Biography - 29

                                                BIO

 

When I joined VISTA for a summer program in 1966 I had no idea it would turn into an exciting and rewarding career creating social change to make life better for people.  I lived almost three years in the Appalachian mountains of Virginia, East Kentucky and West Virginia getting water systems into rural school houses, fighting strip miners in Kentucky, and working with disabled coal miners in W.Va. to pass a Black Lung Law for their medical needs.  I learned a lot about power structures and their impact on people.  With local parents I helped get school lunch programs in many schools before I moved to the hills of Ohio to marry my wife and get a job with the local community action agency. 

 

We were foster parents and lived a wonderful life until she passed in 2008.  I eventually had become Executive Director of a three county poverty program here and retired in 2010 after 38 years at the agency.  It was a wonderful career that taught me skills from personnel to lobbying to private fundraising.  I remarried a wonderful woman in 2011 and now have a step son and step granddaughter (9) in my life. I help raise funds for a non profit theater (Stuart’s Opera House) where I serve on their Board and usher shows.  My current business card (handmade of course) describes my current occupation to folks Traveler…Dabbler…Dreamer   I guess that sums it up after a wonderful ride that I am very grateful to have had.    

 

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