Kes

Kes (real name Michelle Szetela; born February 23, 1976) is a former furry who lives in Utah, U.S.A. While still active on AnthroChat, she has not attended any furry conventions since Anthrocon 2001.

Kes was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania to Thomas, a high school math teacher, and Angela, a high school German teacher. She has one brother, Justin, who has since moved to San Francisco. Kes moved several times while living in the Lehigh Valley, moving to Coopersburg in 1978 and Emmaus in 1988 (she would graduate from Emmaus High School in 1994). She attended Lehigh Carbon Community College, and received an Associate of Arts in 1998. She later moved to Allentown, Pennsylvania, sharing a rented house with a transient and changing group of other furs before moving to Long Island in June 2001. She attended Stony Brook University and graduated in May 2007 with a degree in English and secondary teacher certification.

Kes was introduced to YiffNet in 1996 by Chad "Wildwolf" Laubach, a friend from junior high and high school; she initially took the fursona of a tiger. She would later morph into a variety of other Fursonas until in 1998 she finally settled on that of Kestrel Raccoon. She was actively involved in the furry community insofar that while she was not an artist or fursuiter, she attended ConFURence East in 1996, Mephit FurMeet in 1999, and Anthrocon in 1997, 1998, 1999, 200, and 2001, as well as various local events such as camping in 1999 and the DooDah Parade in 2000.

In 2011 she married and moved to Utah, where she teaches English and writing at a local college.