The Perfect Match
The odds of a couple falling in love and being a match
for a kidney transplant are Ken and Janie Davis
MARCH 2016
PA R K E R C O U N T Y T O D AY
BY TYLER MASK
Ken Davis’ mother died from
polycystic kidney disease. In 1981,
before her passing, he knew he had
inherited the same slow-to-develop,
fatal disease. But in August last year,
when time was running out, someone
stepped in to donate a kidney. That
someone was his wife Janie, the
perfect match.
Ken and Janie were born and
raised in Hobbs, NM, but the two
never crossed paths during their
youth, as they were aged four years
apart.
Close in size to Weatherford,
Janie said, “It was a big enough town
that you didn’t necessarily know
each other if you weren’t in the same
church or the same school.”
Upon graduating high school in
1976, Ken moved to Texas to attend
Baylor University. Two years later,
following a change in major and
needing to be closer to home to tend
to his family, he transferred to Texas
Tech University in Lubbock.
“Baylor didn’t have an
engineering program and both my
mom and dad were very sickly,” Ken
said. “My dad had had a stroke when
I was 2. … By the time I was [in]
college [he] was disabled and staying
home. My mom had polycystic
kidney disease, which is what I
ended up with. I inherited it from her.
So, I made the decision that I wanted
to be an engineer, and the closest
engineering school to Hobbs was in
Lubbock at Tech.”
Similar to her now husband,
Janie’s mind was first set on a private
college in Texas, Hardin Simmons
University. One month before school
began; however, she decided on
Tech instead.
“I had a scholarship at one
school and everything had to start
completely over,” she said. “It was
crazy. … It was kinda cool, because
26
you think about [Tech], that’s where we met at. Not that we couldn’t have met
at Hobbs, but God kind of rerouted our plan.”
Although Janie had never heard of Ken, through mutual friends and visiting
his high school alma mater where she cheered at basketball games, he laid
eyes on her before she ever arrived at Tech.
“I had actually started asking about her, and my roommate’s now wife and
fiancée at the time was her best friend,” Ken said. “So, I started asking about
her. It’s a funny story because I asked about her, and Deedee, who is this
girl, her high school best friend, told her she heard that I was interested. I was
starting to check around about her. She said don’t date him. He’s a love ‘em
and leave ‘em kind of guy. I wasn’t, it just was Deedee.”
Ken ended up going around Deedee and went to another friend who’s
now wife was a cheerleader with Janie. The connection he needed — the two
landed him a date at a Tech game.
It was a different time then, and maybe not for the better, Janie said, as
her fashion the night she met Ken was laughable. To make matters worse, she
didn’t know a thing about football.