Ken Mumy has always worked hard to bring people together in pursuit of shared successes and higher goals.
The self-described “farm kid from Kalamazoo” has been horseback since childhood. He met his future wife, Maryellen, at a Michigan State University student horse show, and they went on to share the lifestyle with their three children.
“There’s no better way to instill the right goals and values than raising your kids with American Quarter Horses,” Ken says.
One of Ken’s earliest projects was convincing seven different horse show managements, all with personal agendas and prejudices, to give up their local show sites, change their dates and move to Berrien Springs to begin a circuit that has been thriving for more than 35 years and is now part of the Powers pleasure futurity and show circuit – still in Berrien.
The lifelong horseman and Quarter Horse exhibitor began his service to AQHA on a national level when he joined the membership services committee in 1993 and became a member of the board of directors in 1996. He takes special pride in his work as part of the team that instituted and implemented the affiliate agreements – providing a legal basis for and further enhancing AQHA’s working relationship with the states.
During Ken’s last two years on the Executive Committee, longtime AQHA Executive Vice President Bill Brewer retired. The process of transitioning the management of the organization was one of the biggest challenges of his tenure. Reinvigorating the competition and prestige for the AQHA Champion award was also a major goal for the 2008-09 president of AQHA.
Today, Ken and Maryellen continue to raise Quarter Horses, with the goal of showing their own homebreds and getting back into the arena.
“Being part of the Executive Committee and then president has confirmed what I always knew,” Ken said in his closing speech. “Those of us who feed, breed, touch, ride, drive, cheer for and love our American Quarter Horses every day share a common bond.”
Ken Mumy was inducted into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame in 2014.
Biography updated as of March 2014.