I grew up in arid central Washington State where my family continues to raise apples. I am one of four children in a family whose father loves to read and whose mother is an artist and a gardener. At 75, my mother remains very active in her huge garden of several acres with hundreds of roses, flowers, plants and trees. My migration pattern includes stints in San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle, State College, PA., Washington D.C., Chapel Hill, and the Philadelphia area.

I returned to college as an adult student and a mother of four children! I received my Bachelor of Arts in Sociology with a concentration in Organizations from Pacific Lutheran University in Washington state. After completing my undergraduate degree, I attended Penn State University where I completed my M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology and Demography with a minor in Gerontology.

Penn State was a wonderful place to raise a family and be a graduate student. My children would visit me on campus, go to graduate student picnics, and shake Joe Paterno's hand. While at Penn State, my sons often visited the university library with me, reading old stocks reports and newspapers or crawling under the vending machines for loose change for candy. All of us enjoyed the rural countyside, visiting the Amish markets for their homemade bread and candies, the lakes and hiking on the Appalachian Trail.

After Penn State, we moved to Chapel Hill for my post-doctoral work at Duke. We lived in the Morgan Creek area. Morgan Creek area is a terrific place to live: to hike or walk and see birds and wildlife; so we loved living there. Moving south took some getting used to but quickly we learned to enjoy the long hot days and warm nights after living in rainy or cold areas. My family and I not only loved the vegetation and climate, but the people. However, a great opportunity arrived for me as an Assistant Professor in the Commonwealth College at Penn State University. We moved back north again, but not to a rural area, to the Philadelphia suburbs. It was there I discovered how much I missed the red clay of North Carolina, Southern food, and the lower population density. And all the people I had come to love. Three of my children are in college now and considering their own graduate school options. My youngest son, a senior in high school and a football player, thinks he would rather travel and take photos than attend college.

I am delighted to be back in North Carolina with my children and the ones I love. In my free time, I raise herbs, which I use in cooking, make mustards, and create new recipes. I prefer to be outdoors (must be the farmer in me), even when the bugs eat me alive. I enjoy fast walking, roller blading and road bicycling. I have ridden around 1,500 miles this year and am considering doing the MS150 ride this fall. I faithfully attend bike races to cheer on Bruce and others I know. Recently, I began botanical watercolor painting and hope someday to become a decent painter.

At middle-age, I have my first 'real life' hero in Lance Armstrong. His courageous fight against testicular cancer to become the three- time Tour de France winner is a model to all, cancer survivors or not, and his achievement as a credit to cancer research is outstanding. You should read his book, It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back To Life, for inspiration (co-authored with Sally Jenkins).

Other favorite reads include Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier, Five Days in London, May 1940 by John Lukacs, Beach Music by Pat Conroy, A Time to Kill by John Grisham, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt, and Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden.

My musical interests vary from jazz to classical to rock.

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