I have a B.S.J. from the Ohio University School of Visual Communications. Go VisCom. Fall of 1985. I was on the five-year plan. Studying was very difficult for me, unlike all my other professional, college-student reasons. My professor, the immortal Chuck Scott, called me to his office after noticing that if I didn't get better grades, I would get kicked out of school. I was flunking out of almost everything, save VisCom. Chuck looked through the list of classes and said, 'here's one....do ya like to camp?' I graduated with minors in sociology and recreation. Thank God for classes like white-water rafting and canoeing, advanced wilderness survival and the all-important, introduction to leisure. My gpa sky rocketed, ISH. The OU VisCom trifecta of Chuck Scott, Terry Eiler and Ed Pieratt were incredible teachers of photojournalism and lessons in life. God bless you guys. I worked a year in Ohio and eight years in Iowa. Thank you photo directors Tom Whittington and Paul Jensen, respectively. Then, I got The Call from another godfather of modern photojournalism, Tom Hardin. In January of 1995, I got to come to The Big Show. Thanks former deputy director of photo, Steve Fecht. I was hired as a staff photographer at The Detroit News. What a blessing and total blast this job has been for the past 25 years. I believe photojournalists are the eyes, ears and tip-of-the-spear that have been granted the honor to save raw history. What a blessing. If we ever meet, my nickname is 'Turf.'