Rhythm of the heart

She always asked him to twirl the drumsticks for her. 

 

Looking out from behind his drum set, Shon McKee would find his wife Lisa in the crowd, as near the front as she could get. She’d raise a hand in the air and move her fingers in a twirling motion, a big smile on her face. 

 

Of course he’d oblige. Every time. 

Later, when she could no longer attend his gigs but insisted he continue performing, he’d send a text at the last second before going on stage: “Showtime. Love you.” 

 

***

Lisa’s full name was Celisa Marie Willette McKee—“Lisa Marie” because her mom was an Elvis fan. Born in Pierre in 1965, she grew up in Wyoming and joined the Army at age 17, serving on active duty from May, 1984 to May, 1992, including four years overseas during Desert Storm.

 

She retired as a Military Police Specialist with the rank of sergeant.  

Lisa later became a nurse — she was passionate about her career — and was the Chief RN for the 10th Special Forces Group at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs from February 2014 to April 2017. She had four sons, Derick, Philip, Brett and Hunter — and later, five grandchildren.

 

A whole lifetime, really, passed before she met Shon McKee. But her toughest journey hadn’t begun. Not yet.

 

While she was on a trip to Las Vegas in February of 2019,  Lisa had her first date with Shon at the Boulevard, a bar across from South Point in Las Vegas.

 

The connection was immediate for both. When Shon stepped away from the bar for a moment, Lisa told the bartender, “I’m in big trouble.” 

***

Shon was a drummer from early on, playing with toy drums and banging on walls as a kid. He was born in Sioux Falls but grew up mostly in Brookings with his parents, Bonnie Bayer-McKee (now of Sioux Falls) and Jim McKee (now of Watertown) and sisters Robin and Staci. He played drums in the high school band and graduated from BHS in 1988. 

 

After high school, Shon had big dreams, and they revolved around 1980s hard rock. “The split second I saw KISS, I thought, what is this? And whatever it is, that’s what I wanna do,” he said. He liked Van Halen, Scorpion, Bon Jovi, Poison, and other popular groups of the day and was drawn to their over-the-top performances. “Everything was big, and that to me was just an extension of KISS. Everybody was trying to mimic KISS in one fashion or another.” 

 

After a short stint in college, Shon knew he wanted to keep playing the drums, to travel and tour and grow his hair long. He teamed up with musicians in local bands like Tremor out of Sioux Falls, which toured the area in a converted school bus, and Innuendo, which expanded into the surrounding states. 

 

Then his friend Chuck Brennan said, “I’m moving to Vegas, and you’re coming with me.” 

 

It was May of 1995, and they left three days later. Shon was 25 years old. 

 

“I didn’t even take my drums. I had no idea what I was getting into,” he said.

 

About a year later, he called his mom and said he needed those drums. Bonnie had the set packed on a pallet and flown from Brookings to Las Vegas, where Shon played with the band Lazy Jane. 

 

In the coming years, he played in bars and casinos with various bands throughout the area, making connections and hoping to cross the right path to further his music career. 

 

Shon took a break from music in 2001 when his daughter Morgan was born. “I didn’t want to tour and be away from her, so I thought maybe this was the world telling me I needed to stop the music thing, get a real job, and take care of my family. So I quit playing,” he said. 

 

He had hair so long he could sit on it, but he cut it off. He didn’t hold drumsticks for six years. And he didn’t miss it; he was being a dad, spending time with Morgan and making sure she had everything she needed. Shon first worked at a car dealership and later for his friend Brennan, who founded Dollar Loan Center in Las Vegas. 

 

Years later, when Morgan was six or seven, a guy approached Shon at a bar and said, “Aren’t you a drummer?”

 

“I said, ‘I used to be, but I don’t play anymore,’” Shon said. 

 

The guy needed a substitute drummer, and Shon decided since Morgan wasn’t a baby anymore, it was time to get back to music part-time. He later performed with Highwire in Las Vegas and even had a chance to watch KISS rehearse—and even better, play with them—through Brennan’s connections. 

 

“People told me it was really good, so I thought, okay, I need to take this seriously. I need to get back into this. I started playing with anybody I could,” Shon said. 

 

Shon also became friends with Danny “The Count” Koker, a fellow musician and owner of Count’s Kustoms in Las Vegas, and performed in Koker’s band, Count 77. That’s where Sebastian Bach — of Skid Row and Gilmore Girls fame, depending on your age — saw him and invited him to play and tour with his band. His music career seemed to be back on the rise, and he embraced it. He’d never had marriage in his sights and enjoyed getting back into the music scene. 

 

Then he met Lisa in February of 2019.

 

***

After that first date with Shon, Lisa went home to Colorado but soon came back for a visit.

 

“I remember her standing in my kitchen, and I glanced over, and everything at that moment seemed right in the world,” Shon said. “I thought, ‘That’s the person that’s supposed to be standing in my house.’” 

 

They decided Lisa would relocate to Las Vegas.

 

She loved music; her tastes ranged from AC/DC to Taylor Swift, but she’d never dated a musician before. Shon brought out her artsy side, helping her to see things she’d never noticed before. They both added songs to a shared playlist that still exists today.

 

Lisa was adamant about Shon pursuing a music career. She told him she would have worked as a nurse seven days a week if she could, so she encouraged Shon to quit his day job and pursue music full time. Lisa told him, “This is you. This is what you have to keep doing.” He followed her advice and left his day job.

