I was born the week before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor (no known connection between these events). I was born in a "foreign country" (THE NORTH) in the province of that country known as Indiana, where I subsequently grew up and attended the premier institution of higher learning in that part of the world.  My wife teaches in the English Dept.; we've been married 46 years and teaching here at Harding for 41.5 years; we have 4 adult children: a son and a daughter live in Nashville, TN  and environs (Jeff teaches at Lipscomb; Terri teaches at Crieve Hall Elementary; Jason  teaches at Faulkner University in Montgomery, AL,  and Laura  lives in Colorado Springs, CO. We have 7 grandchildren,  3 of them belonging to Jeff and 4 to Jason.   My  oldest granddaughter is a sophomore at H.U.; my youngest grandson is just 6 months old.

I'm an elder at the College Church and am chairman of the Foreign Missions Ministry (to which I devote much of my spare time). I have fairly extensive travel experiences in Europe; I have served twice as a faculty member in our Harding University in Florence (HUF), program, twice in our Harding University in England (HUE) program in London, and once in our Harding University in Greece (HUG) program.  I officially retired in December of 2008, but spent the spring and fall semsters of 2009 teaching full time in our overseas programs (spring in HUG and fall in HUE).  I have taken 16 summer campaign groups to Europe over the last 25 years: to eastern Europe twice while it was still under communist domination, to Germany and Switzerland three times, to England once, to Scotland five times and to Finland five times.  I do not fish, hunt, golf, jog, or garden. I used to be an avid sports fan but have gotten "turned off" of most professional sports in recent years by the lack of professionalism and sportsmanship among far too many modern athletes. I still enjoy most "amateur" sports, although way too much of what used to be amateur is being increasingly professionalized. Before I got too old, I played on all of Harding's faculty teams; now I just walk my dog. I have a keen (if slightly warped) sense of humor which you may have opportunities to see displayed this semester.