“To me money isn’t a big deal. I was a pastor. I was a teacher. I’ve worked with the homeless. My wife is an artist. We get by on less. My house tilts to the east, but it’s classy.” ~ Steve Boint
If you’ve listened to this podcast long enough, you know how much I love a good tale. Fortunately for all of us, Steve Boint, has had a life chock full of great ones. Take this one for example: During a gap year between high school and college, Steve and his friend set off on an epic, cross country hitchhiking adventure intent on exploring as much of the United States and Canada as they could. Some months into their trip they managed to get kicked out of Canada for vagrancy and were traveling through Washington State when suddenly they found themselves in the middle of what appeared to be a massive snow storm. Only it wasn’t snowing. They were engulfed in falling white ash. At the moment they were clueless as to its source but would later discover it was fallout from the Mount St. Helens eruption!
Want another one? While in college, Steve got bored one afternoon and decided to explore the art department of his small campus. He found most of the paintings dull and unimpressive and just as he began to think his trip had been a waste of effort, he stumbled upon a series of paintings that stopped him dead in his tracks because they felt like they’d somehow captured his life. The following semester, by sheer chance, he met the woman who painted the series of paintings. They soon fell in love and have now been married for over forty years!
In his early thirties, Steve decided he needed a career change and remembering his love for science, went back to college. Almost immediately he found himself facing the prospect of getting kicked out of his chemistry class because he’d somehow never taken one before, not in his first round of college, not even in high school. But he managed to impress his professor by being the only student to get a perfect score on the beginning of semester pre-test and was allowed to stay without the prerequisite.
These are but a small taste of the tales that make up Steve’s life. He’s earned master degrees in both divinity and education. He’s been a security guard who refused to carry a gun, because to his way of thinking, property is never as important as human life. He’s been a pastor, worked with people who experience homelessness, and has been a high school chemistry teacher. He’s also built musical instruments from flutes to hammer dulcimers. Today he owns Scurpea Publishing, which publishes Midwestern poets and authors, and has become a cornerstone of the South Dakota literary community.
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**Video broadcast available** on YouTube @imperfectbest
**Learn more about Jason Freeman** at AwkwardlyAwesome.com
