Mark A. S. Dierker:  

Life I spent the last part of 83 and part of 84 at VA Tech. Then did a brief stint at NOVA in 84-85. After leaving Northern Virginia at the end of 85, I spent several years traveling around the Southwest, living in various places in NM, AZ and CO. I worked on ranches and farms, learned the ins and outs of the logging profession and did a lot of construction. I got married in 86 to a girl I met in a small town in Northern NM. I finished a BA in Journalism at Adams State College in Alamosa, CO in 89. I worked for a couple of newspapers before moving to NC in late 89. There I worked for the Boy Scouts professionally for 3 years. I filed for divorce in 93 and moved back to Colorado where I worked on ranches and bartended. I moved to NM in 94 to work on a ranch. Then to Illinois in the Fall of 94 to manage a family farm and go to grad school. I got an MA in Communication in 96. In 97, I took the lead on a start-up weekly newspaper as the Managing Editor. In 98, I went to Work for Glencoe/McGraw-Hill Publishing Company in Peoria, IL as an Imag...Expand for more