Laura Linford Williams

I hope it isn't too late to turn in a bio. I've been meaning to do it for months. Thanks to everyone who has contributed to the website - it's been fun to remember old friends and aquaintances again, and to find out what people have been up to in the last twenty years. So here is what I've been up to:

After graduating, I attended BYU. One of the more memorable events during those years was a six-month stint studying abroad in London and backpacking across Europe with a few friends. We also visited Moscow and Leningrad before the USSR broke up. I was reminded of the great blessings of freedom, affluence, conveniences, and creature-comforts that we take so much for granted in America. After graduating with a BA in Humanities/Art History, I served an 18-month mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in southern Argentina. This was a life-changing experience. I learned a great deal, and grew up a little. I was impressed by the generosity and warmth of the people I met, many of whom lived in the poorest of circumstances.

After my mission I received a fellowship to study and teach at Florida State University in Tallahassee. I earned an MA in Humanities with an emphasis in Latin American Literature, and taught undergrad classes on Medieval, Renaissance, and Enlightenment civilization. I was starting work on my PhD when I met Rob Williams, the man I would eventually marry. He was attending Army flight school in Alabama, and met me while visiting Tallahassee one Sunday afternoon. We became friends, and he made more frequent visits to Tallahassee after that. Rob is intelligent, kind, and very mellow - not at all what I had expected from an Army guy. Our friendship gradually deepened into love, and we were married on December 22, 1997. We are still best friends, and still very much in love.

Army life isn't easy, especially for Apache pilots, which is what Rob became after he graduated. We have spent about half of the ten years of our marriage apart from each other because of the demands of his job. He is currently in Korea, where he is serving a second year-long deployment. He also served in Iraq at the beginning of the war. We have been fortunate not to have served there two or three times, as some of our friends have. Some of them went home in coffins instead of on plane seats. We mourn for them and for their families.

Somewhere in the midst of all the moves and deployments, we were blessed with a beautiful little girl, Maridenne, who is now 8 years old. She and Rob have been the major focus and the biggest joy of my life in the past decade. Somehow I managed to complete my PhD by squeezing in research and dissertation-writing during Maridenne's naps and after bedtime. I graduated in 2005, and since then I have not done any teaching, at least not the kind that pays money. Mostly I'm a mom, and very happy to be one. We've lived in Alabama, Virginia, California, and Germany. Currently, we are in West Jordan, Utah, where Rob will work with the National Guard once he returns from Korea. We've found things to enjoy about all of our homes, but I know that we are still Southwesterners at heart. I'm sorry I won't make it to the reunion, but I hope that you all have a wonderful time. Feel free to drop me an email sometime: lauralin_will@hotmail.com -- I would love to hear from you!

Laura