Growing up, all of us children were influenced by hard working parents. Our father worked long hard hours at a printing company, and our mother worked from home well before that became commonplace. Mom was a writer, researcher, and educator in the sense that she developed educational books and games. More than the rest of us perhaps, David works hard at excelling in some areas that our mother had worked at -- writing and education, and like our father, he is willing to spend long hours to reach his goals.

David received a bachelor's degree from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and a Master's degree in Business from the University of Texas at Austin. David worked in Austin for several years as a college budget examiner for the State of Texas. David has worked with budgets at colleges in Des Moines, Iowa and Dallas, Texas. He lived in the Dallas area from 1996 until 2004 when he moved to Round Rock, Texas just north of Austin. He now works for the Governor's budget office. In 2005 David married Christina Grey who is originally from Garland, Texas near Dallas. She is an elemetary school teacher.

David is a world traveller. He travelled through much of the United States and parts of Canada as part of a gospel singing group. His first trip to Europe was for 30 days, by himself. He has also visited South America, Asia and the Middle East. This photo shows him at the Great Wall of China. David is a good violinist, and has played violin in several churches. David has spent several years gathering and organizing motivational and humorous quotes.

In late 2009 David published a book, "Breakthrough Power", which provides daily wisdom, inspiration and motivation. People known for their outstanding accomplishments will help you:

Build an unshakeable foundation Pursue and fulfill your dreams Impact others Improve your relationships Find time for renewal

Plus, you'll start each day with a humorous quote that will put you in a good mood, ready to face life's challenges. Each day's reading will take less than a minute, so you can squeeze it in before you start your breakthrough day.

You can purchase the book at www.dailybreakthroughs.com, where you can read sample pages, or at amazon.com.

In 2012 one of the higher education initiatives David developed for Texas Governor Perry started getting national attention. David shared this with me:

"I proposed last year (2011) that the governor challenge universities to develop high quality bachelor's degrees that cost no more than $10,000, including textbooks. (For comparison purposes, a Texas student would pay an average of $30,000 in tuition and fees over four years at one of our public university.) Methods for achieving this price point could include online and blended classes; classes at no-frills campuses, including community colleges; credit for prior learning, such as military training; competency-based education, which is based on what you learn, not on how many semesters you sit in a classroom; dual credit, Advanced Placement, CLEP exams, etc.; and e-textbooks and open-source textbooks.

Governor Perry liked the idea, so he included the challenge in his state of the state speech (February 2011). According to some people, it was the most talked about issue in his speech, probably because most higher education experts didn't think it could be done. Many journalists who covered the story made fun of the governor for making such a "ridiculous" challenge.

Since then, many Texas universities have announced $10,000 bachelor's degrees. One of them got a $1 million grant from the Gates Foundation to develop its low-cost program. The prices don't include textbooks - yet - but hopefully they will in the future.

The high cost of college and the high level of student indebtedness are hot topics nationally. Total U.S. college debt recently surpassed $1 trillion, which is more than credit card debt. This makes the $10K degree a timely topic, so national news media are doing stories about it.

The Wall Street Journal did a piece on the $10,000 degree challenge.

Fox Business News interviewed the chairman of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, and asked him about the degree.

CBS This Morning interviewed the governor, and the lead question regarded the $10,000 degree.

If you googled $10K degree challenge, you would find much more information about this initiative including several colleges that are accepting the challenge."

Arthur C. Brooks wrote a favorable article about the $10K challenge. He says he actually earned a B.A. degree online for about $10,000 in today's dollars, and he disagrees with those who say that such a degree is worth less than an expensive degree. As of early 2013 it seems that Texas and Florida are the leaders in accepting the $10K college degree challenge. Hopefully many other states and colleges will also take action to make a college degree affordable for more potential students.

David wrote down a couple of childhood memories for the extended version of our father's obituary. This is just a small sample of his personal writings which he may someday include in a book that he has written. Perhaps he will eventually find right publisher for it.