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I
was born in a little hollow in Knott County, Kentucky where
my people had lived since just after the Revolutionary War.
In the Fifties, my father moved our family to Dayton, Ohio
when he could no longer earn a living in the mines. Growing
up in the city was hard, and we always longed to go home-back
to Eastern Kentucky.
Most of my brothers and sisters made it back home long before
I did, but we are all here now. That's one reason I'm so
happy to be at Berea.
As I was waiting to come back home, I taught school for more
than twenty years. I also founded and operated an independent
school for children aged 18 months through 12 years, was the executive
director of a large inner-city job training and child care
program near Boston, served as president of Foxfire, and taught in the teacher
education programs in two universities-one in Rhode Island and one in
Montana. In the last few years, I've taught on a reservation
in Montana and founded a non-profit organization designed to support teachers'
implementation of Indian Education for All, a Montana law requiring that all
Montana students be taught the history and culture of the state's twelve tribes.
I have a son around whom my universe revolves. His name is
Huckleberry. He is an artist and industrial designer living
in Atlanta. I also have a cat who thinks he is the sun around which my universe
revolves.
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