Background 

I was born in Columbia and left in 1971 to go to college. I attended Sullins Junior College in Bristol, Virginia from 1971-1973 and received an Associate of Arts Degree in Liberal Arts. The summer of my freshman year in 1972 was spent in Spain, which changed my life. I knew after that summer that I would study Anthropology. I was particularly interested in cultural anthropology, but I had always had a curiosity for the natural world as well. I transferred to Southern Methodist University in 1973-1975 receiving a Bachelors of Arts Degree in Anthropology, minors in Art History, History, and Spanish. I began doing fieldwork in Archaeology starting in January 1974 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and spent the next two years working in New Mexico during summers and breaks. I then moved to New Mexico upon graduation and worked for five years as a field and lab archaeologist working mainly in the Four Corners area. I attended graduate school at the University of Denver in 1979-1980 and conducted archaeological fieldwork in Colorado summer of 1980 and on the North Slope of Alaska summer of 1981. I moved back to Colorado in October 1981 and conducted fieldwork in Wyoming, Utah, Montana, South Dakota, New Mexico, and Colorado until 1983. The University of Alaska Museum offered me a job in May 1983, so I moved back to Alaska until March 1985. I was then hired by the SC Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, and I moved back to Columbia to be closer to my family. My official title now is Director of Outreach/Archaeologist II. I have several positions. This is the 25th year I have coordinated South Carolina Archaeology Month, held every October, usually offering over 60 programs statewide in 50 locations with 85 organizations involved. I coordinate several committees that produce a poster, a calendar of events booklet. I also participate in several media events promoting archaeological awareness for the Institute and all archaeologists in South Carolina. I oversee the SCIAA Research Library, which houses over 29,000 volumes. This library may represent one of the largest archaeological libraries in the Southeast, certainly in South Carolina. I raised money for the Robert L. Stephenson Library Endowment Fund, which enabled me to hire professional librarians in the past several years to begin cataloging the SCIAA Research Library collections, and we have about 2,000 books left to be entered into the catalog system with the USC Thomas Cooper Library. I also keep up with the orders of books and journals each year. I am the editor of Legacy, the magazine of the SCIAA. I solicit all articles, design, edit, and layout each issue, then get it printed and mailed to over 2,500 people. I am the Secretary and SCIAA staff to the Archaeological Research Trust Board of Trustees. In 2016, we will celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Archaeological Research Trust Board, and SCIAA plans to host an ART Gala in December 2016. I plan and coordinate four meetings a year and service all donors who give to over 10 USC Educational Foundation accounts. I served as the Treasurer of the Archaeological Society of South Carolina for 26 years, and rotated off in 2009. I oversee the SCIAA mailing list, which now has over 9,000 people on it. It grows several hundred each year, and it includes every school, library, and museum in the state, as well as hundreds from the general public. Each year I speak to several schools, civic organizations, and adult education classes, and I travel to every corner of South Carolina bringing awareness about the Institute and South Carolina archaeology.