Four Oregon kids' lives were disrupted in 1977 when their dad, Mike Fairbourne, left KGW-TV in Portland to accept a position at WCCO-TV in Minneapolis, where the weather was really serious stuff. Three Minnesota kids were to follow and were constantly reminded by their older siblings that they had no Oregon "stars upon thars", to quote Dr. Seuss's Sneetches. While Mike worked as a broadcast meteorologist, the Fairbourne clan fiddled, dramatized, vocalized, paintballed the neighbors' houses (being made to profusely apologize afterward) and shoveled snow while their dad forecast it from downtown. Some of the kids served church missions in their youth; most have married and Mike and Peggy are the proud grandparents of 14 grandchildren the youngest having been born in December while they were in Utah at the Mission Training Center.
In their spare time Mike and Peggy participated in medical missions to repair children with facial deformities in Haiti, Ghana, Venezuela and Peru. For several years following that, they helped the Hmong and Karen (Myanmar) refugees in the Twin Cities, shamelessly begging their friends, family and co-workers to assist.
Mike and Peggy have always had plans to serve a senior mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, so Mike's retirement proved the perfect time to apply. The mission will be two years of service, during which time they will hopefully get up to speed with the native speakers. They are giddy at the prospect of this new chapter in their lives.
