Born in Nashville, Tennessee to a Nazarene preacher and his young wife, I unknowingly started down a road that would bring me full circle, back to Nashville, and another beginning.
The journey would take me through seven churches in seven cities, nine schools in twelve years and wonderful memories of high school in the sleepy little river town of Danville, Virginia.
High School graduation was quickly followed by yet another relocation by the family, this time to the Gulf Coast town of Pascogoula, Mississippi, where Dad was to serve as the pastor of the Nazarene church there – the same church my maternal grandfather had pastored for many years and where the family was well known and much loved. And as the family moved to the deep south, I began preparations to move north. Olivet Nazarene College had accepted my application for admission and so late in the month of August of 1978, the family car, loaded with most of my worldly belongings, was aimed at Chicago and stopped sixty miles short of that target in the little burg of Bourbonnais, Illinois- a place that was to be my home away from home for the next four years.
College was fun – (isn’t it supposed to be?) – and for entirety of my stay there I sang with Orpheus Choir and the Vocal Ensemble, served as a recruiter for the school in the churches of Indiana. Oh…..and studied. That last detail allowed me to participate in the commencement exercises in the spring of 1982.
So armed with a double major – English and Social Justice – and a minor in music, I found my family in Memphis, Tennessee, and, having successfully negotiated the LSAT (Law School Admissions Test) during my Junior year and having been accepted by the University of Memphis School of Law, things seemed to be coming together nicely and life was looking great.
While I was in law school, I searched for and found a clerkship position at a small law firm in Bartlett, Tennessee, which focused primarily on real estate in general and the closing of real estate transactions in particular. As school ended, graduation came and went, and I fell into the life of the firm as a junior associate. I enjoyed the work. The pace was fast. The intracacies of the field intrigued me and fit my personality. The money was good and the potential money incredible. So I threw myself into the work and started my professional life.
