My first seven years were in Sacramento. I remember the earthquakes as a kid. Another thing that stands out is that I broke both of my arms when I was little. I moved to Colorado from Sacramento when I was seven. My mom got married to my step dad at that time and he had a relative in Colorado who was going to give him a job. We had no choice but to move.

There were seven kids. There were six boys and one girl. On my side of the family were my sister and my two brothers. The oldest was Randy. Going down the list there was Brian, Brent, Jeff, Corey, Laura, Barry. Since I was the youngest, I was always left alone to do my own thing. None of them really wanted to baby-sit me because they were all teenagers. We were two years apart all of the way up.

Childhood memories that stand out to me are early days of performing. Being in plays and things like that stand out to me because I always excelled. Along the way, those memories got more and then it just let right into going into a career performing.

Being on stage seemed like a natural thing to me even though each time was different. Each performance seemed to just get bigger and bigger until in high school I did a show in downtown Denver at the paramount. It was the Phoenix show because it had burned and they had rebuilt it.

All of those performing moments got bigger as I got older. I just fell into it because of my acrobat background. In junior high and high school I competed as a gymnast. I did that for a few years. I took first in state in a tumbling exhibition in 9th grade.
I was always a good student in junior high. In high school, I didn’t get the best grades, but I graduated because I had to. I just got my diploma from my sister when I visited Denver last.

The thing I like about performing is that you are in a fantasy on stage. You are creating a fantasy for all of these people. People who come want to see beautiful things. They want to see costumes and lights and when you are up there you are creating all of these stories and musical numbers and that is rewarding because you are making these people happy while you are just dressing up and playing. But what the audience got out of it was why I did it.

I lived in Colorado until 1980 when I moved out. I hate the smell there. The town of Westminster wasn’t too big, but we were about twenty miles from downtown Denver, so as kids we were always trying to get to downtown for the entertainment factor.