Our long-time Premier Sponsor Lorena Kennedy, passed away last February in her home in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. A cousin (second cousin once-removed) of Cliff Turnbull, she was a mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and businesswoman of 43 years, and was a caregiver for her mother, Pearl Roediger, until Pearl’s death in 2013 at the age of 106.
Lorena and her husband founded Red Ball Oxygen Co. Inc. in 1969 and built it from a local 8-person operation in Shreveport to its current operation serving customers in 6 states and employing 162 people. Red Ball Oxygen supplies a variety of industrial, medical, and other bottled gases to numerous markets.
Lorena dedicated her sponsorship to her mother Pearl. Pearl was born in Kansas in 1906, and survived two World Wars, the Great Depression and now the Great Recession. She was born in a world where the only cars on the road were owned by rich people, there was no electricity in houses in rural America, the Wright Brothers got their first patent, women couldn't vote, zippers hadn't been invented, there were no ballpoint pens, no penicillin, and football's forward pass had just been legalized.
Lorena lived a fruitful and productive life, and has chosen to share some of her rewards with the Croix Chordsmen. We continue to benefit from her gifts to us; proceeds from the investment of the money she shared are used for music development of high school-aged youth in various activities.
