About

My name is Paul Henderson and I live in Moab, Utah - is that enough?

Okay - I was born in Logan, Utah in 1956 and my family moved to Washington state in 1958 - first to Puyallup and then to Tacoma in 1961. I had a perfectly perfect Boomer upbringing - in my family of four; mom and dad who were members of the greatest generation and my sis and I who are proud boomers. I attended Wainwright Elementary School, Hunt Junior High, and Woodrow Wilson High School where I managed to graduate in 1974. My family was solidly middle class thanks to the hard work of both my parents - my mother taught elementary school (mostly first grade for 41 years) and my dad taught Washington State history and geography (junior high) but his real love was working as a Park Ranger at Mt. Rainer National Park from the early 60s to 1985.

I attended Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington - although I’m so old that it was still Western Washington State College when I started (1974) - I spent several years steeped in deep academic pursuits and performing groundbreaking original research - okay - those first few years I was pretty much majored in parties - eventually earning a Bachelor’s degree nearly seven years later.

In 1975 I began working for the National Park Service - first as just a summer gig but they could never successfully get rid of me and I retired 39 years later in 2014. In 1983 I met the love of my life, my dear wife Betsy - she who must be obeyed - and somehow she has managed to tolerate me ever since. We married in 1985 and have produced two wonderful kids - our son Cooper was born in 1988 and his sister Hailey came along in 1991. 

Our adventures in the National Parks have taken us on a huge tour of the western United States - we’ve lived in Idaho, Washington, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon and finally landed in Moab, Utah some 20+ years ago - what a ride - we’ve lived in many places that most folks only get to visit while on vacation - sounds great, huh? Well - for the most part it was.

In the fall of 2013 I was diagnosed with Stage IV, inoperable prostate cancer and was not given a very cheery prognosis - well screw that. I entered a clinical trial at the Huntsman Cancer Institute in Salt Lake City - only to flunk out a year later. Best part of that though is that my team at Huntsman is superb, my medical oncologist is a rock star - and so far I am defying all the odds.

So there it is - my life story so far - “but wait” the guy on TV selling something or other shouts - “there’s more” - yes, indeed there is!

peace be with you - Hendo