Dennis Smith:
CLASS OF 1970
Benson High SchoolClass of 1970
Omaha, NE
Dennis's Story
Short story:
Graduated from Benson; flunked out of Bradley and UNO; went into the army (not 'Nam), honorably discharged; met and married Molly; went to New York and got my Equity card doing off-Broadway; had a kid and didn't get back onstage for 15 years; went back to school at Rutgers-Newark, did well; finished at Middlebury, where I did better (summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, National Mellon Fellow in the Humanities); turned down PhD programs at Stanford, Harvard, Princeton and Cornell to return to Iowa (UI--OK, not the best career move; I was cocky); studied and taught in the PhD program for seven years before deciding I didn't want to teach, so left UI without defending either of two dissertations I had written (they sucked); drove a bus for a few years; worked directing small non-profits for a few years while wife finished grad school; wife had a massive stroke (AVM, aneurysm) in 2000 ...Expand for more
just after we moved to Des Moines, spent a year in the hospital and rehab before I could bring her home; needed to make some money so put my education to work writing and editing for engineering at Iowa State, where I still am. Wife Molly is doing well, even if she can't remember what day it is. Son Jess finished his masters a couple years ago and is engaged to a wonderful young woman who is finishing her PhD in the same program at the UI this year. Molly and I may not get out too much, but we still are ornery lefty, feminazi, homo-loving, military-industrial-complex-loathing iconoclasts who nonetheless have a few right-wing acquaintance we like and actually love. (And hey, do you se that ad there to the left that says there are beautiful women in Des Moines "that want to meet someone like you!"? They all look younger than my nieces. Sorry, girls! But I AM flattered! And my wife is relieved!)
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