About

Born in Wichita, Kansas, during the post World War II boom, I grew up in typical middle-class home. My father, a hard-working tool-and-die maker, left the big city in search of his future as a businessman. With help from my mother, he rejuvenated the Western Auto store in Hobart, Oklahoma, to a thriving emporium that grew to be quite popular in town. I was thrust into an integrated environment I had not experienced. I was fortunate that as a young lad in elementary school and junior high, it really made little difference to me.

It wasn’t until high school in Blackwell, Oklahoma, that I discovered I had no political inclination. In fact, neither of my parents were overly concerned with racism or politics. College is what cemented my finality as an independent, learning to take the good with the bad and to choose wisely, although I didn’t always do that.

Several careers have made various contributions to my character. The U. S. Army reserve sent me to Vietnam in 1971 to fly helicopters. Later, I was stationed at Kaw Dam and Reservoir in Ponca City, Oklahoma, with the Corps of Engineers.That is where I discovered my wonderful wife. I left the service as a captain, and returned to Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma. The marvelous woman I had married supported us while I earned a masters degree in Architectural Engineering. We moved to Oklahoma City where I worked as a professional structural engineer. From there we moved on to Lafeyette, Louisiana, and basked in the laid back life style indigenous to the southern Louisiana culture. Then it was on to the Houston area where the dog-eat-dog days of the early eighties took its toll on my career. We left the manufacturing scene and settled in Sallisaw, Oklahoma. I found a job at a local manufacturing plant at a quality control inspector. I quickly moved up the ladder to quality control technician, material and production control, and finally computer programming in information technology as the data processing supervisor.

Then it was on to more computer programming for a healthcare provider in Forth Smith, Arkansas. There I was caught in a riff and left corporate America for good.  I joined the faculty at Connors State College in Warner, Oklahoma, as a math and science instructor. This was the move that put my life in order and inspired my writing endeavor.

I am now retired from teaching.  I work on my house and write.  Oh, and I work on a host of other projects for family and friends.