My name is Derek, and I was born in 1974. I was married, but the divorce was final 27 September 1999, and I'm going on with my life.

I have lived several places:
--Georgetown, MN
--Fargo, ND
--Sidney, MT
--Spirit Lake/Okoboji, IA
--Columbia, MO

I graduated from highschool 1n 1992, at Sidney High School, and moved to Fargo to start college. After a horrid semester as an electrical engineer (member, IEEE 1992-1993) I switched my major to theatre, which had been a lot of fun during my earlier years, and 6 years of education at Trollwood Performing Arts School.

Anyways, I did very well at theatre, and it kept my interest, and my advisor/teacher/friend Jerry Deall had a job opportunity for me in Iowa at Okoboji Summer Theare. OST gave me a connection with Stephen's College, a women's college in Columbia MO. Upon finding out the existence of an unused scholarship there, I applied and was accepted, and was off to Missouri to attend a private college on scholarship. Yes, it was a women's college, the one Annie Potts and Dawn Wells went to. I am male, and they do allow a few token men in there.

After a year at Stephens, theatre burned me out. I wasn't interested anymore, so I dropped out and moved back to Fargo to find something new to do with myself, more along the lines of a job where I'm only expected to be productive 8 hours out of the day, without studying or working on projects after hours. In Fargo, I met my (now) ex-wife, we became pregnant with Destiny, and my new family started.

My first job after leaving college was for my uncle during harvest, and that winter I began working through Interim Personnel, which turned out to be my greatest source of jobs over the past 4 or 5 years. Every permanent position I've had has originated through a lead from Interim. Anyways, Interim got me working at The Mutual Group, which lasted 4 or 5 months, until May of 1999. Within a week of the temp job there ending, I was put into a position at First Bank, helping the mortgage processing department. This developed into a permanent position, which I did until December of 1997. Then, needing a change and more income, I moved up to credit card customer service shortly before the conversion to US Bank. At the end of March, 1998, customer service became too much for me and I quit. Interim came to my rescue again, and within 3 weeks I was at work again, this time doing data entry for Blue Cross/Blue Shield of North Dakota. Schedule conflicts and the unpleasant work of data entry pushed me to quit my job and stay at home with Destiny. 5 weeks of that was enough for Jenny, and she pushed me to find another job. In July of 1998, Interim placed me in a temporary position with the marketing department for Lincoln Mutual, which evolved into me becoming the Marketing Coordinator for the company even while still being a temp. In January 1999, the company opened up hiring again, and my supervisor was able to give me this position permanently. At this time, despite corporate instability and product problems, I intend to stay in this position for some time, due to the comfortable work environment, nice people, good money, and challenging work.

In the fall of 1998, the family I knew at that time ended when my wife left Destiny & me to start a new family with another man. Our new family, just my daughter and myself, is very happy and healthy, and I plan to keep things that way.