Michael Howard:
CLASS OF 1962
Osawatomie High SchoolClass of 1962
Osawatomie, KS
University of Kansas - Medical SchoolClass of 1985
Kansas city, KS
University of MissouriClass of 1981
Columbia, MO
Emporia State UniversityClass of 1978
Emporia, KS
Kansas State Teacher's CollegeClass of 1974
Emporia, KS
Michael's Story
Hi Everyone: I currently live in San Marcos, TX about 25 miles south of Austin with my wife, Nancy, and 2 dogs. My wife is a psychotherapist, which is helpful since she has to live with a mildly crazy person. I've been very fortunate in life in that I actually got to live and fulfill most of my many childhood fantasies and dreams, which is about all anyone can hope for. I got to do and see things I never thought I would. I met some marvelous people on the way and I have to thank many of them for helping me survive, learn, and stay out of trouble--well, mostly out of trouble. Regarding Osawatomie High School, I enjoyed going to school and liked my classmates, but I was basically a dullard, accomplishing very little. However, I certainly have to thank Miss Mattingly and Typing I and II for saving me thousands of hours by teaching me to type 80 words a minute. I still wear my Class of '62 high school ring to remind me not to get too full of myself. Being raised in a small town like Osawatomie was a gift for life, growing up with a lot of good people as influences. Working at Osawatomie State Hospital as a high school student may have put me on a path to end up with my so-called professional career. Since high school, I have had a great life even if it ends tomorrow. I got to play minor league baseball for a few months in 1964 in the Detroit Tigers farm system. My baseball career, such that is was, ended when I got injured and I ended up joining the army in the summer of '64. I survived the army in the Vietnam years in the mid-1960s and made it to the Marksmanship Unit at Fort Benning with the rifle and pistol shooting teams, although I think my dad was a better shot than I ever was. I then was the lead singer for three rock bands based out of Emporia, Kansas in the late 60s and early 70s to make ends meet while going to college--it was great fun, an interesting social life, and one of my bands, Friar Tuck and Monks, is in the Kansas Music Hall of Fame in spite of my singing. I also worked another bunch of part-time jobs. I was basically a professional college student at Emporia State University for many years, ending up with a few majors and minors. My high school classmates were long gone from college and in the real world when I finally got a B.A. in 1974. College took a long time since I flunked out twice, finally learned to cope with my lifetime attention deficit disorder, and spent more time having fun playing college football and baseball and playing a lot of tennis and golf rather than studying. I di...Expand for more
d make some great lifetime friends playing football at Emporia State, bonding through some grueling practices with new coaches in 100+ degree August heat. I finally did graduate from college and eventually got a Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Missouri at age 36 in 1981 since I had nothing else better to do at the time--obviously being a slow learner. I did postdoctoral work in neuropsychology in Chicago and was a clinical neuropsychologist for about 30 years practicing in seven different states. I ended up being on the faculty of three medical schools and on the staff of eleven hospitals. I got to work with a lot of individuals over the years with a wide variety of brain disorders, including traumatic brain injury, stroke, Alzheimer's disease and many other dementias, chronic pain, ADHD, autism, and a number of other neurologic and psychiatric disorders, including some criminal psychopaths. Currently, I teach a little at a local university and I work for a teaching company two or three days a week teaching 6-hour continuing education seminars to healthcare professionals on various topics from anxiety, depression, and PTSD to aging, autism, addiction, and Alzheimer's disease. It's all still interesting to me and the seminars are a lot of fun to write and teach. Over the last 22 years with the company I consult with, I've mostly flown 40 weeks a year and taught seminars in all 50 states and 3 provinces of Canada, getting to teach and meet thousands of interesting health and mental health professionals who attend the seminars to get continuing education. Basically, I got to see a lot of airplanes, airports, and hotels. It beats having a real job since some of the seminars were in Hawaii and other exotic places. I also wrote some research articles and a book on aging. Now, since the pandemic, I teach the seminars on Zoom, sitting in my home office in San Marcos, Texas and talking to my computer screen. I only work teaching two to three 6-hour seminars a week now, which means I get to play golf, travel, work out, and generally lay about the other four days of the week. It's a wonderful life at age 81 and I've been very lucky in a number of ways, including somehow ending up with a beautiful and intelligent wife who, thankfully and inexplicably, has put up with me for 43 years. I hope everyone I've met along the way is doing well, is happy and healthy, and is living his or her dreams. By pure chance more than any plan, I certainly got to live a lot of my dreams. If it ends tomorrow, it's all great. Mike
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