My early years in South Carolina with my grandmother introduced me to storytelling. I spent many hours listening to her stories. Many of the stories she told were about family members and residents of the small town in which we lived. Some were humorous and usually contained a moral or a lesson of some kind. I tend to tell the same kind of stories.

I believe strongly in the power of stories. They have a way of putting people at ease. Stories help us to answer three very important questions: Who am I? Where do I come from? Where Am I Going?

I retired from the Federal Civil Service in 1989. Two and a half years prior to retirement I was ordained as a deacon in the Roman Catholic Church in May 1987. I served 2 and a half years as an unpaid volunteer assistant deacon director for the Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta. In October, 1990 I was appointed to the position of Director of Deacon Personnel. I served in that capacity from October 1990 through the end of December, 2005

As a deacon in the Roman Catholic Church I use stories in my ministry of preaching, teaching and reaching out to others. I have been telling stories all my life, though I didn’t become professionally involved in storytelling until after my ordination to the Diaconate. I saw storytelling techniques as a way of bringing my homilies alive and making them more meaningful to the congregation.