Growing up in Oklahoma the way I did, and being raised the way I was raised by my parents, gave me such a strong foundation to go out into the world and fly, so to speak, the way I was able to do.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Everything I've done in my career is a result of growing up in rural Oklahoma, because if I hadn't had the training from Mama and Daddy to work hard, to do what I'm told, to take directions, to mind and to do a good job at anything I set out to do, then I wouldn't be where I am today.
The history of my state of Oklahoma offers a great example of pursuing the American Dream. It was built and settled by pioneers moving West to seek better lives.
I loved growing up in Tulsa.
I was raised in Oklahoma. I was actually born in Tulsa, but I grew up in a small town on the west side of Oklahoma called Elk City on a farm, where my dad grew up, actually.
Once I graduated from university, I wanted to climb and be outdoors as much as possible. I worked as a part-time carpenter and kept up a relationship with The North Face. One thing led to another, and I'm lucky to be where I am now. It was a circuitous path with lots of adventure throughout.
I was blessed to grow up in really interesting times and to go back to a home where I was very safe.
I grew up in a rural area. I grew up in deep southern middle Tennessee, probably about thirty miles from the Alabama border. There's nothing there, really. And the TV was my link to the outside world. It's what kept me from going into factory employment. It's what made me want to go to college. It was really inspiring.
I was raised all over. Kansas, Hawaii, Georgia, Texas and Kentucky, by the time I was 11.
I grew up in the age of discount air fare, and for me, the act of joining a culture was a great way about learning about that different culture. So I grew up in the South, and went to college in the North, and found out that I learned about myself as a Southerner by leaving the South and going to the Northeast.
I was always very aware of the nature of the place where I was growing up in Gulfport, Mississippi, how that place was shaping my experience of the world. I had to go to the Northeast for graduate school because I felt like I had to get far away from my South, be outside it, to understand it.
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