My Bio Page

    I wasn't fortunate enough to be able to afford to go to college when I graduated from Putnam City High school in 1961. My father was a firefighter raising 4 children on a small salary and even then he had to always work on his days off to make a living for us.
    Being on my own and 17, I naturally made as many bad decisions as possible. I don't regret what arose from my mistakes, such as my children, but always regretted that I couldn't have used all my potential and so made their lives better with more advantages to exceed in life than I have managed on my own.
    I can say that my father did affect the rest of my life by one of his decisions. In 1964 he married a wonderful woman named Ruby. They both helped me many times in and out of Oklahoma in the next 30 years. Another outcome of this was that one of Ruby's sons is Karl White who became my boss in my last career. Karl owned Crystal Laboratory in Luther OK, which produces raw allergenic products for use in allergy extracts. I started working for him in 1980 when I moved back to OK for good. Karl's hobby was collecting antique fishing tackle. Over the next 20 years, Crystal Lab's good revenue and Karl's good knowledge of what items to acquire led to him having the best collection of antique fishing tackle that exists.
    From this collection, we took over 15000 pictures to create the Fishing Tackle Antiques and Collectibles 3 Volume set of books. (go to www.karltwhite.com). The important thing about creating the books was, to preserve for the future, all the knowledge that Karl has amassed over the years and document it. Karl is the foremost authority on antique fishing tackle today. He answers all requests for identification and values for free to share his knowledge with others. His collection can be seen at the Oklahoma Aquarium in Jenks, OK. Karl has sold the lab and retired from the pollen business and has a column in the BASSMASTER magazine called "What's it worth?" where he does appraisals for readers. Photographing, and editing these pictures plus creating over 20 databases containing all the information for each picture, has kept me busy so that I just now have had time to do this database page. Learning everything I needed to know to get these books done has helped me in many ways. With the knowledge and software I gained from creating the books, it has been possible to help the Alumni Association with newsletters, directories, etc.                                                                         I am General Manager at Crystal Lab now and semi-retired. I still try to make sure that my whole family and everyone who will let me, become as computer literate as possible.
    One other good thing that occurred from my Dad's marriage to Ruby, is that Ruby's cousin who is Martha Ann McCullough Schlenker from the class of 1961, became my step-cousin-in-law.  I had a very good time helping with the 40th Reunion and enjoyed going to it. The best part was getting to meet some of the classmates while helping to arrange it. Now that I have more time I am hoping we can do it again and I am looking forward to it.

Grandchildren and others

Michael's 2 sons

Jeanette's 3

Children

My Careers (so far)