My journey to becoming a teacher is different from most, to say the least. I graduated from Wartburg College in 1969 after having also attended Valparaiso University and Drake University. Following graduation, my young wife and I moved to Chicago where I became a journalist at the Chicago City News Bureau. Several famous writers and journalists have also worked there over the years including Mike Royko, Kurt Vonnegut, and many others. Ernest Hemingway was famously turned down. Just some of the stories I covered were the Chicago Seven Trial, the Black Panther shootings, and the May Day riots. The draft then swept me up like many others and I spent two years as a medic. Following my discharge I found a job as editor of the Urbandale News, a small newspaper in suburban Des Moines, Iowa. For reasons too lengthy to explain, my wife and I decided then to sell everything we had and traveled down through Mexico and Central America before arriving in Bochalema, Colombia where my wife’s brother was living. We had all changed a great deal in the early 1970’s and many of us sought new horizons.

I then drove a '55 Chevy pickup truck to Alaska following some time in Whitefish, Montana. I found a job in the Malemute Saloon in Ester, Alaska. This early job enabled me to begin my life there in what was to be a 25-year career in Laborers Local 942 in Fairbanks, Alaska where I eventually was to become an auditor of my union. They were lively years and not for the faint of heart! I have written about those years in a memoir I published several years ago and since revised. Following retirement I moved around a bit trying out new occupations. While visiting Virginia I decided to try substituting at Fluvanna County High School and in one of life’s amazing turns they saw something in me I certainly didn’t understand at the time. In a short period, I was teaching full time and Fluvanna sent me to UVA at nights and weekends where I finished my ed courses, passed the dreadful exit exams, and became a certified teacher in the State of Virginia. While at Fluvanna I started a journalism department and a school paper. I was also put in charge of the yearbook and my kids had great success both there and following in college and beyond. While there I met my future wife Annie and together we decided to become international teachers and first worked in Cairo, Egypt before the revolution, then in Whitefish, Montana where I worked at Summitt Prep, a wilderness school outside of Kalispell. Annie and I then took jobs at Escuela Americana in San Salvador, El Salvador where we worked for six years. In 2017 I was awarded Teacher of the Year by the graduating class and it remains the best working experience of my life. I still know hundreds of kids, teachers, surfers, and travelers from those years in Central America. It was the experience of a lifetime. It was during those years that I realized teaching had changed my life and made me a better person than I have any reason to expect. My only son is a fitness trainer in Santa Monica, California.

Annie and I returned to Virginia after another teaching stint in Montana where Annie founded the Cousins School in a cabin outside of Whitefish during the pandemic and we soon found jobs at Miller School. While substituting at Miller, where Annie is now the 10th grade English teacher,  I met Marsha Hogan and through my conversations with the charismatic founder of Seven Rivers, I soon found myself in the studio at the top of Old Main where I teach writing to 4th through 8th grade every day. There is no greater privilege than opening up your room every day and waiting for the onslaught of kids. I consider myself fortunate to have had this opportunity and to work with the absolute best group of teachers I have ever encountered. We work our way through the dilemmas of our innovative school every day with a sense of humor and improvisation that is unique in education. 

My favorite book is of course, On The Road by Jack Kerouac and I have published a memoir of Alaska as well as several screenplays. I am currently revising my book and latest screenplay and working on a mystery novel about Oaxaca, Mexico.

Melissa, a northern Virginia native, moved to Charlottesville with her husband fifteen years ago to pursue her Masters in Teaching from UVA. After spending several years in San Francisco working for start-ups and meeting her future husband, they moved back to the east coast to be closer to family. Melissa graduated from the Curry School and started working at Village School, a middle school for girls in downtown Charlottesville.

For the last fourteen years, she has taught and administrated at Village School while pursuing her Education Specialist degree in Curriculum and Instruction from UVA. Melissa is passionate about mission driven curriculum development and using best teaching practices in the classroom. Seven Rivers is a beautiful mix of Melissa’s belief as a teacher and a parent that children thrive when they feel safe, loved, and challenged.

Melissa and her husband, Paul, are parents to two boys ages four and six. When she is not teaching, Melissa can be found outside with her boys helping them find bugs and any other creatures that are slow enough to be caught and gently examined.