I was born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I graduated from Edison High School in 1959, went to Hamline University majoring in mathematics and minoring in physics, and received my masters degree and Ph.D. degree from the University of Minnesota. I taught at Vanderbilt University for four years before coming to Centre College. I taught at Centre for 30 years and retired in 2004.

I married Virginia Rouleau in 1969. We had twin boys in 1971; Andrew and Scott. Andrew is a chemistry faculty member at Alfred University in New York and Scott is an administrator in the freshman English writing program at the University of Maryland. We have no grandchildren.

Since retiring I have taken up SUDOKU, reading for fun, trying to solve math problems that are posed in The College Mathematics Journal and in the Mathematical Monthly and volunteering at the Happy Paws Spay and Neuter Clinic. We have continued to be avid birders (i.e. bird watchers) and travellers. What follows is a sentence or two about each of our trips since retirement; I have included one picture from each trip to give you a taste of where we went.

In January of 2005 we joined Dr. Barbara Hall and the Centre Singers on their trip to Italy. It included concerts in Venice, Florence, Assissi, and Rome. The picture below is a picture of our group at an overlook of Florence.

Then, in March, we went to a lodge (actually a made-over gold mining camp) just North of Fairbanks, Alaska. Ginny (a.k.a. Virginia) had found this place on the web that described the arrangements for viewing the aurora, the Northern Lights. They told us that if we stayed five nights, we should get decent aurora at least three of those nights. As you can see, we had some great aurora.

In January of 2006 we combined a birding trip with an archeology trip to Mexico. The archeology part of the trip was primarily in the Yukatan with visits to both lesser known Mayan sites and more famous sites such as Uxmal and Chichen Itza. The last two weeks was a birding trip in the South central areas of Mexico.

In March we returned to Mount Aurora Fairbanks Creek Lodge. While the aurora was not as good as in 2005, we did see some. However, we also went into Fairbanks to see an international ice sculpture contest; the two levels of competition were the single 4'x4' block and the 16'x16' block. The picture below shows the carving of a 16'x16' block.

That summer, our son Andy joined us for a trip to Rocky Mountain National Park. We enjoyed Estes Park, Colorado, and its various art galleries so much that we decided to go back summer of 2009. More of that later. This is a picture of Ginny and me relaxing near a lake.

In January, 2007, we volunteered to go on a mission trip to Nicaragua. The non-denominational group we went with had already helped a small village in northwestern Nicaragua build a church and a school, and helped support the building of a clean water supply. All of their water up to that time was obtained from shallow wells with buckets. The picture below shows the children playing soccer behind the school in Los Playones. Note the outhouse on the left.

In May we went on a pilgrimage to Iona, Scotland; Iona is considered by many to be the center of Celtic Christianity. Since the flight was a significant part of the expense, we extended out stay by spending 10 days in Ireland and six days on the Orkey Islands just North of Scotland. While it was hard to decided on just one picture to include, I settled on a picture of a stone circle like many found throughout the British Isles.

In November we went on a birding trip to New Zealand. While there were many highlights including many different species of birds, the two penguins walking ashore to their den on Steward Island just South of South Island was a definite high point.

In January, 2008, we returned to Nicaragua for a combination mission trip and tourist trip. The attached picture shows me teaching some of the children how to solve SUDOKU puzzles. I had brought a number of books and pencils so that they could entertain themselves and develop logical thinking skills well after we were gone

Our next adventure was in April. We had been told that the Colima Warbler could be seen in the U.S. only in Big Bend National Park in Texas and that the best time to see it was in April just before it returned to Mexico. We were also told that it could usually be found along a 10 mile trail that formed a loop and went from 7000 feet to 9000 feet. So we bought Camelback packs to carry water and prepared for the long trek. While friends who had seen the bird there had seen it within 1/2 mile from the trailhead, we were not so lucky; we saw it on our return from the 9000 foot altitude. This picture shows the view from near the top of the trail.

In August we took advantage of frequent flier miles to go to Alaska in order to visit a couple of places where we had not yet visited: Kodiak Island and Prudhoe Bay. While both of these were special, the clear view of Mt. McKinley shown here was very special.

Then, in November, we visited Scott and Grace; they live in the Washington, D.C. area. They have become interested in birding primarily through Scott's excellent photography. Since we can either visit the sights of the D.C. metro area or we can take a day trip to the coast of Deleware. At this time of year we usually see upwards of 2000 Snow Geese as shown below. We try to find other birds but they are usually hard to find.

2009 has been a good travelling year for us. In March we joined Drs. Barbara Hall (music) and Vince DeMartino (trumpets) on a spring break trip (for them) to Greece. They had concerts in various places between Thessaloniki and Athens. The picture below shows the view from one of the student's rooms in Athens toward the Acropolic. They could see a little of the Parthenon that is lit at night. After the one week with them, we separated paths. They flew back to Danville and we took a five day cruise of the Agaean including the island of Rodes and the city of Ephasus (in present day Turkey).

Then in July Andy joined us and we first visited family in Minnesota and then headed to the Teton Range in Wyoming via the Badlands and Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota and Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. We enjoyed four days in Jackson Hole and the Tetons with a couple of short hikes (Andy, meanwhile did longer hikes) and eating at nice restaurants. In Jackson we ran into two Centre College people who were on a tour; this was a surprise for all of us. The picture below is that of a Bald Eagle that we saw while on a float trip on the Snake River. Then we headed to Rocky Mountain National Park where Andy had rented a cabin. The cabin was convenient since the weather was rather damp. We did get one decent hike before we dealt with the rain.

After we got home in early August, we spent two days washing clothes and taking care of bills before we headed to Andy's in Hornell, NY. He signed papers for the house the day after we arrived and we spent five hours cleaning his old appartment and then 8 days cleaning and fixing up his new place.