Senior in
High School

Wow, High School is where most all of my life started. My activity with the Boy
Scouts slowed down and clubs and sports filled the holes in my life. (Well, clubs more than sports) Right away in High School I wanted to become a Draftsman of Architecture. I had signed up for classes with the best teacher and found a way of getting special attention by joining the club VICA.

Vocational Industrial Clubs of America (VICA), was an orgranization that helps our young High School students get the information/skills they need and want to know before going to College. VICA has State and Regional events of competition for our youth to attend and test their High School level skills in "real world" activities. I was the Historian my first year. I was the President the following years (hands down, no competition!). I was one of the first students to help start a new category of study during my senior year, I helped add "Graphic Art Design" to the club. I had been a distant admirer of the class at Lincoln High School. I felt the students of the class should have a competitive start in High School too. The category was accepted on the State level, but there wasn't enough interest on the Regional level. (I heard there was the second year though).

After two semesters of Architectural Study, I found some new interests in Marketing and Business. I joined a club called DECA. Distributive Education Clubs of America (DECA), was an organization like VICA, except it was around business like job, i.e. Fast Food, Retail Sales, and Marketing stuff. The first year I had a job at Arby's at tried my skills Fast Food strategies. I sucked as most of us did. The second year though, I got into retail sales and found a really good fit. (I liked it so much I found a good job with Wards later in life.) DECA was one of the "COOL" clubs to be a part of. I was so intrigued with its structure that I even had to compete with several other people for a chance to control the club as President. I lost, and actually we lost (my best opponent and I), to a last minute write on to the ballot. But, the following year someone did not return to
LHS and I easily swept the crowd for the position! I had become the Historian
and I won because of the several connections I had. I had access to a
3D camera that took REAL 3D PHOTOS! I also had access to a video
camera, but didn't actually use it until the State Competition days.

Toward the end of my High School years I sent some of my future ideas to an orgranization on campus. My ideas were really important to someone out there for I was asked to join a special orgranization and was awarded a certificate stating I was one of the top 50 entrepreneurs of the year. I attend classes at the ceremonies that introduced me to some very influencial business owners of Lincoln. I was invited to join a club on campus for Entrepreneurs and I was given a Scholarship to participate in on of the first classes offered on Entrepreneurship.

I took the class and found a world of new experiences in my chosen field of Business. Business courses at the University of Nebraska were not allowed for first year students, so you can see the advantage for us Young Entrepreneurs to want to attend this class as Freshman! The class was very fullfilling to my needs as a student and I began to participate in a lot of other social clubs that related to my fields of interest in school. I wanted to get into marketing and do some entrepreneurial things like start my own business. At the time it was going to be a business in Sales and Marketing, but my following summer changed all that. The club for entrepreneurs on campus attends a special "Entrepreneurial Conference" some where in the world. The convention I attended took us to Malaysia. It was a really interesting voyage. We started in California, where all most of us wanted to do was see the Pacific Ocean. We were not able to voyage out and explore it (but we had the time on the way back).

My participation in the convention was about a program that I used while in high school that taught those who used it a little about running a business and published reports that helps you understand the whole aspects of running a business. I was told that I could borrow it from the school, but I needed to bring it back though, as it was a major part of the Marketing Class that they ran at my High School (Lincoln High). As you might imagine, we got to the convention, their computer equipment could not copy the disks we had with us, so the Professor in charge made me leave it with them in the hopes that they would send it back to us when they had found a way to copy it! (I was really furious with the Professor for talking me into this stupid idea and this was one of the reason I left college the way I did.) I learned on that voyage that I could NEVER sell out somebody for any reason! I really began to hate the idea of doing any kind of business with the Campus Clubs and learned a hard lesson about Professors at UNL; "they will do ANYTHING to get ahead of the students", at least this is how I took the experience.

I got really bored attending stupid courses at the university, and again they would not allow any student on campus below the status of a JR take any courses in business and I lost total interest in attending college all together. I took a computer course through the university at the community college in Lincoln and my WHOLE world was reopened about computers and what I always wanted to do with my life. I was already an employee at Wards by this time and I dropped out after getting an A+ in that computer course. I found myself selling computers and electronics at Montgomery Ward (Wards now). And, I developed excellent troubleshooting skills about the computers that we sold there. I was able to eliminate 30% of the returns to our store before the company decided to eliminate computers from the store altogether.