ROLL CALL TO ALL MEMBERS !!!!

[indygal]

That's wonderful news, Janet! Congratulations! I know you'll do a terrific job.

[Sherri]

Well, I guess it is my turn to tell you a little bit about me. 
I am Sherri McDonald Mills Wilder...I have the same background as my sister Teresa so I won't bore you with all that.
I graduated from West Elk in 1975 and married Mike Mills in 1975.  I was married to him for 23 years and we had a wonderful daughter Tania Mills Muller, who is 26 years old.  After I divorced, I lived in Howard for a few years then I went to Tyler Texas for 4 years.  There I met Curt Wilder and we have been married for 3 1/2 years.
I have worked for the Farm Service Agency for 22 years and I am a Manager for two offices.  I manage Greensburg office and Coldwater office.  Since the horrible tornado, our office is temporarily housed in Kinsley Kansas.  We hope to be back in Greensburg by August.
Curt and I lived in Texas before we moved back to Kansas.  We lived in Great Bend for a while until we moved to Greensburg.  We lived in Greensburg for a year and then moved to Mullinville.  Curt worked for the agency in Dodge and then we purchased a Daylight Donut shop in Hutchinson.  He moved to Hutchinson and I moved to Greensburg.  I kept my job with the agency and Curt owned and operated the Donut shop.  We lived apart for a year and decided that was not a good thing so we sold the donut shop and we moved back to the same home in the country in Mullinville.  We have 10 acres and it is beautiful.  I am still with the agency and Curt works for the Conservation District and also for a rancher.
Tania just graduated from Dental Hygiene school in Colby, Kansas.  She has passed all her written boards and will take her cliical boards in July and then she will be licensed in 13 states.  We are so very proud of her.  She has worked very  hard to get through this school.
We have a Lab dog, Brody that is so spoiled and we have inherited Tania's cat, OP Lee since she has been in school and since her divorce. 
We don't have a lot of spare time since we mow 7 acres, have a garden, apple trees and flowers.  It is a full time job taking care of all of the property here.
Curt loves to hunt and trap shoot.  He helps with the youth shoots at LaSada and really enjoys that.
I love to play on the computer, read, do wood crafts and just be with friends.  I love to cook and of course eat....all you have to do is look at me and know that is true. haha 

But that is about it for us.  I love getting on the forum and reading all that is going on.  I think this is wonderful to read about everyone.  It is nice to know who is behind the alias names.  Thanks for sharing.

[DanCookson]

Ok, at someone's special request , I guess it is my turn.

My alias speaks for itself, as I am SnakeHater.  I am Dan Cookson, 34 years old and the eldest son of Mark and Teresa.

I grew up in Howard trying to be good lad, but found that difficult to do most of the time.  I attended grade school at Moline and graduated from West Elk High School in Howard in 1992.
I then attended Emporia State University Graduating in 1997 with bachelors degrees in Business Administration and Applied Economics.

I met my wife Teri at college in Emporia and we were married in September of 1996.  We moved to Wichita in 1997 and stayed there for 3 years until moving to Howard.  We found that we were spending all of our spare time here anyway!!  Teri was originally from Hesston and enjoyed growing up in a small town so the fit was perfect for us.  She is employed at Koch Industries in Wichita.  I work with my Uncle in Howard running a shipping business. 

We have a daughter, Ashley, who is 5 years old.  She is going to be in Kindergarten this year and loves the outdoors.  She is the king of hide and seek and loves to play at the park.  I think she could play with her dolls and babies for hours on end as well.  Everyone gets to read about her as her Me-Maw likes to brag her up!!

I enjoy camping, fishing, and hunting.  I also enjoy going on 4 wheeler rides and just about anything outdoors and with friends and family.  If I am indoors, I like to read, watch movies, and work on computers.  I hate mowing and snakes.


I really enjoy the forum and reading about everyone's views and ideas on the many different topics that face our town, state, and country!

[Nadine]

I moved to Howard when I was 17 (1975) after my father (Ed) retired from the Air Force.  I graduated in 1976 and left for college.  I graduated from Emporia State University and moved to Kansas City.  I have been here since.  As I age I really appreciate the small quiet life that Elk County offers.

As I get older the desire to return to that area grows stronger.  Every trip I make to that area I always make a trip to Elk Falls (The Falls) and out to the Moline Lake and sit and dream about moving back to this quiet life. 

When my Mother was real sick I came back and stayed with her and Dad.  I was contemplating moving back then to be closer to everyone.  Someone told me about Bambi (was Bird)'s place in Elk Falls.  So I went on an adventure and found the place back off the country road.  It is a paradise setting.  As I came up around the road and there sat a simple house with all the trees around it.  WOW.  If anyone hears that she is selling/renting let me know, that might be the place that gets me back to that area.

