Ken Ripley:  

Life After I left high school, I went to UNC-Chapel Hill and graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in journalism. I then spent three years publishing a national student newspaper for Inter-Varisty Christian Fellowship out of Madison Wisconsin, until I returned to North Carolina for a secular newspaper job and warmer climate. I have been a weekly newspaper publisher in Spring Hope, NC, since 1975, and have enjoyed a successful career in the press, serving as president of the N.C. Press Association's Community Newspaper Division and am now serving my third term as president of the Eastern North Carolina Press Association. My writing has been amply recognized with a bushel of state press awards, particularly in editorial writing, plus three awards for public service. I am very active in my small town community and serve in numerous positions, including vice chairman of the town planning board and past member of county planning board, chairman of the library since 1980, founding and former chairman of the town's Revitalization Commission, a founding member of the Spring Hope Historical Association, and many other civic and service organizations. I am a Certified Lay Speaker in the United Methodist Church, at one point filling pulpits almost every week, and was district Director of Lay Speaker responsible for directing and training almost 100 lay speakers for 20 years. I also served on the conference level as chairman of the Commission on Church and Society. My wife, Vickie, is a Pharm.D. and clinical pharmacist practitionerworking at a psychiatric practice and very active in church music. We've been married since 1972, have no children but helped raise several. We do have two large dogs and four catss. My warped verbal sense of humor hasn't changed. I still pun. I still write occasional poetry. Politically I am a flaming moderate who ha...Expand for more