Kenneth Lay: From humble beginnings to humbling corporate collapse

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HOUSTON — Kenneth Lee Lay built the tower of his life brick by brick.

Lay spent his childhood in the tiny Missouri town of Rush Hill, the middle child and only son of a homemaker and a Baptist preacher and salesman. "We had no money, but I don't remember us being so poor that we didn't have food," said Sharon Lay, his younger sister. "My mother may have shopped for 39-cents-a-yard fabric, but by God, we had new clothes."

By the time he was 12, Kenneth Lay was doing his share, driving a tractor, juggling paper routes and painting houses.

Neither parent had gone to college, but they were determined their kids would. They talked about politics and public policy at the dinner table and encouraged the kids to become involved.

Omer Lay was a relentless optimist, a trait his son inherited, and one that may have led to his undoing last fall, older sister Bonnie Bourne said. "Sometimes we don't see the things we need to see," she said. "When we were young, the car wouldn't be working and we'd say, 'Oh well, it'll work tomorrow.' We all assumed everything would be OK tomorrow. I'm sure he's going through a lot of self-examination."

In the late '50s, the Lays moved to Columbia, Mo., so the children could attend the University of Missouri and live at home. Kenneth Lay put himself through school painting houses and earning some scholarships. Friends, professors and his first wife, Judy, remember him as a top student, ambitious and focused on economics.

Lay graduated Phi Beta Kappa with honors in 1964 and earned a master's degree a year later. He headed to Houston to work for Exxon, and in 1966, he married Judy Ayers, who had sat in front of him in French class. He earned his doctorate in economics at the University of Houston while there.

He left Exxon for a brief Navy stint in the Vietnam era, then worked in Washington for a former professor at the Federal Power Commission. By the mid-'70s, Lay had returned to the corporate world — where his rise was swift and lucrative.