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I was a five-day boarding student (Dorm 4) at Dreux for my freshman year in high school, 1963-64.  In April 1964, Dad was transferred to Chateauroux AFB, so I left Dreux just weeks before the end of the year.  I did my sophomore year at Chateauroux, junior year at Dover AFB (Delaware), then moved to Athens GA in time to do my senior year at Athens High School.  Dad retired from the Air Force a month after I graduated from high school.

Earned A.B.J. (1971) and M.A. (1975) degrees in journalism and mass communication at the University of Georgia; worked in academic publications and development for more than 20 years.  Married Tom Bowen in September 1978 and just celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary.   Proud mother of two (now-grown and married) sons -- Jesse and Toby -- and even prouder grandmother of Jack, who turned 3 on the Fourth of July 2014.  Except for a few years in Macon, Georgia, or in the North Georgia mountains, we have lived in Athens since 1966.  How's that for settling down?  I really wanted my children to be "grounded" with a town they would always call "hom

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I absolutely loved my time at Dreux!  I particularly enjoyed Mr. Giorgi's speed-reading classes and Mme. Thomine's French II.  My roommate was Pam Hopkins, whose father was also stationed at Evreux-Fauville AFB; one of my best next door-dorm buddies was Janet Rupe (Batik).  I loved going to the base movie on Wednesday nights, hated the food in the mess hall (remember green pancake syrup on St. Patrick's Day?!), and playing endless games of canasta and gin rummy at the Teen Center.  I will now admit I had the biggest freshman-girl crushes on Dave Emanuel, Marcus Cox, and Greg Labbe, none of whom gave me the slightest encouragement.

Such fun to catch up with fellow Vikings on Facebook. 

Nancy Bunker Bowen
Athens GA

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Editors Note:  I found this article online about Mr. Livingston and thought it was interesting to see what he wrote about his life. The article, with Q&A, was written in 2012. 

 

"Had my first novel accepted abut a year after I graduated Stanford with a degree in Modern European Languages. Took the advance money and flipped a quarter: Heads: Paris, Tails, Tahiti. It was Heads and I went to Paris for the summer. There I began a tumultuous love affair with a French lady that caused me to stay in Europe. Three years later I married her on the Rock of Gibraltar and our love affair is still alive and still tumultuous after 50 years. Stayed in Europe almost 6 years living in Italy, Portugal, Paris, Ibiza and Chartres, France. Returned to teach Freshman English and Creative Writing at Douglass College before it was merged into Rutgers.

 

Moved back to Palo Alto to take on a 614 paper newspaper route, throwing newspapers to the very rich over a 53 mile route in Los Altos Hills. Taught creative writing at San Jose State at night. Was getting progressively poorer so joined a small (7 people) Palo Alto Ad Agency called Regis McKenna Advertising, one of the first high tech ad agencies in the country, as their copywriter. Two weeks after I joined, we got a small account named Intel. About 3 years later, we got a start-up named Apple Computer.

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After we sold McKenna to Chiat/Day, I co-founded my own agency,

Livingston/Sirutis, and we introduced Fujitu's first personal business computer to the North American market. Got tired of hi-tech and went into food advertising. Fired in an acquisition, I moved to Carmel Valley and became engaged in produce marketing, working first at Mann Packing Company, the world's largest shipper of fresh broccoli and, later at FoodSource, one of whose largest customers was Trader Joe's.

 

Retired about 5 years ago and now live and write in Santa Barbara.

 

Author Q&A

Do you have any recent events to announce (of publications or anything else exciting)?
Sure. Getting published in Trust & Treachery.

 

What inspired you to write this story?
A manager I met in the produce industry who knew more about produce than anyone I've met-but he was one tough son-of-a-bitch until he learned to trust you.

 

What books and/or authors have most influenced you?
Camus, Jeffers, Plath, Rukeyser, Grossman, Nietzsche

 

What are you reading now?
I usually have a few books open at the same time-always a book of poetry. I'm currently reading George Held's After Shakespeare: Selected Sonnets, Donald Young's The Battle for Snow Mountain, and Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate.

 

What are your current projects?
Finishing a book of short stories, There Aren't Any Virgins in Monterey and Other Stories and finding an agent for my new novel, The Light of Donato Milano.

 

Do you have any advice for other writers?
Write, write, and then write some more. Then find a editor who wants to help you tell your stories instead of injecting his or her stories into yours.

 

Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?
If you don't like a story, don't force yourself to read it.

 

What is your favorite quote, by whom, and why?

"...they (American writers) read the critics. If they believe the critics when they say they are great then they must believe them when they say they are rotten and they lose confidence."  -Ernest Hemingway. THE GREEN HILLS OF AFRICA.

I like it because I think it's the most valuable advice a writer about to publish her or his first book can get.

 

What are you most proud of accomplishing so far in your life?
Still being alive.

 

What inspires you to write and why?
The privilege of being able to write and being free to do it.

 

What has been the toughest criticism given to you as an author?
An editor at Simon & Schuster rejecting my second novel because he said, "Mafia chieftains never can control their mb once their in prison." It's was tough because it wasn't true.

 

What has been the best compliment?
A British critic calling the style of my second novel "...Wagnerian in the tradition of Faulkner and Penn Warren."

 

Tell us something unusual (or fun) about you.
When I was the Creative Director at Apple Computer's ad agency, Steve Jobs used to call me an asshole at least once a week.

 

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After graduating from Dreux, Bob attended Virginia Military Institute followed by Medical College of Virginia.

 

Bob is a practicing emergency physician, board-certified in Emergency Medicine and Internal Medicine. He is a fellow of the American College of Emergency Medicine and the American Academy of Emergency Medicine. He is a board examiner for the American Board of Emergency Medicine.

 

Bob was consultant in Emergency Medicine to the Surgeon General, an international consultant, and is published in numerous textbooks of Emergency Medicine. Bob retired as a decorated Colonel from the U.S. Army Medical Corps, where he served as a physician member of the elite anti-terrorist Delta Force during the "Desert One" hostage rescue attempt in 1980. He has had extensive travel worldwide while serving as an Emergency medical consultant for the U.S. State Department

 

He has written for and acted in several national television shows, including multiple appearances (9) on "Untold Stories of the ER" and (3) "Sex Sent Me to the ER". Bob does medical stand-up ER comedy as hobby as "Funny ER Doctor" 

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with performances available on You Tube. He is the author of the best-selling book, The Battle Buddy Diet.  

 

Bob is now working at Little Company of Mary Hospital, about 5 shifts/month. He has had almost three careers: Over 20 years in the military, 20 years in private practice and TV and radio.

 

He and his wife, Gayne, have been married almost 40 years and live in Palos Verdes Peninsula, CA. They are both Level 1 Certified Gottman marriage counselors. They have two children, Tyner and Cararayne. They also have a pug named Josephine and two desert tortoises. Bob enjoys playing tennis and plays about three times a week. Every winter since 1982, he and his family have vacationed in Sun Valley, ID where they have a condo.

 

Bob will be attending the 2015 Dreux Reunion in San Antonio.

 

       

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