After graduating from WJ, I attended Florida Presbyterian College in St.

Petersburg, where I met my husband, Joe. After graduation we joined the Peace Corps and taught English for 2 years on a small island on an atoll in the Marshall Islands, where we got mail only every 6 weeks, give or take 2 or 4. We lived in a little shack on the beach and became part of the community, which we enjoyed immensely. It changed our lives.  

In 1972 we traveled across Asia to Beirut where my Dad was the U.S.

ambassador. Joe taught at the American Community School and I taught

at a Lebanese school and we traveled around the Middle East when school

was out. One summer we sailed along the Turkish Coast and Cyprus in a

motorsailer we purchased with 2 other couples, We spent 6 weeks repairing the boat and 5 weeks cruising. After a couple of years we moved to the Olympic Peninsula  in Washington, where we built a  home, planted an orchard and garden,ran  a sawmill, and sold real estate for 11 years.

We moved to Hawaii in 1987 with our young son and daughter and started

all over building our own home and planting fruit trees and a garden. I continue to  sell real estate, which gets me out to see many different places on the island. We don't get island fever as Hawaii Island feels more like a small continent than an island. It has an

incredible diversity of scenery, climate zones, topography, and vegetation.          

Though our son and daughter left the island after graduation from high school they do like to come visit. We're here to stay.

My life since high school has been fun, and while there's a lot less wow-factor than many others, it's been a good life, and it just keeps getting better.

After graduation, I went to Hood College, then still a women's college, in Frederick, MD, secure in the knowledge that I would become a home ec teacher in short order. Then sophomore biochem appeared on the horizon, and I did a quick switch to English lit, my other love. After two years, though, I dropped out, rented a townhouse in SW DC with two other women, worked several jobs, and got married like many of us, for the first time, living first in Salisbury MD and then in Richmond VA. My son Marcus was born in 1972 and my marriage ended in 1974.

Marcus and I moved back to Bethesda, where I got a job with the personnel department of Booz Allen Applied Research, a DOD contractor. Through a contact I made there, I got a job with an art restoration studio in NW DC, which opened to me the whole new world of fine art and fine art restoration. I was originally hired to manage their office, but also apprenticed as a restorer for a couple of years. One of the partners there was the wife of an art dealer who consulted with C.G. Sloan & Co, a regional fine arts auction house in DC. I knew that my strengths really were much more in the business sector than in the art sector, so I took an administrative position at Sloan's, where I met my second husband, John. After a couple of years, we both moved to Weschler's, another DC auction house and Sloan's primary competitor. John and I were married in 1982 and are still happily married. Working at an auction house was great fun and intellectually satisfying, because we sold everything, and there was always something new, and beautiful, coming through for the next sale, so there was always something new to learn about. I worked my way up to Assistant to the President, and as John was the office manager and responsible for the business end of the firm, together we pretty much ran the daily operations. I was at Weschler's for a total of 13 years (John for 25), and it was a great time.

In 1983, in an effort to get one of my two (wonderful) new stepsons excited about college, I took a night course with him at the University of MD in College Park, and was immediately hooked (unfortunately, he wasn't). It took me several years at night, but I finally got my B.A., magna cum laude, in 1989 from UM.

Ever since I was a little kid, my family had vacationed on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, of Wilbur and Orville Wright fame, and happily John was as entranced with the area as I had always been. We vacationed there and bought a lot in 1985, and our first home, a little rental cottage, in 1986. We had kidded each other about chucking it all in moving to the beach, and in 1990, when Marcus graduated from high school, that's exactly what we did.

We still live in Kitty Hawk, and the Outer Banks is a wonderful place to live. In 1990, there weren't a lot of jobs here, though, and I decided to give real estate a try. Once again, I was pretty immediately hooked. I started with two small independent brokerages here, and in 2001 joined the local RE/MAX franchise.

One of the joys of living in a smaller community is that you have the opportunity to participate on a lot of levels and get to know so many people in the community. I have been very active in the local Realtor community, and served as our local Association president in 1999, as well as on committees at the state association. In 1999 I was asked by the National Association of Realtors to represent North Carolina at U.S. House Banking subcommittee hearings on coastal insurance issues. Even for a DC native like myself, that was quite an honor.

I currently am the Vice Chair of the Outer Banks Tourism Bureau Board of Directors and a member of the Kitty Hawk Board of Adjustment, as well as a Director of the Outer Banks Association of Realtors, a post I've held for 11 of the past 14 years.

Marcus has not married, but is living happily in Seattle, way too far from his Mom, in my opinion, but he loves it there and it's a great place to visit. Tom and John, John's sons from his first marriage, both live in MD, so it's easier to see them and their families.

About three years ago I became active in a professional coaching program that has helped John and me focus on a lot of business and non-business goals that we hadn't really thought enough about before. It's exciting to still be learning and growing, and neither of us sees retirement any time soon. We're having too much fun, and now that financial pressures are less, we're able to travel and enjoy each other and friends. One of the nicest parts of being self-employed is that I award myself days off whenever I feel the need. It's a good life here on the Outer Banks. I'd love to hear from anyone who vacations here - I know if you live in the DC area, there's a good chance you've been here in August!

I'm attaching a picture taken earlier this year. . . I've lost the cat's eye glasses!


Barb