Laura Lamm Powell

I dated Rick during the summer of my sophmore year at S-C. A few years after graduation, we ran into each other and started seeing each other again. After about a year of seeing each other, I took a job with the Missouri Dept of Revenue in Jeff City as an Audit Clerk. Rick and I married in January 1990 and had our only child, Colten, in July of 1994.

I quit my job in December of 1993 to go back to college as a fulltime student. I graduated from SFCC with my AA in 1995, and in December 2007 I graduated from LU, in Jeff City, with my BS in Psych.

I became employed with Burrell Behavioral Health, as a Community Support Specialist in August 2009, and I enjoyed working there. I was actually at work the morning my husband called me to tell me our son had been killed in a single vehicle auto accident while on his way to school. I tried to go back to my job after a few months off, but I didn't have the heart for it anymore and resigned my position in August 2011. I took a year off work to ...I don't know...learn how to go on? In August 2012 I began working for the Clarksburg, MO C-2 School. I'm still considering what I want to do with my life now.

My husband and I started a not-for-profit corporation, after the death of our son, of which I am the secretary. The Colten Powell Memorial Scholarship Fund (CPMSF) currently assists graduating seniors from Tipton, MO high school with a scholarship to a tech school or college of their choice. Our primary fundraiser is a bow shoot we hold annually at the California, MO Shooters Club the first Sunday in June. CPMSF also sponsors one student enrolled in FFA at the Tipton High School for FFA camp.

Currently, I am also on the Board of Directors for the Moniteau Christian Ministries Center (MCMC). MCMC is in the process of building a new building to house a new food pantry and resale shop to service all of Moniteau County. The old food pantry housed by my church, California United Methodist, and Project Share, which is the current resale shop, have outgrown the buildings within which they are housed. The Mobile Food Bank truck, which also serves our area once a month, is no longer able to fully meet the needs of the population they assist, and the need for a new facility is in the process of being realized. Needless to say, I assist with a lot of fund raising for MCMC.

High School was a blur especially since my Junior and Senior years I was only there in the mornings. My AG classes were held at the college in the afternoons and I had classmates from several different schools.

I do remember choir at S-C was always fun and that I was really happy when we got Mr. Clark for a choir director. Jennie Barnes and I became best buds and were fairly inseperable. Thank God for strong friendships. Other than that I just remember running into people here and there at parties (like out on Cherry Tree Lane).