Ann Brandt-williams:  

Life: (Warning: I love to write and so this goes on and on....) Wow, I look at my picture from 48 years ago and wonder where all that time went. I worked hard for most of those years to keep my hair looking like I was 20 years younger. It took my daughter's fight with breast cancer for me to shave my head when she lost her hair. When my hair stylist and friends loved my new bald look, and the white hair that grew in naturally, I gave in to looking my age at last. Oh, and forget the skinny figure I had throughout high school. Somewhere in the last two years, I began to look a little rounder. Oh, well..the Twiggy look at 65 is not really attractive. So now, after having two careers, and two husbands, I have finally retired. I plan to travel more and write books - two are in the works. MY STORY: I began my first career move at 17 when I went to Parkview Methodist School of Nursing in Ft Wayne, IN. I graduated in 1967, got married in 1968, had a daughter in 1969, and another in 1971. In 1972 I went back to college for my B.S. in Nursing and finally graduated in 1977. Time enough for a year teaching psychiatric nursing at Lutheran Hospital, then a move to Yuma, Arizona. There, I worked in a psychiatric ward for a little over a year and then began to teach at Arizona Western College in the nursing department. In 1982, our family moved to Phoenix. Meanwhile, I was spending my summers and eventually my weekends working on my Master's Degree at Northern Arizona University. That degree was awarded in 1983, and as luck would have it, I was hired at Glendale Community College in the fall of 1984 to teach psychology classes. In 1987, I became Chair of the Department and served in that role for 12 years with a small break for sabbatical as I was working on my Ph.D. at Arizona State University. That degree came in the summer of 1995. Since then, I had been teaching steadily with a break from 2006 to fall of 2007 for a medical leave and official retirement in June 2009. My greatest accomplishments are presenting workshops on multiple-intelligence theory throughout the nation from the mid 1990s to 2005. Until my 50s and health issues, I hiked the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim (5 different times in one day) and once staying over at Phantom Ranch. I have hiked the Havasu trail four times, camping at the bottom. I am an avid fan of the Phoenix Suns basketball team, the sport I have loved since high school in Indiana. My two beautiful daughters are career women at this time. Laran, my oldest is a CPA in Minneapolis for KPMG in International Executive Tax. Alyssa, my youngest, completed her treatment for breast cancer in October 2007. She works in the hospitality industry and her kudos are working at the famed Wrigley Mansion in Phoenix, Dodger Stadium in LA, and with Levy Restaurants at Chase Field (Diamondbacks), U.S Airways Center (Suns),and Dodge Theater. She just got a great promotion and is in Chicago as a National Sales Director for Levy. She also worked at the Democratic Convention for Levy. One of her claims to fame was booking the "Playboy" party (yes, the Hugh Hefner one) for the 2008 Super Bowl). I also have two step-children, Jennifer teaches English at a local high school and has been married for 4 years, and as of May 22, 2010 and April 2012 I am a 'step-grammy' of a wonderful little guy named Rhett and little girl, Abigail, and my step-son, David completed his Master's in Philosophy and Religious Studies and is teaching World Religion classes part-time for the Philosophy Department. My husband of 19 years, Steve Williams, teaches biology, was Chair of the the biology department for 22 years and turned over that position so he could teach at our smaller college close to home, he has assisted the administrators of Glendale Community College in monitoring our new Life Science Building that opened in January of 2009. Overall, life has been good to me. I have had ups and downs as all people do, but I feel fortunate to have lived to my 60s and I have am starting to write fiction and non-fiction, and maybe a textbook or two. I am still friends with several of my high school girlfriends and I have mad...Expand for more