Short Biography
I am the middle child in a family of five girls. I teach language arts
to gifted students at North Habersham Middle School, grades 6, 7, and 8.
One of the things my students do is participate in the Future Problem Solving
Program, sponsored in Georgia by the Torrance Center of Creative Studies
at the University of Georgia. For a couple of years I had the opportunity
to serve as the Evaluation Coordinator of the International
Future Problem Solving Program in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Back to family stuff, two of my sisters have achieved relative fame in their
areas and I am proud to tell about them.
My oldest sister, Murphy
Henry, is a bluegrass banjo player and has developed her own teaching
style called (naturally) The Murphy Method. She and her husband operate
the Murphy Method business out of their home in Winchester, Virginia. Their
band, Red and Murphy and Their Excellent Children, includes my excellent
niece, Casey, age 19, and my excellent nephew, age 15, Christopher,
both of whom have turned out to be excellent bluegrass pickers, Casey on
banjo, and Christopher on mandolin and guitar. Casey is a freshman at the
University of Virginia in Charlottesville where she is studying hard to
be a banjo picker. She does some editing for Bluegrass Unlimited
magazine and writes for a banjo newsletter called Banjo in the Hollow.
Chris is interested in music, including his rock band, his mandolin, his
guitar and whatever it is that he does to create music on his computer.
Murphy writes the General Store column for Bluegrass Unlimited and
has recently begun her own newsletter called Women in Bluegrass.
She has also just published a book that includes all her columns for Banjo
Newsletter entitled ...and there you have it.
My other famous sister is Dr. Claire Hicks, second oldest in our family,
who has been seen on television all over the country because of a documentary
about her produced by Ted Koppel's Nightline called Journey of a Country
Doctor. Claire is in family practice and lives in Jesup, Georgia, and
has done a lot of work with AIDs patients. Glenn Close is doing a made-for-TV
movie about Claire and her work that should be out in about two years. Nightline
recently won a prestigious award for three of its shows, including the one
about my sister. Claire has two daughters, Helena, age 11, and Mac, age
6. Helena is going to be the first female President of the United States.
Not to give short shrift to my other wonderful sisters, my next youngest
sister is Nancy Pate, who is an excellent songwriter, and plays with the
band Born Gypsy out of Atlanta. She is the mother of the Sugar Babies,
also known as the Blondes, Caroline, age 5, and Natalie, age 3.
My youngest sister, Laurie Hicks, everybody's favorite Hicks sister, is
a pediatrician in North Carolina, and is the mother of strong and happy
David Andrew Tanner, age 1.
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