STATISTICS:
Born March 1950 in Clinton, MO
Residence is Helena Montana where my family moved while I was an infant.
EDUCATION:
Carroll College, graduate B.A. Economics 1973
Completed Post-graduate credit in Public Administration; (Accounting, Labor Relations, and Marketing)
MILITARY:
1970 - 1974 Air National Guard
1975 - 1980 Army National Guard
1981 - 1991 U.S. Army Reserve
POSITIONS HELD: Medical Services Specialist, Armor Cavalry Platoon Leader, Media Relations Officer, Training Officer, Personnel Officer
UNITS: 120th USAF Dispensary, 103d Public Affairs Detachment, 163d Armored Cavalry Regiment Trp F(-), 159th Spt Gp,
6228th USAR School, USA CIDC Sixth Region HQ
CAREER and EMPLOYMENT HISTORY:
COLLEGE YEARS;
College jobs: car wash manager, college publications
photographer, free lance commercial photography and news reporting, airport flight
line worker (General Aviation), bar tender, private security guard, played trumpet in the
Muncipal Band and Orchestra, folk singer, summer tour guide/bus driver, and rental property maintenance.
College Leisure Activities: painting, skiing, competitive swimming,
college pep band, flying, and intermural soccer. Also in my college years I obtained a private pilot license,
rebuilt a 1963 Corvette, competed in Sports Car Clubs of America speed events,
and traveled across North America as a crew member with an International Formula Car
Racing Team.
During my senior year I produced a one-man art exhibit of original paintings
and photographs.
PROFESSIONAL YEARS;
2003 - THE SLEEPY SENATOR, CLARKSON RENTALS
In 1973 I purchased Eighth Avenue Grocery Building, remodeled the residence and store room
and opened Clarkson Studio Photography.
During this time, I continued to assist family maintain their real estate rentals,
and earned extra income by renting the house adjacent to the studio. I limited my business
involvement from 1991 to 1995 to help assist my dad care for my mother when she became
terminal. Then in 2001 my dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer. I again limited my
business activities to help provide in-home care for him until he died in the fall of
2002. During this time, I completely remodeled and furnished the townhouse rental unit
into a luxury overnight tourist lodging facility. In July 2003 the VRBO,
The Sleepy Senator Tourist House, hosted the first guests and in 2004 was
subsequently declared the "Number One place to stay in Helena" by TravelSmart
Publication of NYC.
After my father died I acquired several of the family residential rental properties
and became CEO of Clarkson Properties Rental Management.
2003-2014 TEACHING
In 2002 I had started substitute teaching in the local school system for extra income while
re-establishing my businesses activities after my parents had died.
Then in 2009 I was requested to work under contract as a High School Drama Coach /
Thespian Sponsor. Most days were long, made even more so, by merely being relegated to monitor
movies or study halls. I seldom was appraised of any "problems" within the school classrooms
from many epidemic diseases, illegal drug usage, or legal mood-altering "leveling" medications,
or about any potential of disciplinary problems. In 10 years I observed a 'closed' society
which constantly moves children up and out of various schools, with parents losing all
interest just as soon as their child 'graduates,' a system that does not want to allow any
outsiders inside to observe or study it, a system in which most of the employees after
attaining tenured job-security merely will hang on for 20 or so years to retire, using
required continuing education benefits to prepare themselves for life after retirement.
Then, once secure with benefits, go off to follow their real "calling" in life.
I continually observed a system in which administrative policy and government mandates
often prevented academic or vocational technical skill achievements much beyond reaching
"mediocrity" and where most artistic creativity is suppressed by unskilled instructors,
having only academic credentials; or else those few "excellent" dedicated arts instructors
receiving no administrative support for their program. Teachers are kept isolated from each
other by class schedules and duties, but in my town they each do receive upper middle incomes
and superior benefits to even most state jobs, with the 2-teacher households actually becoming
affluent in terms of average incomes here in America. Yet, substitutes here still earn the same
pay as they did back in the 1970's when my girlfriend was substituting.
