About me

I was born in Rockford, Illinois in 1957 and grew up in the Chicago suburb of Broadview. I graduated from Proviso East High School in nearby Maywood in 1975 and attended Southern Illinois University in downstate Carbondale.

My first job was as a reporter for the Effingham Daily News, where I worked for nine years, and where I fell in love with the publisher’s daughter, my wife of 41 years (and counting). Jo and I adopted 11 children, to go along with her two sons from her first marriage. After the McNaughton family sold the Daily News in 1992, I worked for a number of local companies in my second career as an IT guru and programmer. Most of my second career was spent with a medical-services company in Effingham, from which I retired in 2021.

I am 68 years old, as of this writing (June 2026), and hope to live for a while yet, but I am starting to think of my mortality and have created this website as a gift to my children and grandchildren. May it grow to be a lasting legacy of my amazing life.