2020 WLOV Board of Directors
President - Paula Howard: [email protected]
Paula Howard planned to retire twice: First from the corporate world in Cleveland, Ohio, and more recently as a registered nurse from Florida Hospital, Winter Park. Currently, she is a staff writer for Akers Media Group, publishers of Style and Healthy Living Magazines.
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, she served in Bolivia, South America, and speaks Spanish as a second language. Her professional career has taken her from newspaper writing to healthcare marketing, through the world of commercial real estate and commercial catering before opening her own firm “A Howard Activity,” which specializes in special event planning.
She and her husband, Ken Bubis, are residents of The Village of Country Club Hills for the past four years. Ken is enjoying retirement and mountain biking. Paula has three children and four grandchildren from a previous marriage.
A member of WLOV and Creative Writers of The Villages. Paula has authored two non-fiction books and a novella titled "The Hidden Pricetag,” which she describes as “metaphysical fiction.” The novella is available on Amazon and Audible.com.
President-Elect - Paul Bourassa: [email protected]
A native of Chicago, then a resident of Memphis for over thirty years, Paul spent a good deal of time writing articles and papers for scientific journals. In the mid-1990s, he began his professional writing career creating non-technical articles for newspapers, magazines, and journals.
A contest calling for the most amusing Christmas story started Paul on a path of writing about the Baby Boom generation with an upbeat, humorous view of Boomers from today’s perspective.
His lighthearted style attracted the attention of New 50, a magazine published by the Memphis Commercial Appeal where he became a featured writer.
Upon moving to Florida, Paul extended his collection of Baby Boomer musings into his first book Boomerang, which has been compared to work by Garrison Keillor and Andy Rooney.
Secretary - Donn Dears: [email protected]
Donn is a retired General Electric Company Senior Executive and author of six books on energy including a novel entitled, Crisis in the Mideast. As a young midshipman, and later as a GE executive, he witnessed how the lack of electricity forced people in developing countries to use manual labor where work could have been done far more easily and safely with equipment powered by electricity.
He spent four years establishing companies around the world to service GE power generation and other equipment. These locations included Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Australia, the Netherlands, and the UK, countries where he established new plants or entered into joint ventures or made acquisitions. These personal experiences enliven his articles and books, however, most importantly, they help in his ability to make complex energy issues easy to understand.
Donn graduated from the United States Merchant Marine Academy, with honors, and is a Korean War veteran
Treasurer - Phyllis Walters: [email protected]
I have lived in The Villages since 2009. We are from Ohio where I was a clinical forensic psychologist for 40 years. I also taught at The University of Dayton while raising two sons. I now write Christian self-help books and teach them as courses at The Enrichment Academy of The Villages. I am Academic Dean of Prisoners of Hope International and teach my book material to the guys at the halfway house in Wildwood. I have gained so much from the writers in WLOV as well as the FWA. I look forward to fostering those relationships.
Membership Director- Nancy Hellekson. [email protected], or 352-460-2730.
We moved to The Villages from Vermont in 2009 and live in the Village of Duval. I’m a retired Library Director, and my job was to automate libraries. This skill has turned me into a techie! In fact, my two children have inherited the gene. One is the go-to person among her high school colleagues; the other works for IBM/Red Hat in software development.
Retired though I am, you can often find me in villagers' homes helping them with their Apple devices. (I am a board member of The Villages Apple User Group.)
This interest has morphed into book publishing. I work with KDP to format manuscripts and create covers for books that are published on Amazon and Kindle. I do this for writers in The Villages. I don’t have a website. My clients come to me by word-of-mouth.
Communications Director – Millard Johnson: [email protected] 317-584-5071
Millard is founder of Writers of the Villages, a critique group that meets Tuesday mornings in Bradenton Rec Center. His most recent book is Heart Doctor.
Historian - Diane Dean
Diane came from Michigan where she engaged in various careers as a realtor, college professor of communication and psychology, paralegal, divorce mediator, antique dealer and bookstore owner. She arrived in The Villages with her horse and no golf clubs in 2005. With all the options available here, Diane danced and acted in theater productions, rode her horse, tried photography, genealogy, spirituality, yoga, a little golf and settled on water volleyball. But the writing bug had bitten her.
