ASCENT’s Program Manager Carl Perkins Loses Battle with Cancer

By Bridget Bauer

For 27 years, ASCENT Recovery Residences’ Program Director Carl Perkins has been a part of Executive Director Teddy Steen’s life. Perkins lost his year-long battle with an aggressive cancer April 10.

“What am I going to do?” Steen said. “I was like his bossy older sister, and now I can’t call and yell at him. I just can’t imagine my life without Carl. He has been by my side for 27 years of my life.”

Steen first met Perkins in 1996 when he was in her group and was her client when she worked at Family Recovery Services. Even though he ended up in prison for a couple of years, she stayed connected with him by mail and sent him weekly sermons from her church.

“I saw something in him, and he was very talented,” she said. “He played the guitar, was very bright and had vast knowledge of the Bible. When he was released from prison, he became a full-time father to three of his children and was determined to give them a good life. He also obtained a GED and resumed his commitment to his faith and became a very active member of his church.”

Enrolling in Missouri Southern State University at the age of 38, Perkins graduated in 2011 with a B.A. in sociology. In 2017, he obtained a master’s in social work from Missouri State University. He eventually became second in command at ASCENT, which led to becoming the program director. He was also trained in EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy and was setting up an office at the Recovery Outreach Community Center (ROCC) to provide counseling and trauma therapy at no charge to people in recovery until his diagnosis put that on hold.

“I told him to major in psychology or sociology, and when I got my recovery house, he could come work for me,” Steen said. “It was a few years until that happened, but on day one, in 2008, he was a part of ASCENT. At first, he volunteered and has done wonders at ASCENT. The lives he touched and helped transform are numerous and most of them give Carl much of the credit for that change.”

What endeared Perkins to Steen also annoyed her. Because he was so intelligent, he had to have full knowledge of every detail of situations. That was the opposite of the spontaneous Steen.

“He was one of a kind, such a man of faith and so bright,” Steen said. “His thought processes really made you think. He would infuriate me and hung up on me many times because he didn’t want to talk anymore about what we were talking about.”

In May 2022, Perkins was diagnosed with stage 4 Intrahepatic Cholangiocarcinoma, a cancer in the bile ducts and liver. Until his hospital stay the last two weeks of his life, he didn’t take pain pills during his journey with the cancer.

“He was so courageous in his battle, and that is how I would like to be if facing death,” Steen said. “He knew from day one what the prognosis was and that he was facing death. He said ‘if God wants me to live, I live. If His will is not, then I won’t.’”

Steen’s last visit with Perkins was in the hospital a few days before he died. She was talking to him, and she asked if he could hear her.

“I can hear you,” he answered.