Skip to the newest part from here (updated 6 February 2004)

Late in the evening on a Friday in February, during the last century, I was born in Faith, South Dakota. My parents were teachers at the school there, after having graduated from Black Hills State College.

A couple of summers later, we moved to Mullan, Idaho, where we lived for two years and my sister Marie was born.

After that, it was two years in Henry, SD--home of the Owls--where I began kindergarten.

The next twelve years of my life were in Colome, South Dakota. It's a rather small town, and I was very, very surprised when I stumbled onto information including a city {town} map of Colome on Yahoo! recently.

After graduating from CHS (Go Cowboys!) in 1989, I went to Augustana College in Sioux Falls. Whilst there, I spent a year on KAUR-fm89 and worked at Pizza Hut, which was actually more entertaining than it sounds. ;)

After I graduated from Augustana, I moved to Pierre, the capital of the Mount Rushmore state (that's South Dakota, thank you very much) where I taught 8th and 9th grade math at Pierre Junior High School for three years. I also coached rather successful MathCounts and FPS teams at the school.

While I lived in Pierre, I got involved with the community theatre there, the Pierre Players. Pierre Players performs 'pproximately a pentagon of performances per annum. I was involved with them for about a year-and-a-half, during which I acted on stage, ran lights and sound, prompted, built/disassembled set, went to fun cast parties, etc. You know... all that cool theatre stuff.

For a number of reasons, including but not limited to overexposure to junior high students (not all of them are hormone- crazed little monsters :) and underexposure to Jared, the boyfriend at the time, I moved back to Sioux Falls in July 96.

We've been some cool places since school ended in May-- Florida for Gay Day at Disney World, Glacier Park in Montana with a college friend of mine, and Dallas for some work-training for Jared. The most recent interesting place we've been to recently would be New Orleans, which would certainly be a fun place to visit again.

I had most recently worked at Midco Communications in downtown Sioux Falls. Yay for them, they've included sexual orientation in their non-discrimination policy. That's pretty cool in one of the first states to pass a law that un-recognizes gay marriages. Ptui on the (former) governor Janklow and most of the legislature!



In July 1997, I began to travel on the road with the international educational organization known as ; by July 2000 I was beginning the staging or training phase of my fourth year, my road staff title this year being "Logistics Coordinator/Business Manager, Cast B2000-2001". My cast, whose members numbered around 145 and hailed from twenty-two different countries, spent from July - December 2000 together, living in host families, being involved with community service, performing a two-hour musical show called "A Common Beat", and touring different parts of the United States, Sweden, and Denmark. Germany, Finland, Bermuda, and Canada were also meant to be part of the tour in January-June 2001. My previous three casts (listed below) have travelled through 28 states, Ontario, Quebec, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland, Italy, the Vatican City, Austria, Slovakia, Spain and Porugal.
It's different, or course, but an incredible experience!
Unfortunately, Up with People ran into some serious financial difficulties and ceased operations in mid-Dec 2000, though there is now a new program which is starting up in 2004. But, at the time, that meant for us: No more students travelling, no more shows, no more job for the next few months. I decided to go back to Europe to travel around a bit and visit some of my former colleagues and host families in Germany and Belgium. Didn't get to everyone there, but some, and that was fun.

While I was in Europe, I had interviewed at two international schools in hopes of finding a teaching job there as a way to combine my former teaching experience with my European travel and cultural education. Now, I'm back in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and working at a customer service call center.

Links to my cast's websites.
Cast C 1997-1998

Cast C 1998-1999

Cast A 1999-2000 (missing link as of Oct 2004)

Cast B 2000 (Joe)

Cast B 2000 (Jan)

Fall of 2003 finds me in Sioux Falls for the last 2½ years. Citibank employs me, and sent me to Jacksonville, Florida to help train a new department that was opening there. As much as I enjoyed the trip to Florida from South Dakota, I couldn't help thinking that January would have been a better time than May & June.

For about the last year, I've also been a co-chair for the Rainbow Alliance here in Sioux Falls, formerly known as the SEGLC. Some of the activities we've had recently include our Adopt-a-Highway Cleanup, a fundraising Dart Tournament, and a GLBT movie night at the Center in conjuction with Pride on the Prairie.

NEW!

The BLOG is even more current than this, but you can read this too, if you want :)

Updated 6 Feb 2004:

So the training trip to Jacksonville went well, and I let myself get talked into relocating here. Yeah, like my arm had to be twisted real hard. I arrived in town on 15 December and finally feel pretty settled into my apartment. The process of meeting new people in town is always ongoing as I find my place and purpose in a new environment. Do check the picture page for some pictures of the move and of fun people. Oh sure, there's more to my life than I've put here, but that's all for now. Links to Star Trek/SciFi, Gay, Silly and other cool places are found on my page.

You can send E-Mail to Andrew from here.



This page was most recently modified on 13 October 2004 from Jacksonville, Florida, USA.
Links verified at that time.

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