Christ Community Covenant Church

Ken and Debi Nelson

Our congregation has been blessed with many remarkable and talented people. Charter members since our beginning in 1988, Ken and Debi Nelson are no exception

Born August 12, 1953 in Steamboat Springs, Deborah Jane Wheeler grew up on a nearby cattle ranch with her parents Marjorie and Orell Wheeler, one sister (Jacque), and two half sisters (Delores and Penny). Two adopted brothers (Dan and Terry) became part of the family and dozens of foster siblings that would number more than 100 over a period of 40 years. The Wheeler’s was often the last chance for trouble teens or an opportunity for those coming right out of lockup.

It was a good life on the ranch where Debi’s days revolved around family, animals, and especially horses. There were chores – house cleaning, gardening, and milking cows, but everyone pitched in and did their part. Debi and her sisters still found plenty of time to ride their horses all over the property and adjoining ranches in the summer, sled down the hill and help feed the cattle with the hay sled pulled by Belgian team horses in the winter. 4-H Club was a important part of her life as well and over the years Debi raised and showed horses, cows, and sheep at the county fair and trained horses to earn spending money.

In 1968 Debi started her secondary education at Steamboat Springs High School and found many opportunities to use her gifts and talents. She played the base clarinet in the band (and marching band), and sang in the choir. An accomplished pianist, she accompanied school choirs as well as ballet students at the Perry Mansfield Performing Arts studio. Debi participated in speech competitions all four years of high school, and in 1970, was the Routt County Rodeo Queen. Active in church, one of her favorite activities was singing with a quartet that sang in rural areas and small churches in northwestern Colorado.

After graduating from high school in 1971, Debi attended the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley where she was a music major. She rented nearby pastureland for her horse which gave her the opportunity to ride whenever time allowed. In March of 1973, her sophomore year, Debi’s roommate dropped a contact lens down their sink. Desperate to find it, she asked a young man who lived in the same building if he had a crescent wrench she could borrow. He did and – in fact – retrieved the missing lens from the sink overflow for them. That was Debi’s introduction to Ken Nelson and he didn’t waste any time getting to know her better. They were engaged by April, and married on August 18th!

Before Kenneth Belden Nelson was born on September 22, 1950 in Farmington, Minnesota, his parents, Kenneth M. and Geraldine (Jean) Nelson, farmed corn and wheat, and raised some cattle, a few dairy cows, and sometimes turkeys on their 320 acres just two miles north of town. Ken likes to say that he was the 5th of four planned children which included his siblings Barbara, Harold, Lois, and Carol. The day Jean found out she was expecting him the family’s barn burned to the ground with all of their farm animals, equipment, cars, and food freezers inside. It was a devastating blow as there were no insurance policies to cover the losses. Fortunately, Ken’s father also had a gravel pit on his acreage that provided income, and he was able to secure a bank loan to continue farming.

The family stayed on the farm until 1956. Ken enjoyed helping out where he could at a young age and loved playing with his dogs, a blind Collie named King, (an amazing dog that knew the farm yard by heart) and a Scottie dog named Rex (which means “King” in French). One of Ken’s earliest memories was at the age of four when he recalls falling off a corn elevator and hitting a tire which broke his fall.

In 1956 Ken’s dad sold most of the farm but kept the gravel pit and some adjoining open ground where he built some homes. At the tender age of six Ken helped his dad build one of the houses that the family moved into once the farm was sold. Within a couple of years the family had built and moved into two more homes, staying in the last one for the next 11 years. Ken was eight years old at the time and became the most popular kid in the neighborhood when his folks built a 100’x 50‘ concrete block swimming pool in their yard. He recalls that people would stop and drop off their kids to go swimming, some of whom they didn’t even know.

When Ken started third grade he was one of a group of children handpicked from all those attending 3rd and 4th grade to be a part of a special “college prep” class (now known as “gifted and talented”) with one teacher taking the group through several years of school. It was a successful program that encouraged children to excel. Ken noted that all those who participated went on to graduate from college.

Ken started high school in 1966, developed a love for math, and began to hone his drafting skills. He played the coronet and BB Flat Bass in the band (and marching band), but found a series of after -school jobs that left no time for sports. His dad had built a strip mall and Ken helped out doing janitorial work for 25 cents an hour cleaning bathrooms and sweeping hallways. During those years, besides helping his dad with construction projects, he also worked in a greenhouse, a restaurant, a fast food chicken stand as a prep cook, and in a factory where they made kid’s pajamas. The factory let him bring the left over ends of the fabric bolts home where his mom taught him to make quilts.

