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♪ [music playing-- no dialogue] ♪♪.
Well, as a young man and a high school student in a town
of 4,000 people, this whole idea of going out
and visiting colleges was foreign to me.
I was the first person in my family to attend college.
Actually, my mother attended for a couple years, my dad didn't
have the opportunity to attend and nobody before him.
So, I really didn't want to go very far away so I've been
to summer camp at Eastern and had a great time in
middle school and I had a cousin in Mattoon.
So we were familiar with Eastern and that's the only school
I applied to and I applied and was accepted and the story just
goes on from there.
Very much the same story for me.
Jeff and I are actually from the same small town and he was there
a year ahead of me.
It never really been an option.
When I entered high school to think about going to college
which seems very strange now.
I had a lot of encouragement to go on to college and so Eastern
was where Jeff already was so of course it was high on my list
and that's where I ended up.
As I reflect on a particular memory of Eastern,
there's so many but I'll never forget my first day arriving
at campus with my parents and them helping me move up to
the room and unpack the bags and it was sort of a
bittersweet time yet I couldn't wait for them to leave.
As soon as they did, I meet my roommate and start meeting
all the people in the hall.
We were the first residents of Thomas Hall, so it was
a brand new facility and meeting dorm directors and just running
around being independent and free the first time
in your life.
It was great fun and a jouyous time and I'll always remember
my first couple of days on campus.
For me, Greek Week popped into my mind and I think no matter
how you feel about Greek or non-Greek, at Eastern at that
time especially, it was a real formed for a social gathering
with a lot of people.
So joining into those activities with friends from all over
the campus that you've been making friends with for a year
or so and just really being competitive and yet encouraging
one another and having a good time.
It was just a really sweet memory for me.
If I were to reflect on a particular staff or faculty
member, it would be hard to isolate just one but three come
to mind that really have I think have a major impact in my life
and one was Dr. Burt Hawley who taught law and we have been
involved in funding a scholarship in honor of his name
after he passed away.
Dr. Jim Giffin who recently passed away who was our
management professor and was head of the Management
Department since I was a double major, marketing and management.
Third, Tim Gobert who was our most recent president of the
foundation who taught me in my first management class
as a graduate assistant and Tim and I have become great friends
again by getting reengaged in the foundation.
For me it was very much the whole department.
They were just always there to support you and if you had
questions to help you figure out exactly maybe what course
to take next year, is that where you want to go?
Just overall being very, very helpful in that.
I describe my experiences as spectacular.
I don't know if there is a better way to say it
but as I mentioned earlier from the first day until the day
I graduate, I had a fantastic time.
I probably had more fun than I should have, but I also ended up
with a good education.
So I like to call it a well-rounded four years
at Eastern when I was a social chairman of my fraternity
for three years running.
I never moved up the latter.
I did such a good job as social chairman, that they decided I
should do that again next year and then again the next year.
So we did have a wonderful time.
We also got a great education and that's what you appreciate
the most in the longrun.
I think I was a well-rounded part of Jeff's social life
at times.
[unclear audio].
Since leaving Eastern, it was the middle of the Vietnam era,
so we immediately because of the draft, I enlisted to go to OCS.
I wanted to be an officer rather than an enlisted man.
And ended up at engineering OCS at Fort Belvoir, Virginia
and became a tactical officer and trained officer candidates
there and ended up getting out of the service as well
at Fort Belvoir which is a suburb of Washington, DC.
We decided to look for work there.
A city of three million people is a little easier to find a job
than where I grew up in a town of 4,000 since my dad didn't own
any land and he didn't own the bank either.
There weren't many opportunities for me going home.
So Lila and I both stayed in Washington, DC and I started
my career in the insurance business and moved up through
the ranks in sales and sales management and developed
it into a financial plan, business, and firm.
We had our own firm for a number of years which was partnered
with an insurance company and sold about five years ago
when I retired and moved here to south Georgia.
It was a great ride.
We served on many national boards with those organizations
and we knew how to operate in that venue because the way
we learned how to interact in college frankly.
When Jeff and I moved to Fairfax, Virginia,
I had a business education degree from Eastern.
The problem was the school system was so well-known that
they weren't hiring teachers at the time and they were full.
So I took my business education degree into a couple
of very prestigious law firms in Washington, DC and worked there
for many years before we had children and that business
background really did help me to function in that law firm
quite well.
From there I had children and dropped out from working
for a while while I raised the girls and then went back
and got my master's in psychology.