Combining her prior interests she wrote a cookbook, which includes vintage photos and character sketches of family members. Her current project is in the final stages and will be a children’s book. Never out of ideas she plans a historical fiction for her next endeavor. Diane gathers written information and photos about WLOV, and its members, to include in a scrapbook as a historical
Chair of Member Services– Phil Walker: [email protected] 352-775-8402
My hometown is Fort Collins, Colorado.
My public life began when I was only thirteen years old. This was the year my voice changed, and I got a job as an announcer for the local radio station. It was the beginning of a broadcast profession, which continued over the next 58 years. I had a much-celebrated career at radio stations in Colorado and Nebraska. During my life in broadcasting, I received almost annual recognition by state broadcaster’s associations, forty times, culminating in being chosen Colorado Broadcaster of the Year in 1997.
From 1966 to 1972 were the Army years. Despite being drafted, I got a competitive appointment to the Officer’s Candidate program. I graduated from Artillery School at Fort Sill, Oklahoma as a freshly minted Second Lieutenant.
Six months later, I was fighting for my life in Vietnam.In the overall population of the United States, there are relatively few men, or women, who have actually had to pull the trigger. I did, many more times than I want to count. Those memories never go away. My discharge papers only say three purple hearts, two bronze stars, and a silver star. They say nothing about the price you paid. One of the good outcomes was I got my choice of assignment when I finished my tour in Vietnam. I chose Germany, and for the next three years, I had the best time of my life. This was the beginning of my global travels. To date, I have been to sixty-nine countries. I would be happy to gobble up another few dozen any time.
Now retired. I live with my wife, Verna, and my two dogs in The Villages, Florida. A funny thing, I’ve never worked so hard in my life. I write ten to twelve hours a day, belong to two writers groups, helping other writers write better. I have a wonderful garden where I pursue my life-long love of growing beautiful flowers. All is well.
Past President (2018) and Facebook Page Manager - Rita Boehm: [email protected] 240-751-3978
I retired in 2014 from a position as Director of Contracts and Compliance with a defense electronics firm in Maryland. During my near-40-year career reading, writing, reviewing, negotiating, and managing contracts, there was little time for thoughts of what had, in my young girl’s mind, been planned as my career. In my youth I envisioned a future as a poet and novelist. Life doesn’t always go as planned. No surprise there!
Fast forward through a long career focused on development of succinct, concise, and factual documents with nary an adjective in sight. As thoughts of retirement played in my mind, so did my youthful dreams. It’s never too late. Since 2015, I have published three novels in the suspense/drama genre (with a hint of romance). I enjoy photography and continue to work on my internet and Facebook author presence.
Past President (2017), currently Newsletter Editor and Website Manager - Larry Martin: [email protected] 440-715-3275
I began writing early in my medical career in Cleveland, starting with a book about pulmonary medicine (my specialty) for the lay public. Over the years I wrote several more medical-themed books, some for physicians and others for the general public. I did not tackle fiction until 2011, with a novel about Civil War Savannah. Since then I have self-published several other fictional works, plus two books for children.
I learned quickly that fiction is a whole different craft than non-fiction. In my non-fiction books I never had to worry about “point of view,” dialogue or character development.
The Boy Who Dreamed Mount Everest won 2nd place in the 2016 Florida Writers' Association Royal Palm Awards category of Middle Grade Fiction (Unpublished). Liberty Street: A Novel of Late Civil War Savannah won 2nd place in the 2018 RPLA competition for published historical fiction. Several short stories have also won RPLA awards.
A list of my books, medical and non-medical, can be found at www.lakesidepress.com/books.html. My 3 Civil War novels are described and compared at www.lakesidepress.com/CivilWarNovels.html.
Writing is my main retirement interest but I have another: music. I never played an instrument and decided retirement is the time to learn, starting with the ukulele. This is the go-to instrument for many retirees because it is relatively simple (compared to the guitar) and, especially in The Villages, there are many opportunities to play with others. As a way to learn basic music theory for the uke, I started writing myself explanations. One thing led to another, and I ended up with a 140-page "Uke Syllabus: An Introduction to Basic Music Theory for the Ukulele". It is posted free online at http://www.lakesidepress.com/UkeSyllabus.pdf. Then I took up piano, and also wrote a basic music theory syllabus for that instrument: www.lakesidepress.com/PianoSyllabus. pdf.
My wife and I are blessed with three wonderful daughters (two in Chicago, one in New York), and 5 grandchildren.
If you have any questions or comments, Contact Us.
