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Face to Face: Tonganoxie’s Katy Crookham

By Shawn Linenberger - | Jun 7, 2016

Name: Katy Crookham

Born: Kansas City, Mo.

Family: Husband, Daniel; sons, Emmett, 9, who will be a fourth-grader at Tonganoxie Elementary School, Clayton, 8, who will be a TES third-grader, and Hunter, 4, who will be in pre-kindergarten at Language Lane; daughter, Riley, 6, who is going to be a TES first-grader; parents, Ed and Teri Ellis; and sister, Jeny Kooser, all of Tonganoxie.

Occupation: Owner/manager of Crookham Construction Company. Crookham and her husband also are part owners of the Tonganoxie car at Fourth and Shawnee streets and the car wash in Basehor behind Kelley’s restaurant.

Dream job as a child: Crookham recalls wanting to do a “million different things.” She once wanted to own and live on a ranch in the mountains of Montana or Colorado, but leaving Kansas turned out to not be an option.

“The group of friends we have in this town are not the type of people you can find just anywhere,” Crookham said. “Some of our closest friends today are people we have been friends with since elementary school. So we decided to stay.”

Interesting fact: Crookham is an obsessive recycler. I genuinely feel guilty if I throw something away that I normally recycle.

“My husband has even given me a hard time about bringing cardboard and other recyclables home from our trips to the lake,” she said.

She also has enjoyed hunting deer, elk and turkey since she was about 14, though it’s more difficult these days with having the four youngsters.

Digging deeper: Crookham moved to Tonganoxie with her parents and younger sister right before she started kindergarten. A 1997 Tonganoxie High School graduate, she and Daniel became good friends her sophomore year and started dating the next school year. They dated through college and got married in 2004.

She graduated in 2002 with a finance degree from Kansas State University. Crookham worked in the insurance and financial planning industry for four years before leaving to move into the construction field. She worked for her parents’ construction company managing the accounting of their company and learning more about the business side of the construction industry. In 2007, she and her husband opened Crookham Construction. As they got the company off the ground through the recession, Crookham continued to help her parents with the financial aspects of their company until 2010, when she left and went full-time for her company. Since that year, they have steadily grown the company and continued focusing on commercial construction projects all over the metro and surrounding areas.

Crookham loves to spend time with friends and family doing anything from running and volleyball to barbecues and weekend trips. The family spends some free weekends at Pomme De Terre Lake in Missouri with their kids and dog, Molly. The family also usually takes an annual ski trip to Colorado.