My road to journalism — and eventually communications and public relations — began when I failed as an artist. I arrived at Missouri State University after strong junior and senior years in art classes as a high school student in my home city of St. Louis. I was quickly weeded out with a couple of embarrassing C’s in my first two classes.

At the same time, I was getting all A’s in my writing classes, even back to high school. I thought if I can’t be a visual artist, I could paint scenes with words. I attempted a creative writing major but then I came to my senses. I could’ve snagged a creative writing degree but that meant more school. I could barely afford my undergrad so I switched to journalism, which I had an affinity for since high school.

In my classes, I was the only one who hadn’t worked on their high school newspapers, mainly because my school didn’t have one. So I was behind a lot of my classmates and was even behind them after graduation, only able to get a couple freelance gigs in southwest Missouri. But after several months, my amazing dad told me to drop a name of one of the people he delivered mail to (true story) and that would put my application to several Midwest Gannett newspapers on top of the stacks. The Lafayette (Indiana) Journal & Courier was the only paper that contacted me about an opening, which I gladly pursued.

More than 12 years at that publiction laid a strong foundation in my communications and public relations skills, which I’ve since taken to most Indiana universities — Purdue (twice), Butler and IU Indy. I’ve written thousands of stories over the years, produced hundreds of online videos, shot and edited thousands of published photographs, and designed social media graphics, newspaper pages, infographics and much more.

It’s been a long and at times stressful road, but I am thankful to still have passion, drive and creative vigor for the fields of communications, public relations and journalism.

The person that first exposed me punk rock is a billionaire.

Jack Dorsey took me to my first punk rock show in 1993. Yes, that Jack Dorsey, who cofounded Twitter.

We were friends in high school. Ate lunch together every day that we were in the same lunch period. We hung around the same group of guys, and I was even in a fantasy football league that he ran before the internet was much of a thing to me or anyone else that wasn’t as forward-thinking as he was.

Jack had access to his parents’ Volvo station wagon and he picked me to head to downtown St. Louis on a crisp fall night. On our way, he told me to check out this new (to him) band he was into lately, Operation Ivy. The influential punk ska band broke up about five years previous but of course he had a white cassette copy of the band’s “Energy” album when no one else — including me — had heard of Op Ivy. He popped it into the factory-direct tape player in the Dorseys’ old grocery cruiser and I was stunned at the new sound that was hitting my ears. I was intrigued to say the least.

As we approached the exit for the Laclede’s Landing entertainment district, Jack zipped past it by accident. Panicked, we are forced onto a bridge and into Illinois. East St. Louis, Illinois, to be exact. We found a rough-looking (at least to our teenaged eyes) liquor store parking lot to turn around in and ambled back to Missouri where we eventually made it to Bernard’s Pub, which is long gone today. We caught a little but of the unmemorable opener before witnessing the fury of The Didjits, an Illinois punk trio that was fast, heavy and irreverent. Um, sign me up.

Jack would take me to another show in suburban St. Louis at an all-ages venue that was less eventful but I was always grateful that my quiet friend took me to these shows that forever changed my life. I wish I could say I changed his for the better. He did pretty well without my influence.