DENNIS WALLACE

PRINCIPAL

I was born and raised on the sugar clay of the Loess Hills. Educated in the traditional way, elementary, middle, high, most named after dead presidents. They were simple days when you knew all your neighbors. We walked back and forth to school. We sat down at the end of the day as a family said a prayer and enjoyed a meal my mother had cooked.

I rolled and tossed the news of the day, Council Bluffs Nonpareil and the Omaha World Hearld as soon as I was able. Read quite a few honing my Midwestern worldview. If I delivered your paper chances are I mowed your lawn and shoveled your snow when the grass was gone. I said a few speeches for the Optimist Club. Learned the Optimist Creed a compass I still use today. Speeches about energy, it’s past, present and future, birthed in the backseat of a powder blue rambler in the gas lines of the 1970’s.

Dad worked six days a week to keep everything covered, leaving one important piece to my mother. Come Sunday morning dad still in bed. She would walk my sister and me down to the corner church. They taught me about Spirit, Love, Faith and Forgiveness. Work ethic from my dad and Spirit from my mom. They are still together serving in that same church and living in the same home I grew up in. Did I mention no shower, no dishwasher, no garage…

I am a product the 80’s. Cast my first vote for Ronald Reagan. Started college and got my first “real job”. I attended the University of Nebraska at Omaha which I left early to pursue a career here in Kansas City.

I have now lived in Kansas City (Overland Park) longer than I lived in my hometown. After my internship with the pension administration firm I moved into independent practice aligning with firms big and small. Hung a few awards, helped a few people, learned to make the call.

Today you most likely find me sitting with a friend in my tree house (office), on my front patio in the morning sun crafting that one prefect sentence of an unfinished novel, on bleachers watching my daughters tossing some ball around, or happily and simply mowing my own lawn.