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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

My undergraduate education began with an introduction to public school education in a small town in the Midwest (Mt. Pleasant, Iowa) and ended there when I completed the requirements for graduation with a major in Physical Education, a minor in sociology and elementary certification from Iowa Wesleyan College in 1962. With a B.A degree in hand, I then matriculated to The University of Alaska in Fairbanks, Alaska.

Leaving there in 1971 with a master's degree in Education Administration, I was accepted into the graduate school of education foundations at The University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. I left that institution in 1974 with the coveted achievement of Ph.D. This time, the associative field was Education Foundations/Curriculum and Instruction, with a minor in sociology. There is no substitute for experience.

Mine began in 1962, after leaving IWC for my first job -which was on the Navajo Reservation, under the auspices of The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Chinle Subagency, Low Mountain Boarding School, in Arizona. There, thanks to my elementary certification, I taught second grade. After two years, I left the reservation for city life in the great golden state: California. Stints at Knudsen Creamery and the amazing trials of running an inner-city Teen Center funded by the Office of Economic Opportunity were subsidized by the rewards of Disneyland and the beaches. But this too soon got old. So with my eyes wide open, I once again sought a relationship with the indigenous people of our great land.

This time, it was amongst the Eskimos in Barrow, Alaska. The BIA, administered out of the Juneau Area Office. Following 5 years of inspiring experiences, including being promoted to run the Instructional Materials Center and acting as Principal when the principal died, my heart once again longed for life below the Arctic Circle. Or, as we said, back then, life in the "lower 48." Following "taking" of my doctorate from UNM in 1974. I arrived at Pueblo, Colorado where I presently reside.

My present day retirement concluded only after spending 25 years at what started off as Southern Colorado State College; becoming The University of Southern Colorado and now referred to as CSU-Pueblo. My movement at this institution was strange. It started as an Associate Professor of Education. With promotion to Foreign Student Advisor; then Director of International Student Services and University Hearing Officer, then to Associate Dean of Student Life and Multicultural Development -concluding with a return to the classroom as Professional-in-Residence (1996) and retirement effective 1999.

During those 25 years, I wore many hats. While 90% of my duties was as an administrator, I always maintained a presence in the classroom. For example, I taught the two so-called black studies courses at USC from 1978 through 1999 (SOCSC 208 and 209) -Blacks in America Today and Afro-American Heritage. And also taught a Human Diversity Course, SOC 105. Prior to moving back to the faculty in 1996, several programs reported to me: Residence Life & Housing, Student Health Services, Campus Ministries, Associated Students' Goverment (ASG), and Las Hermanas.

My personal life has been highlighted by two marriages and two divorces. Six biological children and two adopted ones. Perhaps as a reward for all of my struggles, I now enjoy the benefits of social security, and a compatible soul mate (Carla Marie Barela). I can now kick back on my own "ranchito"in Pueblo County, Colorado which includes the companionship and responsibilities for 35 animals daily. Too numerous to list here, some are large and some are small. Some have 2 legs and feathers, others have four.

Their voices range from barking, to whinnying, to hee haw, cockle doodle doo, moo, baa, quack quack, meow, gobble, gobble, gobble and occasionally a cluck, cluck, cluck.