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First of all, I would like to Thank You
for visiting my NEW website.
Since you have taken the time to visit my personal
site, I would like to tell you a little about myself. I will talk
about about who I am and what my personal interests and hobbies
include. Many people ask me what I "do", so I will give a short
career history along with some of my long-term work goals.
Education and learning has been a huge part of my life that I am
very proud to have achieved many accomplishments. I will share some
of my learning experiences with you. Family and friends are
very important and I want to talk about that too.
 I am a 28 year old guy from
Grove Oklahoma right on Grand
Lake O' the Cherokees in Northeast Oklahoma. I love this
community, both my and my wife's family reside here. This town is
the home of some of the finest individuals you will ever meet. The
majority of my life has been spent in Grove and I am thankful that
my family chose to raise me in a community with values and friends
who look out for one another. Someday I hope to be able to
serve the community in a leadership position and lead our community
to further greatness.
 Some of my interests include family time, teaching,
designing custom graphics and custom web sites, collecting antique
safety razors, yard work and attending community events and church.
I enjoy spending time with my wife Stephanie and our son Kabe.
They are the lights of my life and I want to enjoy each moment with
them. Vacations and traveling with my family has become a
recent favorite activity now that my son is old enough to enjoy
things like water parks and the zoo. The early years are very important and I recognize
that I need to be the best father from that I can be.
I like to work on computers and electronics like car
audio systems and home electronics. One neat project that I
worked on last summer was building a name sign to hang over my
classroom door.
 I built the sign out of old electronics
including computers, keyboards, printers, scanners and more.
Fellow teachers and students have commented that they thought it was
neat.
The Oklahoma Army National
Guard was a huge part of my life until March 2003 when my contract
ended and my family and I decided that six years was enough military
service. I sure do miss the guys in my Infantry unit very much as
they were like the brothers I never had.
First and foremost I believe that family is second
priority and only to GOD. Although I may not attend my church as
regularly as I know I should, nor read my bible as often as I
should, my faith and loyalty to GOD and his son Jesus Christ is
numero uno. My wife Stephanie and I are members of the
Elk River Baptist Church
in Grove, OK where we were both baptized several years ago and later
married in 2000. Lately we have been visiting the
First Methodist Church
in Grove where it seems very nice also. We enjoy going to
church and being in the presence of the holy spirit and our friends
who are also excited about serving our Lord. Religion has been part
of my life in many ways since I was born and I am a firm believer in
faith. Trust in the Lord.
Get
Saved!
From 2003-2005 I was the Drug Court Coordinator for
Ottawa and Delaware Counties. The Drug Court is a program
offered to substance abuse addicts who are charged with a crime they
committed because of their substance abuse addiction. The
program is a get clean forever or go to prison deal. Great
deal if they are serious about getting clean, bad deal if they are
just wanting a quick out of jail opportunity and lack the
commitment. I loved work as my overall job was to supervise
40-60 recovering drug and alcohol addicts. My job duties were
similar to that of a cross between a court clerk, court reporter and
a probation officer all in one. Much of my work was done
closely with the judges, district attorney and public defender
offices, sheriff offices and substance abuse treatment providers.
I miss the positive atmosphere of the Drug Court and working
with all the great people. Substance abusers are people like
you and I but have gigged up their lives with legal, economical and
social problems that follow suit with drug and alcohol addiction.
I loved helping them with their road to beating their addiction.
It was necessary for me to search other avenues of work aside from
the Drug Court because of the financial instability that was due to
the funding system of my position of a private contractor for the
Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse. The
search lead me to substitute teaching and eventually onto a career
in teaching.
While working for the Drug Court I found myself with
several empty days where all my paperwork was complete. The
school was looking for substitute teachers and the need would also
fill my void. Substitute teaching for
Grove Pubic Schools
one or two days a week was going great and allowed me to get all my
work done and also make an extra buck. Since I was
substituting I decided to go ahead and get certified as a teacher as
a fall-back to the Drug Court. I started the
alternative certification process offered by the
Oklahoma State Department of
Education and after a few months of testing and paperwork
received my state license to teach. I continued to sub and
work at the Drug Court and decided for myself and my family that I
would only leave the Drug Court if a computer teaching position
became available at Grove High School. Sure enough a few
months later the computer teacher left the school void looking for a
replacement. Stephanie and I decided teaching was a more
stable pay check and I needed to take the job offered. I was
hired and put in my notice with the Judges. I continued to
work and train the two hired replacements over the summer until
school began.
click
the image to view my Grove High School Classroom Page
I love teaching. My mom and dad were both
teachers and so were several more of my other relatives including my
uncle Eddie who was a computer wiz and my Great Uncle Solon who was
the principal at Grove for several years. After months of
teaching I realized that I must be genetically inclined to do this
kind of work because I was responding to the students and staff very
effectively. My kids were eager to come to class and I am
eager to teach them some new computer skills. Currently I
teach several classes of Microsoft Office including; PowerPoint,
Word, Excel, Publisher. This year will be my first year to
teach the new Digital Yearbook class and I am very excited about
that. I can definitely envision teaching as my lifelong career
and hope to eventually move into a leadership position with Grove
Public Schools. Now in my 2nd year of teaching I am currently
working towards furthering my own education.
I went a couple of years out of school between
earning my bachelors degree at
Northeastern State University and starting my masters program.
Currently I am enrolled in a Masters of Education - School
Administration program with William Woods University in Fulton, MO.
I have been driving Joplin
every Wednesday night for the past year or so and will graduate in
December 2006 with my Masters Degree in School Administration.
Thanks for taking time to read about me and my
family. I wish you all the success I have had and more. |
