Under any description of the start of my life, the odds were against me. With the untimely death of my mother at age 31 in September and the suicide of my father on the following Christmas Day, I was orphaned at the age of two along with six siblings. Through the efforts of a Methodist pastor, we were placed in the Methodist Orphans Home in Waco, Texas on January 21, 1937. This is the story of my life and how I was able to overcome those gigantic odds. Who would believe that the two-year-old orphan boy would later serve for the last twenty-five years of his career as the President/CEO of the agency that rescued him and his six siblings?