 

Shon and Lisa were married in August of 2019 and got the keys to their new house one week before the COVID-19 pandemic shut everything down. They settled into their new life together without a clue what lay ahead. 

***

On April 14, 2021, Lisa was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis — ALS — a progressive disease that destroys the nerve cells that control voluntary muscle movement, eventually affecting a person’s ability to walk, speak, eat and breathe. 

 

ALS has no cure and is widely regarded as one of the cruelest neurological diseases, progressively trapping many patients inside bodies that no longer respond to their commands. It is often described as relentless. A death sentence. Imprisonment within one’s own body. ALS gradually steals muscle function while leaving a person’s mind largely intact. 

 

The disease had given Lisa signs of its approach for a few years, once she looked back. She’d twist her ankle while walking or lose her balance riding her mountain bike. As a nurse on the night shift, she was walking down a quiet hall with a colleague who noticed Lisa’s foot slapping against the floor when she walked. 

 

After a couple of misdiagnoses, the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Ariz., saw Lisa for a series of evaluations that led to an ALS diagnosis in April 2021. Shon said the disease had been on their minds for quite some time, so they knew the diagnosis was likely. But it was still a shock.

 

“Her neurologist at Mayo went through the test results and very matter-of-factly said we feel confident that we can officially diagnose you with ALS,” he said. “I can’t remember the next couple minutes. The room went black, dark, and I just didn’t hear anything. Then I came to, and they were talking, nurse to doctor. I interrupted and said, ‘Wait a minute, stop. That’s it? You’re just gonna blurt that out and then start talking shop?’”

Both Shon and Lisa wondered if her military service caused her to develop ALS. According to the ALS Association, research has found military veterans to be at higher risk of dying from ALS than if they had not served. In 2008, the VA decided to establish a “presumption of service” connection for veterans diagnosed with ALS, acknowledging that the disease among veterans was either caused or aggravated by their service. 

 

Lisa wanted to tell her four sons about her diagnosis in person, so they traveled to her home state of Wyoming, where other family members also lived. Lisa’s goal was to hike to a waterfall her family had always loved and have a picnic before discussing her medical situation.

 

Shon said he was worried about her making the hike, but Lisa told him, “One way or another, I’m gonna figure it out.” The trek proved to be a challenge both physically and emotionally, but she did it. 

 

Shon described Lisa as a warrior as the disease progressed. “She was strong the whole time. She was everybody’s rock.” 

 

Lisa never lost her voice or cognitive function, but she became paralyzed and later needed a feeding tube and oxygen. She didn’t want to be a burden.

 

 “She told me, ‘This isn’t what you signed up for.’ I never looked at it that way. I told her, ‘What are you talking about? I will never leave you.’”

 

Shon, with help from family and close friends, took care of Lisa as she endured the later stages of ALS. “I had no medical training and no idea what it involves to take care of somebody like that. It’s like having an adult infant—they can talk to you, but that’s the end of it. She was exhausted by daily activities like showering and getting back to the bed. Every little piece of energy she had left was gone,” Shon said. “ALS is worse than any other disease out there. With cancer, you might be able to have treatments—you have a fighting chance. This is just a death sentence.” 

 

ALS destroys the very rhythm of one’s body — the thing a drummer is always trying to establish and maintain. But Shon couldn’t fix this. As a drummer, he knew how to keep time. But ALS knew how to steal it.

 

Since Lisa was adamant that Shon continue his music career even as the disease progressed, he accepted gigs whenever he could. But he chose to leave his band, Crashing Wayward, which he’d joined at the start of the pandemic, and stopped touring with Bach’s band when Lisa became too ill. He wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. 

 

Each night, especially in her final weeks, Shon sat at her bedside. The TV was usually on, but one night he decided they should play music instead. 

 

“Her last few days, when she was kind of not there anymore, I said enough with the TV. Let’s put some music on. I reshuffled her playlist so the crazy hard rock stuff was not there and just had more calming music playing,” he said. 

 

A favorite song on Lisa’s playlist was “A Thousand Years” by Christina Perri, with its message about being devoted to someone — devotion that lasts far beyond ordinary measures of time.

 

“That last night, every time that song came around, I’d get down close to her and sing it to her,” Shon said. 

Lisa died at age 60 on July 11, 2025.

 

The family paid tribute to her in a memorial service in Wyoming, complete with military honors and a Nursing Honor Guard.

 

Shon was left stunned and broken but determined to move forward, to honor her memory, and to do what she asked: continue his music career. 

 

***

Now, some days are better than others, Shon says. But music is still part of his life, as Lisa hoped.

“They say music soothes you, but to me, music is emotional, and that’s what I do for a living, so I’m forced to get emotional,” he said. “But then I think, this is what I do … and this is what she wants me to do.”

 

Tonight, Shon will take the stage as part of a Las Vegas show called Ikons of Rock at the Hard Rock Café. He’s subbing for someone, as he often does these days, at this point still unsure of a more permanent path in the music industry. 

 

He has occasionally texted Lisa’s phone over the past 11 months out of sadness and habit; perhaps tonight he will also look into the crowd, searching for her, and twirl his drumsticks as the lights come on and the show begins.