I was born in Albany Texas, and grew up in Novice, in Coleman County. There were eleven in my graduating class, and it was one of the big ones. We had no art teacher. Since nobody else was interested, I usually did any art at school that needed to be done. When it was time to go to college, I went to Tarelton, majored in History and minored in German. A History degree is fairly useless, so after college, I sampled the family profession–oilfield labor. Every man in my family for the last four generations was a roughneck (worker on a drilling rig) at some time or other. It was educational, but not the kind of job you want for a career. After three years as a roughneck, I got certified to teach secondary school. I taught seniors at Merkel High School for 28 years (Government, Geography, G.T., etc.). During this time, I did portraits as my part-time job. As soon as I qualified to draw a retirement check from TRS, I became a full-time artist.