On the road back to the stage

The next time Allen Kirkham steps on stage to perform with his wife, Jill, it will have extra special meaning.
Why?
For a few hours in May, there was a question as to whether or not he would ever be able to play a guitar again, much less perform the way that has made the Kirkhams wildly popular in the Western music world.
It was May 20 when Allen was on a motorcycle ride on an otherwise normal spring day when his performing future was put in jeopardy.
Allen was part of a 60-motorcycle ride that had just left The Little White Church in Hill City, where he had just participated in that church’s annual “Biker Blessing.”
The group had just passed Mount Rushmore National Memorial on Hwy. 244 headed north toward Keystone when for reasons he still doesn’t fully understand, the rear of his bike locked up. Those behind him later told him it looked like something flew into his back tire, which seized it and his drive belt up.
Although Allen was only going 25 mph he was violently thrown to the pavement below. He was in immediate and extreme pain, and realized he had been badly injured.
As it turns out, he had a break in his left arm, had broken his right hand and had completely obliterated his left shoulder, breaking it in four places. His rotator cuff had been ripped completely off his shoulder.
As luck would have it, the woman riding behind him was a nurse. She pulled over and rushed to Allen, and in an instant a National Park Service ranger was on scene. Allen said he couldn’t move, and heard the nurse tell EMTs who arrived on scene she could not get a pulse on his left side.
EMTs made the decision to call for Life Flight, concerned the break in his arm might have severed a main artery. Luckily, that was not the case.
Also luckily, Allen had dressed in full “armor” for the ride. If not for his helmet his head would have been dragged around on the pavement. There was no damage to his legs thanks to his riding chaps, and he suffered only a little road rash on his arm where the friction from the wreck pulled his jacket sleeve up.
“I’m so glad I didn’t ride in a tank top, shorts and tennis shoes,” Allen said. “I can’t imagine how much damage there would have been had I done that.”
The damage that was done was bad enough. The damage to his shoulder was so severe the doctor at Black Hills Surgical Hospital told him his entire shoulder would need replaced and he would likely need four to six months to recover, at a minimum.
That, of course, meant the summer performing season for the Kirkhams was shot before it really began.
Jill Kirkham was just north of Custer on the drive to Hill City to meet up with the group for a cookout after the ride. Her phone rang, and someone else on the other end told her they had her husband’s phone and that he had been in an accident.
“I said, ‘Oh crap,’” Jill said. “I knew it was bad.”
She was able to talk to her husband on the phone before he was loaded into the Life Flight, however, and he assured her he was “fine.”
When Allen arrived at the Emergency Room at Monument Health Hospital in Rapid City, Ben Larson, an EMT and fireman from Hill City who is set to become senior pastor at The Little White Church, arrived and stayed with him the entire time. Allen said Larson prayed with him and kept his spirits up—just one of many angels Allen said was with him that day.
“I can’t overstress the care I got from first responders,” he said. “We believe God was there and taking care of me.”
One of those angels is Jill, who for a while literally had to do everything for her husband, as he did not have use of either hand for two months.
“All the functions you normally do with your hands ... she had to be my hands for a couple of months,” Allen said. “The good news is we are through that part now.”
Jill knows what it’s like to recover from shoulder surgery herself, having had shoulder replacement surgery a year and a half ago.
“I love my husband. I do whatever it takes,” she said. “I did everything for myself and everything for him for two months.”
Allen underwent two surgeries, one of which was on his broken hand, with that surgery completed at the Veterans Administration at Ft. Meade. There he had his hand straightened and pins inserted. His right pinky was jammed up onto the other fingers, and had it healed that way, he would have been unable to strum a guitar.
The left shoulder was repaired at the aforementioned Black Hills Surgical Hospital. The trauma surgeon there consulted with other surgeons across the country as to how to proceed with his destroyed shoulder. Had it been left as is to heal, he wouldn’t have been able to lift his arm and would have experienced pain each time he tried. The surgery was supposed to take three hours. It ended up taking five.
“(The surgeon) said it was probably the worst he had ever done, it was so messed up in there,” Jill said.
The result is reverse shoulder replacement, which put his rotator cuff on top of the humerus, where it was screwed into a bone. It was the only way to repair it so it would have a chance to function properly once more.
Needless to say, the Kirkhams had to cancel a lot of scheduled performances due to Allen’s injuries. In fact, the two say they lost between 65 and 70 gigs.
“The venues we work with were very understanding,” Allen said, saying the venue owners and managers told him to focus on getting better while adding they hoped to see him on stage again soon.
The biggest part of the season lost was in the form of Diamond Bus Tours in Rapid City, with which the Kirkhams had a contract to do supper shows three days a week through October. That gig included three to four busses a night, lots of people to entertain and was a solid contract “for life” if they so chose.
In addition, the Kirkhams are the recipient of a South Dakota Arts Council Touring Artist Grant that saw them scheduled to play at the High Plains Western Heritage Center in Spearfish. Then there was the scheduled concerts in upstate New York and the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally tour. You get the idea—the Kirkhams lost a large amount of income this summer.
That doesn’t even include their role as deejays on American Cowboy Radio, where they host a show called “Circuit Cowboy Roundup with Allen and Jill.” The two were unable to do that show for a couple of months.
Rather than replace the two, the owner and executive producer of that station reedited old shows to run for two months, while telling listeners what happened and asking for prayers for the couple.
“We felt how we were covered in prayer the way things were going,” Allen said. “We had people all over the world praying for us. There is a lot of power in prayer and we are so thankful for that.”
The two are proud to report they are back on the air and doing new shows.
As part of his physical therapy, therapists want Allen to start playing the guitar again. He has a stated goal of being able to fulfill contracts that are set for September.
“I’m supposed to show them, ‘here is what I can’t do and what I need to reach on the guitar,’” Allen said.
It’s all designed to get him ready to play.
A friend of the Kirkhams, Juan DeHoyos, sent Kirkham a three-quarter sized guitar to  use as he tries to get his skills back to where they were.
“The main thing is my strength,” Allen said, saying he has to be able to use his left arm not only to hold the guitar but to reach out to play certain chords.
“That’s what’s so weak right now,” he said. “There’s lots of work to get ready for that.”
Allen is sure his fingers will join the body parts in pain when he starts playing again, but his motivation to work hard through his trauma and recovery is to step back on stage, guitar in hand, with the woman he loves and has played music with for 44 years.
It’s safe to say that first song will be extra special, and probably even a little emotional.
“It’s a special feeling when you play your music and connect with the audience and you get that feedback,” Allen said. “It’s hard to spend a summer not doing what we love to do.”