I was born at Fort McPherson, Georgia and lived my early years either on Army posts or in a small town in Mississippi. During my last year of high school I moved to Grand Isle, Louisiana and finished school at South Lafourche High School, a forty mile ride up Bayou Lafourche. Many students drove to school in small boats, I took the bus. Often getting up extra early to fish for an hour or so before the bus arrived.

I attended Northwestern University of Louisiana before leaving to start a career managing small businesses. Moving to Texas I lived in Beaumont and Houston for many years until I decided to move to Metairie, Louisiana. All my adult life I managed or owned small businesses except for a six year job as a test electrician for a shipyard with government contracts. There I tested ships generators and power distribution equipment and various other systems demonstrating them to the U.S. Navy under at sea conditions. We made many trips down the Mississippi river, around Cuba and back. Then I started a florist business and a stained glass studio and operated them for ten years before moving to my present location way out in the country southwest of Purvis, Mississippi, where I work small jobs, keep a large vegetable garden and flower gardens all around the property. I may start or manage another business but in this economy, it seems nice to let others do the worrying and keep things simple.

I have one ex wife in Texas, still good friends and the mother of two great sons. Myles is a teacher in South Louisiana and Michael works for an intelligence company in England. My bride of twenty-six years, Diana and I enjoy life in the country and each other’s company. It is a comfortable place for us and for my best friend, a basset hound named Moses.

I started in Rotary at the Metairie Sunrise club. I talked a member into inviting me and just kept coming. I am not sure if they wanted me at first but finally invited me to join. I jumped right in and volunteered for the Club Service Chairman, which no one seemed to want and started printing a weekly newsletter and kept doing that for six years. After a few years as Club Service, I switched to International Service and became Treasurer, Secretary and so on to PE when I left to move to the country. I also served as communications chairman for District 6840 for five years and started the District web site serving as Webmaster for five years. I also served one year as the district newsletter editor. I was able to help other clubs in the district start their own web sites and gave presentations at a number of district conferences on the Internet, communications, how to be effective secretaries and presentations for treasurers as well

One year right after joining Rotary I found a bunch of people on the Internet while looking for more information about Rotary. My club was nice for breakfast and a few projects but I knew there had to be more. These people I found were just what I was looking for, sharing knowledge, offering help or telling me where to find it. I stayed with the group and even helped when they decided to start a monthly newsletter. For five years I wrote two articles for the newsletter, which we decided to call the Breadbasket. I served on the board and was on the BOD when we became an official Rotary Fellowship and served as Vice Chairman for the infamous two and a half year tenure. I wrote the first set of Bylaws for the fellowship, which others are still trying to clean up. I have also been a part of the ROTI membership committee and handled the day-to-day duties of our e-mail lists for about six years. I have served on the ROTI BOD every year since the beginning and have enjoyed every minute.

I have made many great friends here and met a number of them at conventions.

ROTI has been a great asset in my life. With nothing but time invested, ROTI has given me enormous amounts of knowledge, support and friendship. For the past eleven or so years ROTI has been a part of my daily routine I still enjoy.