Kenneth L. McBride was born in Burley, Idaho on Jan. 8, 1928. He grew up in Burley and graduated from Burley High School in 1946. He then enrolled at BYU for three years and then decided to go on an LDS Church mission. He was sent to Brazil and served as mission secretary and assistant to the mission president for one year. He then was asked to open the city of Belo Horizonte along with another mission companion. He worked there for three months and then became district president in the beautiful city of Rio de Janeiro, which he enjoyed very much. After this assignment the mission president called him back to Sao Paulo to be editor of the mission magazine. At that time Brazil had one mission, no temples and several branches. Sao Paulo had about four million people. Sao Paulo now has 20 million people. At the present time in the country of Brazil there are 27 Brazilian missions and seven temples.

At the conclusion of his mission, he and a few other missionaries were allowed to travel home by way of Uruguay and Argentina and fly over the Andes Mountains to Chile, then Peru, Bolivia, Columbia and Panama. He met his parents in Houston, Texas.

Upon arrival home he returned to BYU and got his Bachelor’s degree in education. While still at BYU, he met and married Janice Wilson of Centerville in the Salt Lake Temple in August, 1953. During the Korean War he was drafted into the Army and spent 22 months at Fort Lewis, Washington in classification and assignment which he enjoyed very much. Ken accepted a job teaching junior high in Hanford, Calif., and received his Master’s degree at California State University in Fresno, Calif. while living in Hanford. He next taught in San Jose, Calif. After seven years in California he moved his wife and three children back to Utah to raise their family there. He started teaching at Boulton Elementary and after two years was selected to be a principal and worked in that capacity for 27 years at the following Davis County Schools: Centerville Elementary, Orchard Elementary, Bountiful Elementary (for 11 years) and Valley View Elementary. He opened East Layton Elementary and also later opened Lucille Reading Elementary in Centerville. In 1979 he was elected president of the Davis Elementary Principals’ Association. He retired in 1988 and worked for Coldwell Bankers for a short time. He enjoyed volunteering and was able to serve as a guide at Pioneer Village at Lagoon for two years, a guide for the Utah Heritage Foundation at the Devereaux House and a service mission with Janice to Family Search in Salt Lake City. They were also able to serve together at the Museum of Church and Art as a docent at the desk and in the store for many years. They were able to serve a full-time mission at the historical sites in St. George.

Ken also volunteered at the Salt Lake Visitors’ Center in Salt Lake City for 17 years.

He and his wife are the parents of two boys and four girls, 19 grandchildren and eight and one-half great-grandchildren. They are currently living in Centerville in the Centerville Commons and enjoy their many great neighbors there.