My passion is photography building website and sports.  Since I found this site I will make a gallery of some sports photos I have of West Elk teams.  I try to make it a point to get back to the Elk County area and photograph some events every year.  Which I have never shared with anyone from the area until now.

Great site so glad to see Howard/Elk County at a finger tip now.  Awesome job by everyone involved.

[Kjell H.]

Ok, Teresa has been nagging oops.. I mean,'asking' me for weeks about me answering the roll call.... Anyone who knows me knows that I don't like talking about myself, but finally I realized that she wasn't going to let up on me until I did this.

So finally I did some cut and past from some old bio files and squeezed it down from a boring long version to the 1 long page compact version.  Man, I have been involved in a lot of stuff.....   LOL

I believe I have some pictures stacked somewhere too that Teresa can turn into a slide show on the video page. about my home land. And now that I've said that, she will know, and I'll not hear the end of it until I get them to her.  Oh well, I will never know when to keep my mouth shut. 

Well, as some of you already know, I am one of those aliens that have crossed the US borders a little over 3 years ago to be exact. I went through every check list possible and Uncle Sam judged me up and down for some time, but he finally decided to grant me permanent residency in the US, making me one of the good tax payers both here and in the old country. They won't have to export me or give me any amnesty either. 


I wash my green alien color off my face every morning and walk the streets as a regular guy, just to make sure nobody pays any attention to me. Amazing what a bar of soap can fool others to believe. I even handle a few words in English, so I can at least order a cup of coffee and a hot dog now and then.
Caroline at the post office knows my sign language by now, so I am even able to buy stamps. It is just wonderful.  *grinning*
 
Right now, I look like I am scalped, but Teresa did that....with a razor..... at my request. This Kansas heat and humidity made my 23 hairs on my head even hotter than ever, So I told her. "Get the razer and shave my head!" She looked at me like I had lost my mind, but she did it! I believe I'll stay like this all summer.

Seriously..... I am a native Norwegian, raised on a farm on the northwestern coast, between high mountains, fjords and a scenery quite different than Kansas. Moved out when I was 16 to conquer the world like all crazy Vikings have done for centuries. After getting an education in trade and business and serving in the Royal Norwegian Air Force, I tried my luck in the dairy business. I started in the maintenance department and ended up in sales and marketing.

In 1984, I took a break from being employed and took a risk of starting my own business. Spent 2 years selling different products including insurance, and even flying to Florida every second month to sell  real estate and then back to Norway (That's what you call commuting).

The insurance company then offered me a job that I couldn't say no to. Spent almost 10 years as a district supervisor and in between got some more education, in contract law, tax law, business and project management.

In 1997, I said good bye to the insurance industry and started a consultant business. The next 7 years I was able to combine work and hobbies and hit base on more fields than most people ever would dream of doing.. It was a crazy time that involved national and local shooting, and pro gun organizations. I worked with law enforcement which included canine training for police work... I have been attacked by my share of shepherd dogs. It was fun....

I also worked as a firearm law expert, having to deal with police districts, gun owners, bureaucracy, politicians,and lawyers. I was actively involved in media, firearm instruction, and was the writer of articles and for a short period was an editor of a gun magazine.

I was so busy and doing so many things that I cannot even remember most of them.

I even got involved in PR work internationally for the shooting sports, I created and founded a web site, called CasCity.com ..  which I am proud to say is now the 2nd largest  Cowboy Action Shooting site in the world. I got an alias shooter handle attached to me (Marshal Halloway) that will stick with me for the rest of my life. In fact, only family and a very few people know me as Kjell. Marshal Halloway is the only name I am recognized as, in the gun world.

In the same period, I did most of my PR work through a newfangled technology called the Internet and many of my clients didn't even have a clue where I was located. Hey, sometimes I didn't even know it myself...

During my career, I tried to combine it with sports, mostly competitive shooting (been involved in most shooting genres, but for the most part action and combat oriented shooting. And in addition I have enjoyed mountain hiking, ocean fishing, soccer, and outdoor life in general. Reading (mostly history) and in between trying to kill computers that never seemed to work the way I wanted them too..

In 2003, I decided to say 'enough is enough'. Too much public life in the media's eye, with little or no privacy, too many commitments and obligations. I wanted to just be "normal". To maybe hide away and  have a nice little job in a book store (I am serious), with no more phone calls, no interruptions when I was eating in a restaurant  and the whole 10 yards. Then I met Teresa and ended up in Howard, USA....

Here nobody knew me, very few even cared to ask. Hey it was the perfect "book store". I was in a small quiet town where no one knew who Marshal Halloway was, and finally I was able to catch up with myself.

While I was here, I still had part of my consultant business, but that wouldn't last long, running an operation with Norwegian clients from a US office. So, sooner or later I had to come out of the shed. A good friend of mine from Texas, convinced me to once again get involved in PR, Marketing and the Media.

After a long haul getting reestablished, Teresa and I are now heavily involved in Broadband TV, PR & Internet projects and retail sales. We have teamed up with a TV producer by the name of Michael Bane who for the most part works for the Outdoor Channel and in other ways keeps us busy with a project called Down Range Television. We are still promoting the shooting sports and we have a few clients on the side doing PR work for them. Funny thing is that I am back to a point where I didn't want to be 4 years ago. 

I'm lucky to have a partner who is a lot smarter than she wants to admit to herself. And this is just a portion of what she is doing. How she is able to combine everything she does every day of the week is way over my head.

That's it........ roll call ended. Mission accomplished. No more nagging....

So, the next time you see me walking the streets of Howard, you'll know that the green alien color is really not green... And since I can speak more than one language, I can order more than coffee and hot dogs...

And if you ask Caroline, she will testify that I can also send packages as well as buying stamps.

Dang, I think I'm gonna make it, even in the redneck world! LOL

I want to end this post by saying a few things about the Howard or Elk County site. It was originally set up as a test site for a few of my projects. Since it was a working test site, I decided to let the citizens of Elk County use it. I still do some tech testing on the site, things you cannot see. And I appreciate the fact that a small percentage of Elk County people have learned how useful this service can be for the community. This also includes people that have moved away from the area. Most people,and the businesses and public services are still in hibernation by not taking advantage of this service. It's here to be used by all.


See ya!

[Janet Harrington]

Thank you, Alien Kjell.  I always wanted to know who the heck you were.  LOL

[Teresa]

Hell's fire.. I didn't even know half of this stuff about him..

Just kidding! I'm just glad I don't have to nag anymore.
( But it always works )

[Joanna]

Thanks Kjell, I enjoyed learning about you too ~
The folks on the Forum are GREAT, but I'm amazed every day when I mention something about it and the other person gets that blank look on their face...   Okay, at least on the faces that don't start blank....   I agree that only a small percentage of the town citizens & businesses use the forum ~ a major loss to them! I try to introduce all our new and old friends to the site, everyone who sees it is impressed.  Sincerely, THANK YOU for making it available to us!

[flo]

well, kjell, no need to ask what you enjoy doing in your spare time.  YOU DON'T HAVE ANY.... enjoyed reading your bio

[kdfrawg]

Yikes, everyone has been very forthcoming! I have not yet read all of the posts in this thread, but I promise that I'll get around to it in the next few days.

As I said elsewhere, I was born in Omaha, Nebraska. Almost my entire family still lives there, and the only exception is my sister, who lives just across the river in Council Bluffs, Iowa. My Dad will be turning 87 in a few days, and I'm doing my best to talk him into going for the big 100. He is a retired Navy Seabee Master Chief, having served 37 years, some of it as the chief (no pun intended) model maker of the U.S. Navy.

I went to the University of Nebraska and worked in residential construction management in Omaha before moving to Kansas City and then California. I lived in various spots around the Bay area for 25 years before finally coming back to the Midwest via jobs in Las Vegas and Austin.

I was thrown into the world of computers in the late 1960s when the little construction company I worked for was looking for another way to make money, especially in the winter. I suggested that we do construction estimating, thereby unwittingly volunteering for the job. While I learned, my first computer was an IBM 360 mainframe computer that we leased to get that department going.

That led me into consulting in the computer business, where I spent over 30 happy years. I started out as a programmer and worked my way up to being a program manager, always working essentially for myself and doing project work. The more experience I got, the smaller were the computers that I chose to work with until I landed in the personal computer arena. Most of my experience was in computer program development, with a minor in database development.

When I came back to the Midwest in 1993, I lived in Johnson County, Kansas for a few years, almost all of that in Lenexa. I was not all that thrilled with Johnson County. It seemed to have most of the bad features of life in a large urban area without any of the benefits of San Francisco. It was during that time that I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, which eventually forced my early disability retirement.

Fortunately, I married my wife Sabine in 1999 and moved to Lawrence. I have always liked college towns and this is one of the best. I also gained a stepdaughter (we dropped the "step" part a long time ago), who just finished her Junior year at KU in music education. She's going to be an elementary school music teacher. My wife, who was born in Germany and came to this country with her parents at a very young age, works in the Public Administration school at KU.

I am trying to be a writer now that I am no longer working, something that I have always wanted to do. I have written a couple of novels, but writing them is one thing and selling them is another.

If anybody is still awake, thanks for listening!