Randolph (Randy) Merrill:  

A brief summary of my life since high school: Went off to college at Concordia Teacher's College, Seward, NE; had a wild time there; worked as a dogcatcher in Seward, then promoted to being a cop; quit after three close calls on my life; met my future wife, Cathy Brusius, the daughter of a professor; began to pursue an interest in cryptozoology (the study of unknown animals); got my first call to St. Paul's Lutheran School, St. Louis, as a principal/teacher; eloped with Cathy to CA, then to MO; served one year in St. Louis; Cathy had our first son, Ron in 1972; took a call to Immanuel Lutheran, Rock Island, IL; stayed one year, but left 'cause of low salary; took a call to Faith Lutheran, Inglewood, CA; church went ELIM, so I quit teaching altogether and went to work for McCulloch Corp.; got laid off from McCulloch in '75; Cathy had our second son, Matt; received a call from Good Shepherd, Inglewood; taught there from '75-'86; Cathy had our third son, John in '78...home birth; accepted a call as principal/teacher to Zion Lutheran, Palmyra, MO, in '86; got a house in the country on 10 acres; shot my first deer; got my school accredited in '91 after just 9 mos prep; Cathy had two more boys, Peter in '88 and Sam in '91, both home births; accepted a call as principal to St. Paul's Lutheran, Farmington, MO, in '98; accepted a call as 7th grade teacher and computer tech to Immanuel, Perryville, MO in '00; accepted a 1-year call as 7-8 grade teacher to Concordia-Trinity Lutheran, Frohna, MO in '02 (I was supposed to take the year to decide if I wanted to accept their call as principal...I decided not to); found out I had diabetes and 90% blockage of the major arteries and veins to my heart; underwent triple bypass in August '03; accepted a call to finish out the last 7 1/2 weeks of the school year at St. Luke's Lutheran, St. Louis, MO, for a teacher who had a nervous breakdown; school asked me to be their principal in '05; resigned at the end of '06 school year because more than once our checks were more than a month late; went to work for Accent Customer Solutions as a Sprint Nextel Customer Care Rep; currently employed by WestAtHome Corp as a rep for LiveNation Ticketing; still living in Farmington with two sons (Pete and Sam) still at home. Well, since you asked... I've been a science teacher, a school principal, a lifeguard, a policeman, a warehouse foreman, an animal control officer, a Commissioned Minister for the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, and a variety of other occupations. When I was 16, I built a robot that walked, talked and could pick up object...Expand for more