The Old Bio: Ray Mack Thompson
I was adopted in Lubbock Texas in 1930, but in 1938 we moved to Pecos, Texas where I grew up on our family cotton and cantaloupe farm . My maternal grandfather, M.L. Todd, founded the Pecos cantaloupe industry and my family continued in the business through the 1960's.
My first hobby was ham radio; I was licensed W5OUS in 1947. I graduated from Abilene Christian College in 1951 with a BA in Agriculture and minor in Bible.
I went immediately into the USAF for 4 years, where I was trained in Communications Intelligence (because I knew Morse code!) at Brooks AFB in San Antonio. I then posted to the USAFSS 6910th Security Group for two wonderful years in Bavaria, southern Germany. I operated my ham station from Germany as DL4LJ. I was also badly bitten by the photo bug while in Germany, and came home with a Leica camera set and enlarger...
Upon discharge from the USAF I decided on a career in electronics and deserted the family farm for a BS degree in Electrical Engineering from Texas Tech, using my GI Bill. While at Tech I met my lovely wife Avalyn Maddox at the Texas Tech Bible Chair. I graduated in 1959 and went to work for Collins Radio Co. in Richardson, Texas as an engineering technical writer.
Avalyn and I were married in Lubbock the next year, and moved into an apartment in Dallas near the Skillman Church of Christ, where I am still a member. We moved to Richardson, Texas in 1962, to be near my work at Collins and to Texas Women's University where Avalyn was to study. Avalyn obtained her masters degree in elementary education and began teaching in Richardson. In 1971 Collins Radio sold out to Rockwell International and I was promoted to Manager of Publications Engineering. I later moved into Logistics Engineering and life-cycle cost analysis, because I was fascinated by computers.
Aside from my marriage, family, church, and job, it seems that my life has been defined by my hobbies...
First it was ham radio. then photography In 1974, I was the cofounder of the North-Dallas Camera Club and was fervently involved in amateur photography for a number of years. Then, the advent of ham radio 2-meter repeaters in the Metroplex drew me away from photography and back to ham radio. I became heavily involved in the Plano Amateur Radio Klub (PARK), and the north Dallas emergency communications and storm-watch network.
In 1978 I purchased one of the first Apple II computers and became one of the twelve founding members of the Apple Corps of Dallas and I haven't missed many Saturdays at our monthly Apple Corps meetings since! The first two years we raised good money for the club by selling 10-minute cassette tapes for program storage, if you can believe that! Nope, we didn't have disk drives or printers those early years... Of course, ACD members bought into the Apple dream early. We all thought the Apple II was the invention of the age, that it would change the world, and would never die! However, in 1984, when the Apple Macintosh arrived, I fell for it like a ton of bricks. I served as the first chairman of the "Macintosh/Lisa SIG", and my second life as an Apple computer buff had begun. With the release of Apple's ground breaking UNIX operating system for a personal computer, OS-X (Operating System 10) for the Macintosh, Most importantly, I have made many good friends and had the satisfaction of introducing a lot of people to Apple computers and the Apple culture. I am proud to say my "converts" include several members of my own family, church, Avalyn's school, and a long list of friends.
I retired from Rockwell in 1989 with 30 years service. Mostly for fun, I started a small Macintosh consulting business, Mr. Mac/K. My services included training and troubleshooting the for the Mac, as well as database development in my favorite program, FileMaker Pro.
Avalyn retired from RISD in 1995 after 33 years of service to our community.
Since 1986 I have been the computer guru for a ministry named NewLife Behavior Ministries. Our original outreach was to those in our state prisons, but he ministry now extends to a number of foreign countries. I publish the initial NLB curriculum in English on my first Macintosh computer. Later I published it in both Spanish and Russian. I have host an internet mail list for NLB workers since 1996. In the last few years I’ve worked closely with the overseas division of NLB, NewLife Behavior International.
In 1995 I tried one of the phone-disc CD's, trying to locate my old buddies from the USAFSS. I found a few...they knew others....and before I knew it I was publishing a newsletter for the group I named the USAFSS 6910TH 50's Group. This group continued to grow for a number of years and we have enjoyed two nostalgic reunions. Although or numbers haved dwindled, I still host a Yahoo Mail List: USAFSS6910tyh 50’s Group.
In 1998 I was one of the first in my city connected to the internet via a cable modem—unbelievable speed compared to a 56K modem! I am truly an internet maven these days, 2000 I registered my own domain name (http://www.raymack.com) and created my first Home Page.
The Lord blessed me with a wonderful marriage of 44 years with Avalyn, but sadly, I lost her to pancreatic cancer in August of 2005. Without my dear Avalyn I'm trying to stay busy and close to the Lord. I'm in reasonably good health and still living in the house we built in Richardson.
I continue to be a dedicated fan and user of all things from Apple Computer. I have succeeded in converting the staff of Skillman church to the Mac, and equipped the office with Mac hardware and software. I continue to support NewLife Behavior, publishing our newsletter and providing technical support. I have especially enjoyed becoming a part of another prison ministry, Ministries 101. We are working together to create and implement a broad-based support system for inmates, both before and after their time in prison. I am developing a FileMaker Database to support this new ministry.
Bye R@y (July 2009)