President - Paula Howard: [email protected]
Paula Howard planned to retire twice: First from the corporate world in Cleveland, Ohio, and more recently as a registered nurse from Florida Hospital, Winter Park. Currently, she is a staff writer for Akers Media Group, publishers of Style and Healthy Living Magazines.
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, she served in Bolivia, South America, and speaks Spanish as a second language. Her professional career has taken her from newspaper writing to healthcare marketing, through the world of commercial real estate and commercial catering before opening her own firm “A Howard Activity,” which specializes in special event planning.
She and her husband, Ken Bubis, are residents of The Village of Country Club Hills for the past four years. Ken is enjoying retirement and mountain biking. Paula has three children and four grandchildren from a previous marriage.
A member of WLOV and Creative Writers of The Villages. Paula has authored two non-fiction books and a novella titled "The Hidden Pricetag,” which she describes as “metaphysical fiction.” The novella is available on Amazon and Audible.com.
President-Elect - Paul Bourassa: [email protected]
A native of Chicago, then a resident of Memphis for over thirty years, Paul spent a good deal of time writing articles and papers for scientific journals. In the mid-1990s, he began his professional writing career creating non-technical articles for newspapers, magazines, and journals.
A contest calling for the most amusing Christmas story started Paul on a path of writing about the Baby Boom generation with an upbeat, humorous view of Boomers from today’s perspective.
His lighthearted style attracted the attention of New 50, a magazine published by the Memphis Commercial Appeal where he became a featured writer.
Upon moving to Florida, Paul extended his collection of Baby Boomer musings into his first book Boomerang, which has been compared to work by Garrison Keillor and Andy Rooney.
Secretary - Donn Dears: [email protected]
Donn is a retired General Electric Company Senior Executive and author of six books on energy including a novel entitled, Crisis in the Mideast. As a young midshipman, and later as a GE executive, he witnessed how the lack of electricity forced people in developing countries to use manual labor where work could have been done far more easily and safely with equipment powered by electricity.
He spent four years establishing companies around the world to service GE power generation and other equipment. These locations included Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Australia, the Netherlands, and the UK, countries where he established new plants or entered into joint ventures or made acquisitions. These personal experiences enliven his articles and books, however, most importantly, they help in his ability to make complex energy issues easy to understand.
Donn graduated from the United States Merchant Marine Academy, with honors, and is a Korean War veteran
Treasurer - Phyllis Walters: [email protected]
I have lived in The Villages since 2009. We are from Ohio where I was a clinical forensic psychologist for 40 years. I also taught at The University of Dayton while raising two sons. I now write Christian self-help books and teach them as courses at The Enrichment Academy of The Villages. I am Academic Dean of Prisoners of Hope International and teach my book material to the guys at the halfway house in Wildwood. I have gained so much from the writers in WLOV as well as the FWA. I look forward to fostering those relationships.
Membership Director- Nancy Hellekson. [email protected], or 352-460-2730.
We moved to The Villages from Vermont in 2009 and live in the Village of Duval. I’m a retired Library Director, and my job was to automate libraries. This skill has turned me into a techie! In fact, my two children have inherited the gene. One is the go-to person among her high school colleagues; the other works for IBM/Red Hat in software development.
Retired though I am, you can often find me in villagers' homes helping them with their Apple devices. (I am a board member of The Villages Apple User Group.)
This interest has morphed into book publishing. I work with KDP to format manuscripts and create covers for books that are published on Amazon and Kindle. I do this for writers in The Villages. I don’t have a website. My clients come to me by word-of-mouth.
Communications Director – Millard Johnson: [email protected] 317-584-5071
Millard is founder of Writers of the Villages, a critique group that meets Tuesday mornings in Bradenton Rec Center. His most recent book is Heart Doctor.
Historian - Diane Dean
Diane came from Michigan where she engaged in various careers as a realtor, college professor of communication and psychology, paralegal, divorce mediator, antique dealer and bookstore owner. She arrived in The Villages with her horse and no golf clubs in 2005. With all the options available here, Diane danced and acted in theater productions, rode her horse, tried photography, genealogy, spirituality, yoga, a little golf and settled on water volleyball. But the writing bug had bitten her.
