: About Me

I am a first grade teacher in Fairbanks, Alaska. My wife and I spent nine years teaching in the Alaskan Bush, seven of them in Chevak, where we adopted our son, Kieran Cikiun, 9, and daugher, Ceili Nunaniq, 7.

I was born in San Antonio, Texas, spent my younger years in Paducah, Kentucky, and grew up in Torrance, California. After high school, I attended a series of community colleges and universities, finally graduating cum laude from Humboldt State University in Arcata, California. I spent the next 20 years in Oregon as a high school English teacher, a frozen food production supervisor, and finally an elementary teacher. My first wife and I have a son, Jesse, who managed to "drop up" from high school to a local community college and then graduated Reed College in Portland, Oregon.

I play bass, dobro, accordion, and guitar. My bluegrass band, Rural Delivery, plays bluegrass cover tunes. An offshoot, the Porch Dogs, plays original songs written by me and other band members. The website for both bands is www.myspace.com/ruraldeliveryband.

I love teaching, but I'm looking forward to retirement within the next couple of years, so I can play more music and travel around to bluegrass festivals in the Lower 48.

My passion is ...

teaching writing and playing bluegrass music.

I know too much about ...

the weaknesses of the public education system.

My parents always told me ...

to look beyond a person's race, religion, or creed.

My childhood ambition ...

was to become a novelist.

My favorite memory ...

traveling one summer with my toddler daughter Ceili, attending bluegrass festivals in Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, West Virginia, and New York.

Why I write ...

to make sense of life.

What I am reading/watching/listening to ...

short stories by southern writers George Singleton and William Gay.

My first job ...

was delivering the South Bay Daily Breeze in Torrance, California.

My best moment ...

winning the local Wal-Mart & Sam's Club Teacher of the Year in 2007.

My inspiration ...

my oldest son Jesse, who has followed the beat of his own drum.

Entertainment > Musicians & Bands Fearless fiddle players

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When I think of fearless fiddle players, one name comes immediately to mind: Earl Hughes. Earl Hughes is Alaska's official "ambassador to country music", as proclaimed by several Alaskan governors. Despite a heart attack in 2007 and an upcoming hernia operation, Earl keeps working seven days a week during the summer tourist season. When I first played music with him a couple of years ago, Earl's day went something like this: playing fiddle, banjo, guitar, mandolin, and dobro at 6:00 a.m. at the Westmark Hotel in Fairbanks for the tourists who were eating breakfast or getting ready to board...

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