In 1969 Ken’s mom and dad moved to Colorado and built a home in Golden that Ken designed. He arrived in town ahead of them just in time to see the moon landing! That fall he went off to school at UNC in Greeley majoring in Industrial Arts Technology. He took drafting classes in college and mentored several fellow students which caught the eye of the Dean of the School of Arts. He recommended Ken for a position with H & S Steel Buildings, but it was Ken’s skills in drafting and construction that got him the job. Because of his experience the owner kept him in the office doing drawings and answering questions coming in from the work sites which earned him a whopping $3.22 per hour when minimum wage was only 95 cents an hour!

Ken met Debi in March, was engaged in April, and graduated in June, 1973. He had been a member of the ROTC all four years of college, so after he and Debi were married in August, they were stationed at Mather Air Force Base in Sacramento, CA where he trained to be a navigator on T-29 aircraft, and later KC-135’s. As part of his cross training Ken took survival training at Fairchild AFB in Spokane, WA, and water survival at Homestead AFB in Florida. In 1974 he and Debi moved to Wright Patterson AFB near Dayton, Ohio where he received orders to go to Vietnam. He was ready to go when his orders were canceled due to the retirement of the 17th Bomb Wing which had been known as Dolittle’s Raiders from WWII.

Ken was re-stationed to Fairchild AFB in Spokane and he and Debi were able to settle down for a few years. Ken designed a house that they built off-base on five acres of land. During this time their first child, Jonathan, was born on March 25, 1978. Ken was discharged from the service in 1979 and they returned to Arvada where Ken started his own business (Ken B. Nelson Company) designing and building homes. Their second son, Matthew, was born on December 10, 1979, and daughter Rachel followed a few years later on July 24, 1983.

Ken’s father had purchased a fair amount of land in Arvada and developed the property at about 72nd and Kipling where Ken and Debi moved into a home that his sister and brother-in-law had built. Their second daughter, Rebecca, was born soon after on December 3, 1984. Debi was a busy stay-at-home mom doing in-home child care for 10 years starting in 1985. During that time she was the president of the Jefferson County Child Care Association for two years, and while the children were young, she coordinated the MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) group for Arvada Covenant for two years. When the children were older there were always school and sporting events to attend. They juggled baseball, Westernaires, (a riding drill team), and volleyball schedules. In the early ’90’s Debi started facilitating trainings for child care at Red Rocks Community College on weekends.

1989 was a difficult year for the family. Ken fell off a building he was working on and suffered a traumatic brain injury. He credits his brother-in-law, who got to him within a couple of minutes, with saving his life. Ken was in a coma for two weeks and, when he regained consciousness, he had to learn to talk, walk, and speak again. He spent three months as an out-patient of Craig Rehabilitation Hospital and was able to accomplish almost full rehabilitation without the use of pain medication or any major after effects. He and Debi will be forever grateful for all the help they received from 4 C’s and Arvada Covenant members who drove him to and from rehab appointments for many weeks and for the many people here and overseas that prayed for his recovery.

During those difficult months when Ken was unable to work Debi kept things going doing childcare. Over the next couple of years Ken recovered enough to begin doing small jobs including his first project remodeling part of a bus barn for Mary Zuschlag. Ken had designed the layout for the 4C’s worship space when the congregation took over the grocery store on Ralston Road in 1988, and he also designed the east side relocation in our building on 82nd and Simms. Ken is still doing remodels, additions, and has started building furniture and other beautiful wood pieces just for fun in his well stocked workshop. Until recently, Debi always had a horse and spent time riding but is now spending more time in the yard and garden and with their three grandchildren.

Seven years ago, when the housing bubble burst, Ken and Debi suffered some difficult financial reversals and lost their home. But God had a plan and with His help, and that of family and friends, they are back on track and back in their home.

In 1991 Debi went back to school at Colorado Christian University where she received her Bachelor of Arts in Management of Human Resources in 1993. She stopped doing in-home child care in 1995 and worked until 2011 at Child Care Innovations at Red Rocks Community College. In 2011 Debi started working at Clayton Early Learning Institute, a non-profit organization in Denver. She is an Instructional coach and trainer for early childhood programs in the Denver area. She loves the variety her job offers working with people in different situations and locations.

Both Ken and Debbie accepted the Lord as their Savior as children, Ken – along with his mother and sister – in 1958, and Debi when she was five after a Sunday school class. They have always felt His presence in their lives and know He answered those many prayers offered on Ken’s behalf after his accident. Because of their personal experiences the couple believes that our church motto should be, “Christ Community Covenant, where miracles are the norm” after witnessing many miracles among our members, including Ken’s, throughout the years. If Ken could offer any words of wisdom they would be, “God’s plan happens while we’re trying to make our own plans”. He and Debi wouldn’t have it any other way.