Ray Muessig greatly enjoys reading and writing. Throughout his life, he often read a book (especially novels, but including histories and biographies) every week or two. He has created and written approximately 160 publications, including books, yearbooks, chapters, booklets, bulletins, pamphlets, articles, short stories, scripts, reviews, edito-rials, and copy for advertisements. For publishers, professional organiza-tions, and individual authors, Ray has critiqued, edited, copyedited, and re-written expositions, novels, histories, biographies, and autobiographies. At the University of Oregon, Ray earned a bachelor's degree in journal-ism, with electives in English. His Lewis & Clark College master's degree included graduate English courses. He taught secondary English and journalism in public schools in Washington and California and was the advisor for a student newspaper. Ray completed his doctor's degree at Stanford University, producing a dissertation (Muessig, Raymond H. Herbert Hoover and Education, Doctoral dissertation, School of Education, Stanford University 1959) that was published as the lead article in School and Society 95 (Summer 1967). Ray was an assistant professor at the University of Toledo for two years, an associate professor at Purdue University for three years, and a full professor at The Ohio State University for 24 years. He is a full professor emeritus at The Ohio State University. Two of Ray's OSU graduate seminars focused on the reading and dis-cussion of nine novels and nine biographies, for which he received Ohio State's Distinguished Teaching Award. As a professor Ray often worked evenings, week¬ends, holidays, and summers. For years, he wanted to write a novel, and Better Late Than Never is an appropriate title for this work. Ray presently lives in Columbus, Ohio, with his lovely bride of 63 years, LaVonne. They have two sons: Scott and Jim; four grandchildren: Lindsay, Jessie, Tim, and Quinn; and two great-grandsons: Carter and Camden. Ray and LaVonne also have an extended family of former students for whom they are much-loved "adopted" parents.