Being born in a third generation farming family, I have lived an exceptional and experiential life in the Midwest. I grew up with a sense of family, duty, and honest work thanks to my stalwart parents raising me and my six siblings. Being the oldest boy, I aided my father and my family as a farm hand since I was 11 by driving equipment, transporting grain, and managing fields all while studying for school, participating in sports, and providing my service to a local 4-H club. Thanks to this, I learned early on to appreciate family cohesiveness, the quality of service, and an appreciation to the natural and biological world.Those traits were well used when I worked for a contractor for 5 summers and 3 winters as a way to make money, learn a trade, and do some more character building. It taught me, even more, to appreciate the things that you earn and the way ideas and structures are built. These then built further upon my education in both secondary education and biology at Western Illinois University. The appreciation I gained with my father’s business mixed with the content I was learning to one day teach. The critical thinking I learned while building houses allowed me to see biological processes from a different perspective. My efforts given in my 4-H club mirrored the work I provided in my studies. These then all transferred to my joining of the Peace Corps with my partner to teach agriculture in Paraguay. Though I may not have finished my service as planned, the knowledge and experience I gained and built upon during my training expanded my appreciation to nature and provided me even more insight to the importance of sharing culture, language, and skills. These have made me the man I am today. Besides these things, I have dabbled in film editing/filmography/photography, simple computer knowledge, video games, film critique, loving dogs, and politics.