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Steve Gilreath
I need to find that picture. The one where I water skied directly over a five-foot alligator, while on the edge of the Pearl River Swamp outside New Orleans with a couple of high school buddies. We...view moreI need to find that picture. The one where I water skied directly over a five-foot alligator, while on the edge of the Pearl River Swamp outside New Orleans with a couple of high school buddies. We snapped it a few minutes after I hit the gator, dropped the rope, and climbed a cypress tree, still wearing my water skis! Turns out the gator was already dead, so being young guys, we dragged it in the boat and took pics with our heads in the beast's mouth, his head in our mouths, dancing with it, fighting...until our Kodak 126 Instamatic ran out of film. I have a few of the pictures and one creepy hand with jagged claws preserved in a jar of formaldehyde to prove it.
I scribbled down that story while in high school, along with some speeches for student council, scouting adventures, and other snippets of my history, which I stumble across from time to time. And a journal from the weeks I spent working miles at sea on an oilrig, the rite of passage for many Louisiana boys, which was the first long-form writing sample I can remember. There was a lot of emotion-mostly fear and loneliness in those words, scratched in my normally messy handwriting, made worse by the vibration of the rig.
I've always captured and told stories, from my time in New Orleans as a scout to my magic act on NCL Cruise Ships (a significant upgrade from the oil rig life,) through Fraternity life at LSU, where my oddity as a non-drinking fraternity boy allowed me to embellish previous nights' activity of the brothers for all our entertainment. My storytelling improved as a producer and let me say that working with broadcast crews kneaded by experiences from all over the world, on top of interactions with celebrities, is a breeding ground for great material!
I've spent time with two Presidents (Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush), produced tv-events with legendary performers Ray Charles, Smokey Robinson, Charlie Daniels, CeCe Winans, Kathie Lee Gifford, Rascal Flatts, Michael W. Smith, Amy Grant, a Backstreet Boy, two of three Baldwins, the Jonas Bros., and somehow was asked to loan my talents in writing/producing/directing to a series for Frank Peretti, America's Dumbest Criminals for Aaron Spelling and hundreds of others. I've written a lot of scripts over the years and helped others carve out their platforms.
Over a decade I did a little carving of my own with my first novel, SELL MONTANA. It has been one of the joys of my life but doesn't come close to the joy I feel with my family. I help as a men's leader at Christ Community Church and still hold the record as the only 'Three Time Girl Scouts Father/Daughter Dance Contest Champion' at Walnut Grove Elementary. Denise and I watch our amazing kids take on the world from Franklin, Tennessee.view less