To find Ken Neve on the job was to spot him standing at the intersections of Denver’s busiest streets, a client standing trustingly at his side.
A longtime employee of the Colorado Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, Neve’s nearly three-decade career as a mobility instructor for the visually impaired only begins to characterize a man “who found joy by giving people a reason to continue life with dignity and pride.”
“He came in every day like it was his first day on the job. He would work with people whose entire world had narrowed down to the size of their house,” said Susan Emmerling, a longtime friend and co-worker. “They literally wouldn’t leave their house … and he gave them their world back.”
Kenneth Edward Neve died June 25 in North Platte, Neb. He was 55.
After graduating from the University of Northern Iowa, Neve, the youngest of four children, struggled to find a teaching job, so he sought an opportunity at a sight-seeing school on the recommendation of his brother, Doug.
“He just loved the kids he worked with that were struggling with vision problems, and I can remember the principal at the time pulling him aside and telling him that with the way he enjoyed these kids, he might as well go get his master’s degree. … And so he did,” Doug Neve said.
For 29 years, Ken Neve worked with people with low vision or vision loss, teaching them to use canes to navigate their surroundings. The brunt of his work focused on teaching his students to orient themselves to wherever they were and focus on mobility to get from place to place.
“Imagine being blind and crossing a major street — it’s terrifying every day. But as long as you were willing to work at it, he would stay there with you until you were confident,” Emmerling said. “He was the man all men should want to be.”
Bob Kitchens, a blind paraplegic who worked with Neve for nearly a year, said he was “one of his favorite instructors of all time,” calling him an “unstoppable object” — nothing deterred him once his mind was set.
“It was the first time in his career that he had to deal with a blind individual in a wheelchair, and so he had to train himself. But he didn’t assume that he knew everything, and that was so cool,” Kitchens said. “So he worked with someone who understood wheelchairs so he could train me. It was way outside the box. That’s just how he was. Well, this is a problem, so how do I solve it?”
Kitchens said classes with Neve were “always the classes you wanted to go to,” despite often being considered more challenging.
“You’re in dangerous situations, and you have to rely solely on your guide,” Kitchens said. “Literally, my life was in his hands the whole time. You don’t think about it until you think about it. … But as frustrating as it gets and as scary as it gets, he knows how to deal with it. He’s not just the mobility guru; he has to be half shrink too. He gets where you’re coming from even though he hadn’t been there.”
Although the entirety of Neve’s career centered on improving the lives and circumstances of others who may be hurting, his skills were never so needed as they were among his immediate family following the death of his mother, Rosie Neve, on June 20.
“Ken had a way, in almost every setting, of making people just feel good. He made our time of grieving very special, very light, by helping us through that grieving process. He could just take life situations and find a way to make people just feel better,” his brother said.
Ken Neve is survived by his wife, Deseire; his children,Travis and Dylan; his stepchildren, Nicole and A.J.; his father, Wayne; his siblings, Doug and Cindy; and his nephews and nieces.
He was preceded in death by his mother, Rosie, and a brother, Denny.
A service will be at 11 a.m. Tuesday at the Cherry Hills Christian Community Church in Highlands Ranch.
