Jim Supica:  

God bless Virginia Stecher, my Sophomore and Junior English teacher. I owe her a lot, and I don't know if she ever knew it. I hope she did. As so many do, I remember Jr. Hi. as an awkward and difficult time, but by Sr. year at SME I felt like I'd learned to let go of worrying about what other folks thought of me, and just be happy being myself. I have fond memories of my friends from that time, with a lot of that centering around the Village Church Youth Group. I went to KU... .thrashed around a while, working part time, and finally coming out with a psych degree. I may hold the KU record for most consecutive semesters as a sophomore. I got to run Headquarters, Inc., in Lawrence for a couple years, which was then a 24 hour hotline and drop-in center for suicide prevention and drug and personal crisis intervention. I got a JD from KU Law School in 1980. I went into the highway construction business with my dad and brother (Mark Supica, SME '75) for about 11 years, and then turned my hobby into a business by peddling antique and collectable firearms online, through a mail order catalog, and through live auctions. I did that for about 17 years, including writing books, articles and columns on guns & collecting, and getting active in NRA. In 2008 NRA hired me to be the Director of NRA Museums, which at that time was primarily the NRA National Firearms Museum in Fairfax VA. That has been a dream job for me. I've had the opportunity to help design, instal...Expand for more