My parents were born in Nashville, TN; my father was the eldest of two sons of an auto/truck dealer originally from the Arkansas/Memphis, TN area, and my mother was the youngest of six children of an economist, speaker, writer and professor, who was originally from the Danville/Axton, VA area. They met in graduate school, and I was born many years later in Columbia, SC, where my father was an English professor.

My last name being German, my parents wanted to give me a proper German first name, and so I was called August. That, of course, is simply the German spelling of "Augustus," the guy for whom the month was named, not vice versa. Famous Augusts include August Busch I-IV (the beer-brewing dynasty), August von Steuben (the Revolutionary War hero), Auguste Rodin (the sculptor) Pierre Auguste Renoir (the Impressionist painter) and August Strindberg and August Wilson, both playwrights. I'm told my father vaguely had in mind the writer August Derleth.

My German immigrant forefather, by the way, was apparently named Franz, who emigrated from Frankfurt-am-Oder in 1798. His last name is variously spelled Krickl, Kroeckel, Krekel, Krikel, and just about every other possible way. Franz reportedly married the daughter of one Melchior Meyer, a Swiss soldier in Lafayette's army who had stayed in America. My mother's father's family, the Dyers, were Virginians from before the 1700's and were descended from one George Dyer (1753-1827) whose father had been a lieutenant in a company in the Revolutionary War, and who then settled in Henry County, Virginia following the war.

Shortly after my birth, we moved to Spartanburg, SC for 4 years, then Macon, GA for 2, after which my parents divorced, and my mother and I returned to Columbia, where I finished high school at an Episcopal church school, and then went to college at Vanderbilt U. in Nashville, TN.

I graduated with a double major in Classical Studies (i.e. Latin, Greek, ancient history and archaeology) and Drama (i.e. acting, directing and theatre history) after spending part of my junior year at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome, Italy. While at VU, I was fortunate enough to work with some remarkable guest artists from the Royal Shakespeare Company, including Sebastian Shaw, Charles Keating, Sheila Allen, and Ben Kingsley, as well as Alan Brown, of the National Theatre of England . (Yep, that's right - included above are Gandhi, Annakin, and Zeus!) In my senior year, I directed my own translation of Plautus's farce Casina. A year after graduation, my article Diomedes and Aeneas: A Vergilian Paradox was published in Classical Bulletin, and a few years later was incorporated into the book Public and Private in the Aeneid.

After graduation, I stayed in Nashville and was involved with local theatre in Nashville (Poverty Playhouse, Circle Players, Theatre Parthenos), then moved to Georgia for graduate school in Classics, during which time I also taught Latin. Eventually I moved back home, and have worked primarily in non-profit administration ever since.

After moving back to my hometown, I got involved in the community, writing movie and theatre reviews, articles, and interviews for Free Times for five years, and appearing in several dozen productions at Town Theatre (where I served on the Board of Governors for two years), Workshop Theatre, Chapin Community Theatre, and Act One Theatre (where I directed Alan Ayckbourne's Table Manners.) A highlight of this period was playing Alfie Doolittle in My Fair Lady, which was Town Theatre's 500th Production. (Town Theatre is America's oldest community theatre in continuous operation.) Other highlights included playing Owen Wister in The Magnificent Yankee for guest director Delbert Mann (best director Oscar for "Marty"), appearing in Neil Simon works such as Rumors, The Sunshine Boys and Broadway Bound, and in other comedies and musicals such as Leader of the Pack, 42nd St. and The Front Page. Professionally, I did several commercial voice overs for radio and television, and toured a number of little towns in North and South Carolina with Southeastern Productions as the Wizard in The Wizard of Oz.

Other activities included chairing the SC Commission on National and Community Service, which first brought Americorps grants into the state, and serving as board member and two-term president of the Columbia Civitan Club (the first president in the 60+ years of the club's history to be asked to serve twice.) Other boards I served on were the local chapter of the NSFRE, and Harbison Wheels (selected as Best Para-Transit Provider in SC by the Dept. of Transportation, and Outstanding Volunteer Support Group by the United Way of the Midlands.)

In recent years I have cut back on my civic activites, as I am now a full time grad student. But I have been involved several times each year since 1995 as the narrator of the professional touring company of The Road to Victory, a musical tribute to the men and women of World War Two. Our most recent gig was in April of 2002, at the 60th Reunion of the Doolittle Raiders!

So what's the deal with all the Xena stuff? In the spring of 1996, I began watching the second season of "Hercules." As re-runs progressed, I also caught a few "Xena" episodes, and I was hooked on Ren Pics shows in general. By spring of '97 I had discovered the internet, and began visiting Whoosh! and Tom's Xena Page regularly. This little site was started in the summer of 1999 as a lark, to direct friends to sites I enjoyed, and as a place to store pictures that were clogging my hard drive. On the main page are links to to my first three celeb interviews, and you saw some pictures from conventions here.