International Business Machines was where he could bathe in the esteem others felt for those who worked for Big Blue. Bill never made it to IBM but did work at computer competitor Honeywell.

NOTE: After Ken Tipton was honorably discharged from the Air Force he came back to St. Louis to work on military electronics projects at Emerson Electric. When Ken told his step-father Bill that he was wanted to work for IBM, Bill just laughed saying that if IBM wouldn’t take him, then Ken had no chance at all. A year later Ken was working for IBM. The best way to have Ken accomplish something is to tell him he can’t do it. (See Part #3 for more info)

Kenny’s mother, Zelda, loved being a mother to Kenny and now three younger step-sisters, Cheryl, Leslie, and Stephanie. After seeing a movie where Jerry Lewis has three wicked step-sisters , Bill gave Kenny the nickname of “Cinderfella” and would teased him incessantly. Zelda yearned for more to do so she became the Cub Scout den mother to Kenny and his best friend Greg Connor with Greg’s mom, Betty, as her assistant den mother. Being a den mother was fine with Bill because he had been a Scout and it went well with her station in life as the housewife that Bill demanded. Any other notions, such as a job outside the family, was a dead issue.

There was one thing that Zelda was very good at – bowling. She carried a 161 average and her bowling team was frequently the league champions. Finally she got the courage to enter a women’s bowling tournament and won with an average of 176. She was immensely proud to bring home an impressive trophy and a check for $700 which paid for seven months of house payments. Bill was not impressed and soon the drinking began which always precipitated the verbal and physical abuse of Kenny’s mother. As Bill’s darkness grew Kenny was sent into his sister’s bedroom to comfort them with stories to conceal the abuse unfolding in the living room. But this time was much worse. With each crash of furniture, plates, and beer bottles echoing down the hall, the girls would scream and cry holding on to Kenny as he held back his own tears in fear that he would be Bill’s next target as he had been countless times in the past.

Kenny thought about what he had learned in the Cub Scouts. To be brave and help others is the scared duty of each Scout and Kenny, now age 9, grabbed a baseball bat to confront his abusive step-father once and for all. Terrified, with tears flowing, he approached the living room where he heard very loud punches emanating. He turned the corner and raised the baseball bat to pummel his step-father but stopped short in sheer confusion. Bill was on the floor on his back bleeding from his mouth and nose. Both of his eyes were bloodied and massively swollen. Kenny’s mother was sitting on top of Bill, tears and blood running down her face. Zelda landed hard punches as fast as she could until she saw Kenny. She sat back and issued a stern warning to Bill that she would kill him if he ever touched her or Kenny again.

Kenny would never forget the look of utter humiliation on Bill’s face when he looked at Kenny. Zelda told Kenny to go take care of his sisters and to leave the baseball bat. As Kenny walked dumbfounded back to comfort his sisters, his mother unleashed years of physical and mental revenge on her abuser until he was unconscious. Bill spent six days in the hospital. The story told to the police was that Bill and Zelda had been beaten by an intruder which was confirmed by Kenny who never told his sisters what really happened. Bill was fine with that story rather then have people know that his wife had beaten the shit out of him because he deserved it.

There was a new sheriff in town and her name was Zelda. Any kind of abuse, be it verbal or physical, was now a thing of the past and Bill tolerated his new position, under Zelda, in their family. Unfortunately, it lasted less than one year due to Zelda becoming stricken with Multiple Sclerosis. Kenny’s world was about to crash big time.