I witnessed millions being spent on athletic fields, when the budgets could not find
the thousands needed to provide textbooks in classes where students are being required to have
the latest computer to 'download' the book in e-pub format and then pay a fraction for it
on their own, but then being prohibited by the school rules from using these electronic
devices in these classrooms! Yet, the public still elects the same people back to the
oversight public administrative boards. Commuting to and from the schools in winter
often involved hazardous icy roads, no visibility from rising and setting sun glare,
and often seeing near misses among the hordes of
inattentive rushing parents, chauffeuring children to school, mixed with hundreds of
impulsive impatient teen drivers, pedestrians and bicycle riders never watching,
all arriving and departing at the same place at the same time,
with most ignoring local traffic speed limits and signals all along the "one-route" providing
limited access to the facility. I finally quit this job completely, refusing my contract
renewal offer, in the fall of 2014.
During the winter of 2015 I fell and broke several ribs while skiing in a difficult area
for the next few months I had difficulty beathing due to the pain. Then in the spring I
fell off a ladder while spring cleaning re-breaking the ribs and breaking a couple more.
That fall the difficulty seemed to increase and I blamed it upon the wood smoke from
nearby forest fires and home heating in Helena.
Then in February I woke up unable to do
small tasks without becoming short of breath. I went to my urgent care physician and discovered
his office had been closed due to "poor records keeping" by State Officials, so I went
to three other clinics, was refused, eventually winding up at the hospital ER. There tests
indicated I had bacterial pneumonia and I was sent home to rest without treatment.
After another visit to the ER and6 weeks I was informed I had IPF with a collapsed lung.
I was not treated, not admitted, and was not assigned a primary care physician until the
following July when my medicare B insurance became active, as I had missed the filing deadline
due to the "exchange" giving me bad information, and had to "wait" a year for the supplimentail
benefit I had to pay for. For the next 9 months I was placed into hospice care by my
primary care physician, who continued to run tests, but told me there was no hope and to
get my affairs in order and I began to lose weight and strength. In March 2017 I woke up
on a Friday unable to breathe and was finally admitted to the hospital where sputum cultures
(my first) indicated I had both bacteria and viral pneumonia. I was admitted and given two
iv drips over the next 14 days. Then transferred to a nursing home for hospice care.
However the Ward Physician suggested I apply for a transplant candidacy as there was
nothing else wrong with me. Several weeks later I saw a semi-retired pulmonologist in another
city, who, unlike the one I had been referred to several months before, performed a biopsy
and confirmed the Ward Physician's analysis. A month later I hired a complete stranger
to accompany me to Los Angeles Cedars Sinai where I became accepted as a transplant
candidate. My in home custodial care provider demanded higher wages, saying it was fair,
but I later learned she was shaking me down and taking advantage as she demanded triple the
fair wage in the Los Angeles area for that type of care, plus free room and board for her!
However she did get my weight to within the bottom requirement as well as encouraged me to
work and meet the minimum walking requirement. At this time I was barely able to walk 100
feet, emaciated, and mostly confined to a wheel chair.
On October 19 I was called and informed I had been "listed" for transplant. Two weeks later
I was called in and received a lung transplant and began a year and a half recovery in
Physical Rehabilitation. I am told now I have no health problems, other than stress from
living with complete strangers in a city I am not accustomed to, while still being weak from
my ordeal, and except for one day a week am completely on my own, but having to attend
supervised physical therapy twice a week as well as periodic testing to insure my tissue
anti rejection medicines are balanced.
The major problem now for me is the demonstrated
lack of competent medical care and expertise for critical illness in Helena, Montana
combined with that hospital's unwillingness to cooperate and refer critical patients
to any outside facility for life saving care that is hampering the surgical team here
in Los Angeles from releasing me to return home and delaying my return to a normal life.
1987 - CLARKSON & CO MAGIC AND ILLUSION PERFORMING;
I started
performing Magic and Illusion Shows professionally at the encouragement of
many professional mentors and friends when I was 37 years old after a lifetime of study
and collecting magic props. I swiftly rose to International Status and reputation as a
club room performer and emcee for the international magician's conventions.
