 I was born in Junction City, Kansas, which is near Fort Riley, and my father was with the Department of the Army, and my mother had been a nurse during World War II, so she met my father there at Fort Riley. He was a civilian with the Department of the Army, and we moved to Alaska. And we thought from there we'd go on to Washington, D.C., next, but unfortunately my dad died, and my mother had five children, five small children, so we moved back to Kansas. And I was in Kansas for most of my young life until I reached my senior year in high school, and that summer beforehand my mother decided she wanted to move closer to her family in Alabama. We moved my senior year, and I went to school at Tuscaloosa County High School in Northport, Alabama, right near Tuscaloosa, and as a result of that, you know, my roots now are in Alabama. Because my mother was a widow with five children, she couldn't pay for my education, so it was my job to go figure out how to pay for my education. Being right there in Tuscaloosa near the University of Alabama, of course that was where my sites were because I had a job, and I needed to work full-time and go to school. The University of Alabama had a tremendous reputation. I was interested in the business school, which had an outstanding reputation, so everything worked. It was a natural fit for me.