Combining her prior interests she wrote a cookbook, which includes vintage photos and character sketches of family members. Her current project is in the final stages and will be a children’s book. Never out of ideas she plans a historical fiction for her next endeavor. Diane gathers written information and photos about WLOV, and its members, to include in a scrapbook as a historical
Chair of Member Services– Phil Walker: [email protected] 352-775-8402
My hometown is Fort Collins, Colorado.
My public life began when I was only thirteen years old. This was the year my voice changed, and I got a job as an announcer for the local radio station. It was the beginning of a broadcast profession, which continued over the next 58 years. I had a much-celebrated career at radio stations in Colorado and Nebraska. During my life in broadcasting, I received almost annual recognition by state broadcaster’s associations, forty times, culminating in being chosen Colorado Broadcaster of the Year in 1997.
From 1966 to 1972 were the Army years. Despite being drafted, I got a competitive appointment to the Officer’s Candidate program. I graduated from Artillery School at Fort Sill, Oklahoma as a freshly minted Second Lieutenant.
Six months later, I was fighting for my life in Vietnam.In the overall population of the United States, there are relatively few men, or women, who have actually had to pull the trigger. I did, many more times than I want to count. Those memories never go away. My discharge papers only say three purple hearts, two bronze stars, and a silver star. They say nothing about the price you paid. One of the good outcomes was I got my choice of assignment when I finished my tour in Vietnam. I chose Germany, and for the next three years, I had the best time of my life. This was the beginning of my global travels. To date, I have been to sixty-nine countries. I would be happy to gobble up another few dozen any time.
Now retired. I live with my wife, Verna, and my two dogs in The Villages, Florida. A funny thing, I’ve never worked so hard in my life. I write ten to twelve hours a day, belong to two writers groups, helping other writers write better. I have a wonderful garden where I pursue my life-long love of growing beautiful flowers. All is well.
Past President (2018) and Facebook Page Manager - Rita Boehm: [email protected] 240-751-3978
I retired in 2014 from a position as Director of Contracts and Compliance with a defense electronics firm in Maryland. During my near-40-year career reading, writing, reviewing, negotiating, and managing contracts, there was little time for thoughts of what had, in my young girl’s mind, been planned as my career. In my youth I envisioned a future as a poet and novelist. Life doesn’t always go as planned. No surprise there!
Fast forward through a long career focused on development of succinct, concise, and factual documents with nary an adjective in sight. As thoughts of retirement played in my mind, so did my youthful dreams. It’s never too late. Since 2015, I have published three novels in the suspense/drama genre (with a hint of romance). I enjoy photography and continue to work on my internet and Facebook author presence.
Past President (2017), currently Newsletter Editor and Website Manager - Larry Martin: [email protected] 440-715-3275
I began writing early in my medical career in Cleveland, starting with a book about pulmonary medicine (my specialty) for the lay public. Over the years I wrote several more medical-themed books, some for physicians and others for the general public. I did not tackle fiction until 2011, with a novel about Civil War Savannah. Since then I have self-published several other fictional works, plus two books for children.
I learned quickly that fiction is a whole different craft than non-fiction. In my non-fiction books I never had to worry about “point of view,” dialogue or character development.
The Boy Who Dreamed Mount Everest won 2nd place in the 2016 Florida Writers' Association Royal Palm Awards category of Middle Grade Fiction (Unpublished). Liberty Street: A Novel of Late Civil War Savannah won 2nd place in the 2018 RPLA competition for published historical fiction. Several short stories have also won RPLA awards.
A list of my books, medical and non-medical, can be found at www.lakesidepress.com/books.html. My 3 Civil War novels are described and compared at www.lakesidepress.com/CivilWarNovels.html.
Writing is my main retirement interest but I have another: music. I never played an instrument and decided retirement is the time to learn, starting with the ukulele. This is the go-to instrument for many retirees because it is relatively simple (compared to the guitar) and, especially in The Villages, there are many opportunities to play with others. As a way to learn basic music theory for the uke, I started writing myself explanations. One thing led to another, and I ended up with a 140-page "Uke Syllabus: An Introduction to Basic Music Theory for the Ukulele". It is posted free online at http://www.lakesidepress.com/UkeSyllabus.pdf. Then I took up piano, and also wrote a basic music theory syllabus for that instrument: www.lakesidepress.com/PianoSyllabus. pdf.
My wife and I are blessed with three wonderful daughters (two in Chicago, one in New York), and 5 grandchildren.
If you have any questions or comments, Contact Us.