Having grown up on a farm, during my early twenties I was active in ZPG (Zero Population Growth) when that organization first formed. My own small family had a goat and a large organic garden. We recycled houses for a living. In my thirties I helped found a nuclear waste storage protest group and was a watchdog for air pollution from local factories. While pursuing advanced degrees, I served as project director for a major watershed conference held at Idaho State University and was a charter member of the city's environmental board, which initiated a curbside recycling program. I headed a water conservation public education project for the municipal Utilities Department, interned with the Greater Yellowstone Coalition on Forest Service plan revisions; taught Introduction to Political Science and Community Building classes and team taught a class in Environmental Politics with Dr. Ralph Maughan, all at ISU. Earlier, I had volunteered for an Earthwatch project in cataloging native plants on the Manatlan, Mexico, Biosphere Reserve; served as an ambassador to Ecuador through Partners of the Americas on Family Planning; and made a proposal for sustainable tourist industries in the Manu National Park of Guatemala. My respect for Mother Earth was also expressed by several years of working closely with the Shoshone-Bannock tribes on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation. This included conducting research, obtaining grants, and spearheading cultural and historical preservation projects, along with an MA thesis in Anthropology. My background in scholarly research and writing dates to my early twenties, when I first authored The Story of Old Fort Hall and The Shoshone Bannock and Old Fort Hall while working as project director and exhibit designer on Fort Hall Replica museum rooms under Idaho Humanities Council Grants. My advanced degrees and additional coursework include an MFA (Fine Arts), an MA (Anthropology and Education), and an MPA (Public Administration). I was all-but-thesis in Counseling and Art Therapy, and ABD a doctorate in Political Science and Economics with an environmental emphasis, when funding and health issues dictated a change in the direction of my life.