the king of kindergarten by derrick barnes

Upon graduation, I moved back to Kansas City with no intentions of using my brand new, shiny Marketing degree in a drab, corporate environment. Who wouldn't listen to a guy with the pen name 'Hershey Brown'? I also felt like, for the first time, that I had something to say and that people would listen. All three of those occurrences and acquaintances changed my life vividly, but the column, entitled Brown Sugar, gave me the confidence to write with purpose. I also became a campus newspaper advice columnist. I met life long friends (big up to my brothers JG, Killa Don, and Noir). I met my then college sweetheart and now beautiful wife, Dr. It was there that I experienced life altering events and met people that changed me forever. I went on to Jackson State University, a historically black college in Jackson, Mississippi, where I obtained Bachelor of Arts degree in Marketing. I received an Associate of Arts degree in Business Administration.

When I graduated from high school, I worked a couple of part time jobs and attended a local community college. My brother thought I was the weirdest kid ever, but that was my way of traveling, of flying, and dreaming. I remember tying a shoestring around a flashlight, hanging it on the bar in my closet, and sitting in there reading encyclopedias. After that I wrote songs, poems, plays, and short stories. It felt powerful to create characters, places, and stories that began and ended the way I wanted them to. But I do remember what it felt like when I finished and read it. I think it was about a group of stray dogs trekking across the country to find a magic bone or something. My first attempt at writing a real story was in the fifth grade. I was raised in a single parent household by my mother, the lovely Miss Catherine Barnes, along with my big brother, Anthony, in Kansas City, MO. I wanted to be a football player, the next Sean Combs, or a rapper anything that would instantly provide me with the riches I would need to “move my mama off of the block”.

I didn’t actually meet one until I attended college. I didn’t know any famous African American male authors. Where I come from, no one dreams of becoming an author.

The king of kindergarten by derrick barnes