I grew up in a small town, in central, Minnesota, the oldest of ten children. I eloped with my childhood sweetheart, Su, when we were 18. We had a daughter together, moved to South Texas, and there Su died from breast cancer. I later remarried, and my wife Pinky and I have been married for over forty years. Two wonderful marriages are one of my life's greatest blessings. We have five children and ten grandchildren. I am a retired Residential Faculty member of Mesa Community College, the Red Mountain Campus.
My studies are eclectic. I am a Historian, a Rhetorician, a Cartographer, and a Jesus Freak. You know, those weird hippies who preached on street corners and handed out "Jesus Saves" tracts. I returned to college at 35 to learn to write and to obtain the tools of a historian and the skills of rhetoric in order to study and analyze the evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. I needed my head to agree with my heart. After a quarter century of study, I am convinced the miracle makes more logical sense than any other conclusion based on the historical and rhetorical analysis.
I studied at the University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburg, Texas, where I received a B.A. in History with a minor in Communication. I continued there to graduate school earning a Master's degree in Communication in 1995 and another Master's in History in 1997. I relocated my family, wife Pinky, and four of my five children to Mesa, Arizona entering ASU's Ph.D. program in History. My oldest daughter, Sari, was enrolled in the School of Nursing at UT-Pan Am. My studies at UT focused on Native American History, but when I got to ASU, my focus moved toward Environmental History. The idea of "Place" captured my interest: the identity of places, the spirit of a place, the natural environment of place; place names, and what they say and how they influence specific places.
In August of 2000, I accepted the Communication Faculty position at the new Red Mountain campus of Mesa Community College. I taught both History and Communication at MCC as an adjunct faculty member while in grad school at ASU, and when offered the full-time position at the new college campus, which dedicated itself to environmental studies, I found an academic home. Besides teaching at least five classes each semester, I am engaged in an Undergraduate Research Project, the "GIS Mapping of the "Circlestone Ruin" in the Superstition Wilderness Area.
Visit my Vlog: https://www.youtube.com/@voicewldg @: