User:Professor JR

Profile
Professor JR is a proud native son of the American West, who was born and grew up on the sagebrush prairies of the High Plains in southeastern Wyoming, north of Cheyenne.



His lineage on his mother's side consists of Quaker and Amish ancestors, who came to North America before the American Revolution. On his father's side, he is a descendant of Dutch General Godert de Ginkell, 1st Earl of Athlone, who accompanied William of Orange (later King William III) to England as his chief lieutenant in the "Glorious Revolution" that deposed King James II in 1688. In the 19th Century, Professor JR's branches of the two families settled in the Nebraska and Wyoming Territories of the American West.

His father was a Superintendent of Public Schools in Wyoming, and his mother a performing violinist and music teacher. He has two brothers, one a Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, and the other a retired Regional Administrator of the FAA.



Professor JR earned his B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Wyoming in Laramie, studying on a Ford Foundation Scholarship; spent two years abroad as a Fulbright Scholar & Professor; and later in his career, completed a program for government executives at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Over the course of his career, he has held positions as a University Professor of American History and American Studies; as a theatre and film critic; as a National Park Ranger; as a Legislative Aide in the U.S. Congress; and as a senior Federal Government Official in Washington, DC, where he currently resides.

Academia


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 * University of Hawaii, Honolulu -- American Literature.

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 * University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho -- British & American Literature.

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 * Universidad Nacional de Asunción, Asunción, Paraguay -- American History; American Literature; American Political Thought; Chairman, Department of English Languages, Instituto de Lenguas.

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Government
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 * National Park Service --- Park Ranger, Yellowstone NP; National Program Manager, Headquarters, Washington, DC.


 * United States Congress --- Legislative Aide.


 * U.S. Department of the Interior --- SES Executive; Congressional Liaison.



Memberships

 * Assoc. of National Park Rangers (ANPR) - Life Member.
 * Employees & Alumni Association of the Nat'l. Park Service (E & AA) - Life Member.
 * National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA).
 * Environmental Defense Fund (EDF).
 * National Wildlife Federation (NWF).
 * Nature Conservancy.
 * ΌΔΚ - Omicron Delta Kappa Nat'l. Honor Society.
 * ΦΔΘ - Phi Delta Theta.
 * | Iron Skull Honor Society.
 * Ancient and Honorable Order of Turtles.
 * Society of American Magicians.
 * Honolulu Academy of Arts - Associate Member.
 * HeForShe.

Personal Data


Professor JR resides with his wife --- an Emmy-winning television & film producer, and a native of Upstate New York's Mohawk Valley --- and his family, just outside Washington, DC.



He operates a small modern & contemporary art and antiques & collectibles business in Northern Virginia, and enjoys pursuing avocational interests in writing, and in the art of magic and illusion and collecting antique magic apparatus and memorabilia.

He also collects first edition books -- focusing primarily on early to mid-20th Century American fiction, and the works among others of: Martha Gellhorn, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, Dylan Thomas, Thomas Wolfe, Tom Wolfe, Graham Greene, and Lawrence Durrell.

He shares with his family a love of the outdoors, and of classic films, and a long-standing participation in local animal welfare & rescue work, in addition to playing golf (not very well) and other pursuits --- including painting and photography --- and being, still, an active student of literature.





States & Countries Lived in & Visited
U.S. states and foreign countries I have resided in and been to are shown - Here.

Books

 * Larry K. Brown - Petticoat Prisoners of Old Wyoming (Foreward by Nola Blackburn), High Plains Press, Glendo, Wyo., 2001. ISBN-0-931271-55-X.


 * Larry K. Brown - Hog Ranches for Wyoming: Liquor, lust, and Lies Under Sagebrush Skies, High Plains Press, Glendo, Wyo., 1995.


 * Jerome A. Greene - Nez Perce Summer, 1877: The U.S. Army and the Nee-Me-Poo Crisis (Foreward by Alvin M. Josephy, Jr.), Montana Historical Society Press, Helena, 2000. ISBN-0-917298-68-3.


 * T.A. Larson - History of Wyoming, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 2nd rev. ed., 1990.


 * T. A. Larson - Wyoming’s War Years, Wyoming State Historical Society, 2nd edition, revised, 1993.


 * Rodger McDaniel - Dying for Joe McCarthy's Sins: The Suicide of Wyoming Senator Lester Hunt (Foreward by former U.S. Senator Alan K. Simpson), WordsWorth, Cody, Wyo., 2013. ISBN-9780983027591.  See also:  Lester C. Hunt


 * Thomas McNamee - Return of the Wolf to Yellowstone, Henry Holt, 1997. Retrieved 2015-07-04


 * Mari Sandoz - The Buffalo Hunters, Hastings House, New York, 1954.


 * Jack Schaefer - Shane, 1949.


 * Paul Schullery - The Bears of Yellowstone, Univ. of New Mexico Press, 1992. Retrieved 2015-07-04


 * Dan Sholly (former Yellowstone Chief Ranger), with Steve M. Newman - Guardians of Yellowstone: An Intimate Look at the Challenges of Protecting America’s Foremost Wilderness Park, William Morrow & Co., New York, 1991. Retrieved 2015-07-04


 * Elinore Pruitt Stewart - Letters of a Woman Homesteader, Bison Books, Lincoln, Nebr., 1989.


 * Samuel Western - Pushed Off the Mountain, Sold Down the River: Wyoming’s Search for Its Soul, Homestead Pub., Moose, Wyo., 2002.

Reports

 * NPCA, National Parks Second Century Commission Report, 2009. Retrieved 2015-07-04


 * NPCA, The State of America’s Parks, 2011. Retrieved 2015-07-04

MagicPedia
Professor JR - under the same username, is also an editor and supporter of MagicPedia, the on-line free encyclopedia dedicated to preserving the history and techniques of magic, which provides entries on topics pertaining to the arts of magic and illusion not included in Wikipedia, and entries with more detailed information for topics that are included.

Barnstars
Any Barnstars, "Thank You's", or other such items, received by User:Professor JR can be found Here.

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