Born in Mountain Grove, a small rural town in the Missouri Ozarks, Dennis is the fourth of six children. He logged a ton of pew time at the local Baptist Church where he honed his artistic abilities by drawing on church bulletins during Sunday morning sermons.After graduating from high school, he attended Southwest Missouri State University and studied art. During the college years, he spent his summers working in amusement parks (Opryland & Silver Dollar City) drawing caricatures. Dennis graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and stumbled blindly into a career as a freelance illustrator.After spending the 90s in Texas, Dennis and family moved to Northeastern Indiana where his wife Karen is a professor at Huntington University. His two grown sons now live and work in the Oklahoma City area.For fun Dennis plays in a recreational ice hockey league where he pretends to be Wayne Gretzky, but plays more like Wayne Gretkowski, the ninety year old store greeter at the local Wal-Mart. He also occasionally plays bass and guitar in the band at his church where he continues to insist that a pyrotechnics show and hydraulic stage for the band would really add a lot to the Sunday morning worship services.