Ken Huibregtse, who helped launch a program to bring children from Yelsk, Belarus to Colorado, died at his Pinewood Springs home on Sept. 25. He was 85.
Huibregtse and his wife, Elizabeth Huibregtse, with the help of volunteers, donors and host families, brought hundreds of children to Colorado for several weeks in the summer.
The children, ranging in age from 7 to 14, had been affected by the Cherynobyl nuclear accident. They not only got to see museums, the zoo and the mountains, they received medical and dental care while in Colorado.
The couple also founded a program to bring doctors from the same area to spend a month in Colorado observing local doctors.
The Colorado Children of Chernobyl, part of a national movement, involved seven kids the first year, in 1996, and later from 23 to 26 children came to Colorado each year, said Elizabeth Huibregtse. The program closed in 2002 for economic reasons, she said.
“I think the trips (here) were a highlight of the kids’ lives,” said Phil Hughes of Castle Pines, son of Elizabeth.
“Thousands of lives (including donors and sponsors) have been affected by these positive contacts,” he said.
The Huibregtses made so many trips to Russia that some of the children began “adopting” them as grandparents, calling them Babushka (grandmother) and Dedushka (grandfather), Elizabeth Huibregtse said.
Kenneth Wayne Huibregtse was born in Grand Rapids, Mich., on May 9, 1923, and studied mechanical engineering at Central College in Pella, Iowa, and Iowa State University in Ames.
While in the Army he worked with the space program in Huntsville, Ala.
After the Army, he did drafting for Bendix Co. in Indiana, RCA in Massachusetts and Honeywell in Colorado.
Before retiring in 1991, he was a technical illustrator for Hewlett-Packard in Loveland.
He married Elizabeth Hughes in 1975. In addition to his wife and stepson, he is survived by three sons, Ken Ray Huibregtse of Omaha, Randy Huibregtse of Brush Prairie, Wash., and Steve Huibregtse of Irvine, Calif.; another stepson, Ralph Hughes of Tigard, Ore.; a stepdaughter, Rachel Stasser of Goodland, Kan.; and two sisters, Joyce Kuyper of Pella and Ellen Severin of Carroll, Iowa.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
This article has been corrected in this online archive. Originally, due to a reporting error, it misspelled the town of Tigard, Ore. Also, the children who visted Denver were from Yelsk, Belarus. They had been affected by the Chernobyl nuclear accident.