I have held International elected office and appointments in the Society of American
Magicians, an international amateur magic association. I have appeared at many
international magic conventions stage shows and even toured as a featured artist in a
tent circus in addition to a busy schedule producing and appearing in my own illusion shows
for schools, conventions, dinner meetings, charity events, county fairs and festivals.
I have been a magic and special effects consultant to local ballet and theater companies.
I am a performer member in the Hollywood Academy of Magical Arts / Magic Castle.
I have been featured in regional television news interviews, and radio talk shows.
I also had a brief acting career, performing lead roles in summer stock and community
theater productions, appearing alongside the 1960's Stage and Television Star David Herrick
and Seattle Stage Actor Dave Maynard, and I have appeared in state tourism promotional
films and commercials.
1973 - CLARKSON STUDIO PHOTOGRAPHY;
The summer I graduated from college, 1973, I opened Clarkson Studio in a 19th Century
neighborhood store and house building I purchased. I started creating display images
for local advertising and all images for a major distillery's advertising. I now
have an extensive portfolio of published product advertising
and media editorial assignment images, published world-wide, and I have exhibited artistic
photographs in galleries and at the prestigious Pacific Northwest Photo Expos. A portrait
I created of a native American Woman in full tribal dress hangs on display in the NONAM
Museum, Zurich.
PROFESSIONAL AWARDS AND RECOGNITIONS;
My biography has been published in Marquis Who's Who in America, Who's Who Among Emerging
Business Leaders,
and Who's Who in the World. My photographs have been published worldwide, including on
many magazine covers and in display advertisements, and I have received the Award of Merit
from the Professional Photographers of America.
I have received achievement awards and the
Life Membership Award from the Society of American Magicians and the International
Brotherhood of Magicians Wizard Award and Order of Harry Houdini Award, Silver Tier.
I have served many years on
the Society of American Magicians' International Board of Directors in both elected and
appointed positions.
I am a member in the prestigious Hollywood Magic Castle Academy of Magical Arts,
The Society of American Magicians, The International Brotherhood of Magicians,
the Invisible Lodge, and the NY Edison Hotel
Magic Table.
My Vacation Rental, The Sleepy Senator
was named "The #1 Most Interesting Place to
Stay in Helena" by TravelSmart Magazine of NYC.
OTHER ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND AWARDS;
Until recently I had been a member of the First Christian Church of Helena and was elected
congregation moderator. For several years I worked part-time with a local ambulance service
and was an active Ski Patrolman on MT Belmont. I am a certified open water scuba diver
and have an FAA Private Pilot License. I spent several summers as a projectionist at the
local Drive-In Movie Theater and was
active in the Helena Exchange Club for nearly a decade, elected to both the local club and
district club offices, and received many awards for my participation in the service club.
I am a Past Commander of the Reserve Officers Montana Department and Helena Chapter, and I
am a Past Master in a Helena Masonic Lodge. I was elected to serve on the City of Helena
Citizen's Council for four terms and was elected Secretary on the Lewis and Clark Emergency
Services Council.
MY LIFESTYLE;
I curently live in a scenic Montana community with my standard poodle in my parent's former
home, a 5 bedroom 2.5 bath Victorian, constructed in 1891 by Thornbourgh and Day, supposedly
designed by famous 19th Century Architect George Appleton of NY. It is near the Montana State
Capitol Building and was originally built as a speculation shortly following the vote making
Helena the New State Capitol. For decades the house title was in default and litigation, until
it eventually was awarded to high-ranked English nobility involved in the British Foreign
Service as part of the wealthy influential family's investment portfolio, who owned it until
just prior to WWII.
My constant companions for over 12 years,
Heather (Berry's Coppertop) and Shaka (an Artic Lobo wolf) who both died during the
winter of 2006. The dogs have their own
webpage
OTHER INTERESTS:
Studying about spirituality, magic, religion, bowling, reading, snow skiing, auto sports,
concerts, playing the guitar, swimming, hiking, and I am a classical movie and jazz
enthusiast.