Joe Schaller lives in Gallup, New Mexico, and is a guest columnist for the Gallup Sun free weekly newspaper. He grew up in Pullman, Washington, home of Washington State University. As a hippie coun...view moreJoe Schaller lives in Gallup, New Mexico, and is a guest columnist for the Gallup Sun free weekly newspaper. He grew up in Pullman, Washington, home of Washington State University. As a hippie counterculture dropout, he returned to college in 1973 and graduated from Eastern Washington State College in 1977 with a bachelor of science in nursing. Joe became a commissioned officer with the Public Health Service stationed at the Gallup Indian Medical Center and eventually obtained a private sector job as a turquoise dealer lasting twenty-six years. He was an active Sierra Club Marxist in the 1980s before rejecting liberalism in the 1990s. He became an expert in basketball quantitative analytics with his total performance ratings, doing a sixteen-year stint with rivals.com. He has utilized his array of lifetime experiences and knowledge to write as a conservative columnist for various Gallup newspaper publications.view less