Earl R. Gates

Earl Gates was born and grew up in central and southern Illinois in the midst of the Great Depression. His parents, farmers by tradition and background, moved frequently because his father's job required it. When Earl was a high school sophomore, they moved back to the town in which he had been born. He attended 10 schools and the family moved at least 20 times before he graduated from high school.

He was the first member of his immediate family to graduate from high school. At the urging of a meddlesome high school principal, he went on to become the first person in his family to graduate from college. He has an undistinguished BA degree in the Social Sciences from Blackburn College in Carlinville, Illinois, and a similarly undistinguished MA degree in Psychology (Learning Theory) from the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri.

After serving his drafted two years in the U.S. Army, he married Sherry Lawson in Chicago. Over their subsequent 50 years of marriage, they raised three daughters while living in 13 different communities as Earl worked for five different corporations. When he retired the second time while they lived in Decatur, Illinois, Sherry chose Appleton, Wisconsin, as their retirement home and they've resided there since 1996.

Earl has done little publishing (that's work, remember), but he has done reasonably well in the few contests he enters. He tries to enhance his chances by entering only those in which there are as many prizes as there are entrants. When he writes at all he writes short stories and essays, often of the memoir variety. He is an embarrassingly frequent contributor of letters and commentary of the crackpot variety to the local newspapers.

updated: 03/17/06