Wayne Morris Anderson was born in the summer of ’55 in Santa Monica, California, a once-charming beach town near Los Angeles.
Santa Monica was originally named after the mother of the Christian philosopher Saint Augustine. During the 1970s the town was popularly renamed “The People’s Republic of Santa Monica” for the imposing Socialist work of actress-resident Jane Fonda. Presently it is dubbed “the spiritual home of Bill Clinton,” by Chris Matthews of Hardball.
Besides residing in Southern California, Wayne’s ventured and lived in six other “lower 48” states: Maine, Oregon, Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado and Wisconsin.
After dropping out of high school in 1972, he worked and wandered the western seaboard. After a Pauline awakening, he returned to academia and graduated from adult school. He went on to university studying music, philosophy, journalism, and earning two degrees.
In California he was a licensed owner/contractor, running Anderson and Associates Construction. He retired in 1999.
Existentially, Wayne is a journalist. His first post was at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The newspaper won a Pulitzer Prize 1985, shortly after he was hired. He had little to do with that honor.
As a freelance reporter, he’s worked with several newspapers across the country, including the Dallas Morning News and Rocky Mountain News, along with some distinguished and now-defunct magazines.
He’s been around the world landing on all seven continents of the globe: Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America (recognized by the National Geographic Society).
In 2007, he reported the soldier’s story from the war in Iraq. He was embedded for a month with the 1157th Transportation Company, Wisconsin National Guard. He completed three successful missions outside “the wire.”
As a moderate Republican and curious American, he writes a regular column for the Inter-County Leader newspaper. He is a Catholic who is working through the Reformation by attending services at the Lutheran church, where his wife is a member.
He is married to Bonnie Anderson and lives in northwest Wisconsin. The couple has one parrot.
