Hanks, Gerald

Wow, how time flies! After high school, I attended college for a couple of semesters before leaving for an LDS Mission to Micronesia. While there, I fell in love with the islands and the island people (not to mention the island food). After my mission, I attended BYU-Hawaii where I fell in love with the only thing that could top living in paradise, my beautiful wife, Tabitha. Tabitha was a performer in the group Showcase Hawaii, where I hired on as a technician. We got engaged, then married, and soon after enjoyed a month long honeymoon in Asia while Showcase Hawaii was on tour.

While attending school, Tabitha and I had our first two of five children. Their names are Brittany and Emily and they love telling people they were born in Hawaii. Tabitha and I love telling people that with our student insurance plan, the two of them cost us only $25 each! If only the next three could have been so inexpensive.

After college, our family moved to Utah where I continued to put my education and experience in Computer Science to use. I worked in several positions from software developer, to website designer, to managing an ISP, to working as the Director of Technology for an international dot com. The whole time I was also running my own computer consulting business on the side. In time, I found the perfect position. I currently work with the LDS Church in the Information and Communication Systems group as a Senior Systems Engineer. My love of the Gospel and love of computers serve me well there.

Tabitha and I now live with our five kids in Eagle Mountain (just north and west of Provo) along with our two wonderful beagles, Snickers and Baby Ruth. My oldest, Brittany, is 15 and loves the theater even more than her mother and I did. She has just started driving and can't wait till she can drive herself to the Christa McAuliffe Space Education Center where she puts her acting skills to good use in roles ranging from captain, to ships doctor, to the enemy alien for the educational missions that are run there. Emily 13, David 11, Allison 9 and Andrew 7 are right on her heels with the number of activities they enjoy. Emily recently starred in her schools product of Hamlet, playing the role of Hamlet. We quickly dubbed the play "Emlet". All of our kids sing and play piano thanks to Tabitha's incredible skills at teaching music to squirmy short-attentioned and yet talented children. (My kids are in the talented group, not the squirmy short-attentioned group. Those would be the other parents' children :-))

Tabitha finally made her way back to the stage where she joins the ensemble of the upcoming production of, "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" at the SCERA in Orem. All the while I get to sit back and play the proud, happy husband and father as I bounce from choir and orchestra concerts, to plays and piano recitals and the like.

Our lives are not strictly music and theater, although its hard to tell that while visiting our home. I volunteer with the Utah County Sheriff's Office in their Emergency Communications group as a radio operator, and Tabitha and I both volunteer with the Timpanogos Emergency Response Team where we get to enjoy another family favorite - camping. We've camped in it all from blistering heat to driving wind and snow only to come out of it all closer as a family. Although there are many things that I could wish for (a diet worth sticking to for instance), I can not but be grateful for the tremendous life that I do have. A wonderful wife and kids, a wonderful home and many blessings scattered throughout my life.

I can't wait to catch up with many of you. As for the rest of you, I can't wait to see what kind of brain power it is going to take to remember who you are :-)! It should all be a blast.--gerald